A bit of smack down for all that aggression

Was Friday another tough day at work, honey? Colleagues getting you down? That cynical little backstabber with the chip on her shoulder putting the knife in again?

It's a bit much, isn't it, and all that pent-up rage is sending your blood pressure soaring.

Now, what to do to make you feel better?

A. Take an aspirin, go to bed and hope that the sun'll come out tomorrow.

B. Drown your sorrows and/or eat yourself into a coronary- inducing stupor as you say, to hell with them. And, for good measure, take a sickie (bad hair day?) if you survive the excesses of the night.

C. Drop a few sprinkles of Rinso in an envelope and send it off to the object of your enmity.

D. Or, give oh-hated one a good right hander to show him/her/it that you mean business.

If you answered A, good on you, Annie. If you answered B, then come sit by me. C? Well, freaky, methinks you need to seek some professional help.

And D? Welcome to Indonesia 2001.

Violence is right there in the way we use the language, like the asides in TV comedies about beating the hell out of someone if they don't do what they are told, or the Soeharto-esque warnings of "clobbering" the opposition.

But then those uttered threats often lead to actual blows, whether it's in the street, with motorists letting fly, or, sometimes, even the workplace.

My friend is on the phone, recounting how one of his "subordinates" was being insolent and making his life difficult.

So, he taught him a lesson. He kicked him.

And it was not just a little prod to the shins, or an assertive knee to the butt.

It was, he told me proudly, a jumpin'-spinnin' Jet Li twirl. Howzatt.

He needed it, you know, otherwise he would never learn to respect his superiors.

OK, he is a soldier and, despite the TNI reformasi, a bit of violence is how the military brings its people into line all over the world.

But we really have to stop and think when our aggression gets played out in our workplaces and, worse, in the halls of power by the very people who are supposed to be the country's "examples".

On Wednesday we were greeted by the sight of reporters involved in an ugly clash with members of a political party's youth group. While some of my colleagues nodded in agreement at the TV footage of reporters chasing and hitting one of the men, another muttered, "Well, that's just embarrassing. We shouldn't be doing that even if we're provoked".

On Thursday, we had a whole lot of posturing going on when the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) came into session and some disgruntled legislators stormed to the front of the chamber.

If you glimpsed it for a second, you might have mistaken it for a shot of the Taiwan parliament, although no blows were actually thrown. It was all "get your dukes up pardner", like that one man strutting and puffing as if he was actually looking for somebody to hold him back, but without the cowboy hats.

Is this what being a "modern" Indonesian is all about? Yes, I know people are frustrated, with all that repressed fury accumulated over the years, and that resorting to violence is only human nature. It happens everywhere, right, and even the famous, like actor Gene Hackmann in a road rage incident last week, get a little violent at times.

It's just that oftentimes we don't have anybody to step in to put a stop to the main event. Instead, most of us, if we're not getting our own left hook in, are passive onlookers. We have tongues, we can speak the same language, so, why, if we don't get our way, do we shout and threaten to clobber each other? Or, we'll get some flunky to do it for us.

All those messages from parents and government officials about students having to stop their brawling and be good citizens ring a bit hollow when you look at the examples we big, mature adults set.

Although I myself sometimes, in moments of livid desperation, think of taking a little jab at aforesaid colleague, I know it's best for us all to think before we speak, take a deep breath and consider the real nonviolent options before resorting to fisticuffs. For, if we don't take the high road, we might as well be in the gutter.

-- Kurt Vickers