The cost of Silence on our Future Generations

There have been four very interesting news items this week which combined raise so many contradictions.?I’m writing this blog post to stimulate debate, and hopefully action, as the long term impacts of the implications of these stories on our teenagers and future generation are worrying.?Last year the Commissioner for Children and Young People, in South Australia, carried out research into bullying and found that this is a learned behaviour from adults in their household.?This, and other research, prompted us to take a strong line on bullying in the Inventorium curriculum, advocating (using videos made by teenagers themselves) that unless you actively step up to stop bullying that you see occurring, you are actively contributing to saying it is ok.?Being silent is not neutral, it is agreement.?And so, the news that concerns me….

The first is the revelation that Sony has had a bullying, toxic culture for over a decade and that it was tolerated by the majority and consequently ‘allowed’ to continue.?Like AMP previously, and the #MeToo movement, this case highlights again the power of silence in supporting poor workplace behaviour.?By doing nothing, the bullying prevail and the longer the silence continues, the greater the fear of breaking the silence becomes.?

Next is the case of the academic from James Cook University who fought his dismissal on the grounds of academic freedom, for the High Court to rule that the dismissal should be upheld on the basis of the confidentiality breaches that occurred in his fighting the original dismissal – although the unfairness of the original dismissal was upheld.?In this case someone appears to have been punished for speaking out about a wrong (upheld by the courts) because the manner in which they spoke up was in breach of a confidentiality procedure which would not have been applicable if the original wrong had not occurred.?This judgement does nothing to encourage the ‘scared’ silent majority in workplaces to speak out as regardless of how careful they are, or the policies in place in a workplace to allegedly protect them might be, the message received here is that if you step outside those policies then you’re toast.?Not much comfort in this judgement for anyone considering breaking the silence.

The last story that highlights the rewards of silence is the report on the trolling abuse that scientists are receiving for publishing research around Covid 19 – some of the trolling is allegedly stemming from colleagues, as well as from the public.?This public outcry is impacting on their personal health and wellbeing, and many are now opting for silence.?Is this bullied into silence by a public pressure??Why are most of the public appreciative of the scientists’ work but silent in tackling the trolls??Is it fear that the viciousness turns against them next? ?Back to the school kids not tackling the bullies in fear that they’ll be next.

Contrast this with the case in Queensland of the person who is being prosecuted, with a potential sentence of 3 years in jail, for failing to report a suspected child abuse case when they were a mandatory reporter.?Here we have someone whose silence again supported the perpetrator, but this time they are being held accountable.?Here, the nature of their job role and statutory reporting requirement trumps their desire to stay silent – they shouldn’t have.?Any fear that they may have had in reporting is ignored, as they had a duty to speak up.

And so, my question is, don’t we all have a duty to speak up??Is it only for those with a mandatory duty to speak up while others are clearly seeing ‘wrongs’ and remaining silent; and what are we role modelling to the next generations with this pattern of behaviour?

The AMP and Sony cases had the added issues that much of the bad behaviour had a gender lens added and was of a sexual nature.?In schools this is replicated through sexting – something we never had to worry about when I went to school!?There is also an interesting Aussie drama on Netflix about this issue at the moment (The Hunting) which also raises issues around the duty and implication to stay silent or not.?But the JCU and Covid researcher cases show this is not a gender issue – but a broader issue about what society confirm as acceptable behaviour.?

Most of us are also facing the first pandemic of our lives (and hopefully the only one), and are experiencing reactions to vaccinations, lockdowns, and mandated changes to our behaviour (isolating from friends/family, wearing of masks, etc), so again we are finding our way, like teenagers are with mobile phones and personal photos.?But even if we are making this up as we go along, at what point are we going to pass the tipping point of unacceptable behaviour and have a majority speak up?

How can parents, guardians and educators role model the need to their students the need to exercise their voice and stand by their rights, when silence is the norm in their adult behaviour?

I’m going to end this blog with a link to a YouTube video that I’ve seen dozens of times, and each time it brings tears to my eyes and makes me reflect on the guilt I carry for not having spoken up for others at various points in my life, knowing the outcome for the others was not good.?To all the people I have let down through my silence, I simply have to live with my guilt.?Those who experienced the bullying have to live with the negative impact these incidents have had on the rest of their lives.?

This video is called ‘Bullying from a by-standers eyes’.

For the next generation’s sake – we need to start debating how silence in this rapidly changing world is impacting on their future.?We are not only by-standers to traditional bullying behaviour, but we’re adding layers of complexity with social media, mobile phones, the internet and their ability to amplify the sexualization of youth and the viciousness of adults when mob behaviour occurs.?Silence, as a response, is not good enough, and we are doing an injustice to the next generation by promoting it.

In the words of Desmond Tutu (2014), “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor