How I figured out that appeasement doesn't work
When I was about ten years old one of the boys in my class (lets call him X) started terrorizing girls, (your truly included). His normal behavior included coming up to a random girl and punching her really hard or taking her lunch if he found it appetizing. Back then in the Soviet Union having fruit in the middle of winter was a treat and my mother could only give me one apple every day to take to school with me and even though I would fight for the right to keep my own lunch X would always end up taking it. Some girls just gave him their lunches in order to avoid conflict, but he would still punch them whenever he pleased. One day he was shaking me so hard that my shirt ripped. I begged him to stop. I explained that it’s not fair for a stronger person to abuse a weaker one, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.
I finally decided to ask my mother to talk to him. I thought that X would listen to her as a figure of authority. My mother came to school and called him aside. “Dear X,” she said, “I would like to ask you to stop treating my daughter in such a disrespectful manner.” X shook his head in agreement and as soon as my mother left went back to his old tricks. He punched a friend of mine so hard that for the rest of the day she could barely move her arm. Her mother came to school the very next morning. She went straight to X, lifted him up by his shirt collar and while pressing him against the wall said: “You little shit, if you touch my daughter one more time I’ll rip your balls off!” He never touched my friend again, but doubled his abuse on the rest of us. That’s when a bunch of girls from my class assembled, so that we can come up with a plan to stop X’s behavior for good. We waited for X in an alley on his way home from school and beat the crap out of him. He never touched anybody again. That’s how I learned that while appeasement and diplomacy don’t work against bullies, the brutal force does.
