Recent Controversy Over Birthday Celebrations By JC Students: The Review

Several local bloggers and STOMPers have been censuring Junior College (JC) students recently for their 'inappropriate behaviour' while celebrating birthday bashes. Some have even went further by condemning the whole JC student population and questioning what values are being taught in their campuses.

The attacks happened when STOMP released two reports on JC students allegedly bullying and humiliating their schoolmates during their birthday celebrations. The two reports -one shining the spotlight on ACJC and the other on SAJC- were published only three days apart from each other. Both articles have attracted hundreds of comments.

So are the incidents a case of bullying or just merely fun birthday celebrations? We have to look at it by a case-by-case basis and study the videos carefully.

In my opinion, the birthday celebrations by the group of ACJC students may have gone a little overboard. The video clearly showed that the girl was feeling greatly uncomfortable throughout her ordeal. She was struggling throughout and was even crying at certain parts of the video. The victim's peers should have stopped the 'birthday bash' as soon as they heard her wails. Prolonging the activity could constitute the act as bullying as it can be viewed as an intentional physical assault to the victim.

What could have cause this is not due to the wrong or missing set of values taught in college; it all boils down to maturity degradation. The students have failed to respond to the circumstances in an appropriate manner. I am very sure they never intend to hurt or bully their friends, but the way they reacted to the girl's manifestations showed the emotional immaturity they possessed. They should have stopped the activity the moment they heard the victim cry.

However, the other article involving SAJC students slamming one of their friends genitals against a pole does not qualify to be labelled as a a bullying or ragging case. STOMP has totally misled their readers. If you look at the video closely enough, the boy's genitals did not even come into contact with the pole. The boy blocked the impact by using his inner thighs to protect his genitals.

STOMPers were quick to criticize the incident as a bullying. They pointed out how the boy struggled at the beginning, thus proving the above criticism. In my opinion, their accusations are inaccurate. Like any other sabotage, the element of surprise must have triggered an initial struggle. Nevertheless, after that the boy was laughing and was not struggling even when his friends grabbed his arms and legs. Thus, it is not a case of bullying.

I would also like to express my disappointment with how some STOMPers and bloggers commented that the birthday celebrations were a disgrace to JC students. They condemned the acts as childish and stupid. Well, such birthday bashes are very common among teenagers today. It is very unfortunate that the videos landed in the hands of profit-maximizing media firms with a following of mostly narrow-minded readers.

The comparisons between JC, Polytechnic and ITE students were also unnecessary. Some irresponsible parties are trying to exaggerate the whole issue. We do not look down on Polytechnic and ITE students. I saw a lot of similar comments about the alleged widespread elitism. All of them are not true and are merely generalized statements.

These two incidents have shown us how the new media may invade our privacy and turn facts into fiction. As to how the birthday celebrations were conducted inappropriately, I believe only the ACJC incident may have gone a little overboard. Other than that, such sabotaging birthday celebrations are common among youngsters today. And most importantly, they are for fun, laughter and joy.