05.04.05 The 3rd Driver of Negative Gossip

3. Cruelty and Sadism

A cruel and sadistic disposition can drive a person to negatively gossip against people. Not only does such a gossiper find it easy to use insulting words when discussing victims, but some even enjoy watching the targetted victim ‘writhe in pain’ due to the ‘wounds’ that their negative chatters inflict. In essence, they readily and joyfully use brutal words to shred a person to pieces; and are thrilled by the agony that those words and their repercussions cause to the victim.

At this point, I wish to draw your attention to my personal narrative in the ‘feature-stories’ section of this book, regarding how a defamatory rumour almost took my life. That rumour seems to have been initiated by two individuals; one, an officer who was displeased with the findings of a mystery shopping visit that we conducted and two, a prospective partner whose proposal we rejected on grounds of a statement he made regarding our stand on ethics and integrity. Reading that account, you discover that whoever could have propagated the rumour wanted to punish us for either highlighting the service flaws that we discovered during the mystery shopping visit; or for turning down his request for a partnership. But whatever the case, the gossipers were bent on inflicting physical and emotional pain as they watched us from their ‘balcony’, deriving gratification from the effect of their cruelty as a sadist would be thrilled after throwing a mouse in the cage of a hungry viper; spraying a harmless insect with insecticide then watching it wriggle until no life was left in it; or pulling off the beautiful wings of an innocent butterfly and dancing in glee seeing that it was unable to fly however much it tried.

In the same vein, Sanballat and Tobiah were cruel and sadistic towards Nehemiah considering the rumour that they fabricated in Samaria, with the sole purpose of rubbishing the strength of the wall that Nehemiah and his team were building, claiming that the builders were unfit to complete the project (Nehemiah 4:1-3).

In the JuaLink story, we get a picture of Lulu and Obed’s extreme cruelty and sadism when they planned a Pro-Life Seminar for the sole purpose of hurting Faraja, and the questions that Obed openly asked about abortions in the presence of workmates who already knew about Faraja’s ‘barrenness’.