Compassion to contempt

Before I begin this post, as with my Dr Pepper story in the last writing, I wish to briefly mention a recent occurrence.  Unfortunately, however, this one is no where near as positive.  Even before coming to South Africa, the welcome packet that we received from the Peace Corps informed us that, given the high rate of HIV infection, we would need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable deaths of some around us.  Since being here, there have been funerals every week, undoubtedly caused by AIDS, but I have up to this point, been lucky enough not to have really known any of the deceased.  This changed upon my arrival back in Warrenton from my vacation.  I soon discovered that one of the learners in my high school, who I actually knew, passed away last week.  He was 19.  As is usual here in South Africa, no one talks about the real cause of death, but the sad truth is that it cannot be as a result of anything other than this fatal disease.  To compound the sadness, he had just received his results that he had passed his final tests to qualify him for the South African equivalent of his high school diploma.  I cannot help but be saddened and angered by the passing of this young man and at the havoc that this disease is wreaking on this country – a havoc that is absolutely avoidable.  It simply reinforces the fact that even though my focus here is business and economics training, HIV/AIDS education must always remain a priority as well.

Regrettably, I now move from one lachrymose topic to another, as I switch from HIV to crime in South Africa.  In my last post, I said that during my time in Durban, there were two separate incidents of crime that occurred.  I dealt with the first one in my previous writing, where I said the treatment of the criminal had actually evoked a feeling of compassion in me.  Unfortunately, such compassion was short lived as a result of the second episode, which I will relate today.

Given that it happened about a week ago, I now cannot recall the date exactly, but I believe it was either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s day.  The streets were naturally filled with people caught up in different states of celebration.  A group of American girls were returning to the hostel (I don’t remember where from).  It was dark, which admittedly increases the danger level, but they were traveling in a group as we had been told to do in training.  Unfortunately, the presence of multiple people did not deter a man from still deciding that this was an opportune time for a mugging.

All of a sudden, a man from the dark approached one of the American girls, who is no taller than 5 feet, and grabbed her as he attempted to take her cell phone and other valuables.  She immediately began struggling, saying “let me go!”, and rocking back and forth to try to break the thug’s grip.  The other girls in the group saw what was going on, and yelled out to the people in the vicinity to help.  Despite there being several people also witnessing what was going on, this time none of the South Africans apparently batted an eyelash.  As luck would have it and also because of the presence of the other Americans, the girl being robbed was able to break free, and the entire group sprinted the two remaining blocks back to the hostel.  It was only by sheer luck that the lodging was so close because the attacker proceeded to follow them, so who knows what might have happened had they been in another area.

What the girl who had escaped the attempted robbery unscathed only later found out was that the man who had grabbed her had also had a knife.  Since the perpetrator approached from behind, she was unable to see this, but the other American girls were able to see the sharp object quite clearly.  Only God’s protection or just dumb luck kept it from piercing her as she rocked back and forth to free herself.

As you can imagine, this shook everyone up a bit, not the least, myself.  Since being here in South Africa, we have had it beaten into our heads that crime is real and an ever-present danger, but I think many had fallen into a kind of complacency – a kind of “it won’t happen to me” mentality.  After this experience, we were brought crashing back to earth.

The point I want to make, though, goes beyond the obvious - that crime is a big problem here in South Africa.  I realized that had a mob gotten a hold of this American girl’s assailant, as they did the thief on the beach mentioned in my last post, I’m pretty sure I would have very much approved seeing the snot beat out of that guy.  I doubt any sympathy would have crept in – heck, I might have been one of the people beating him, myself.  So what’s the difference?  How did I go from the Dalai Lama to Boondock Saints in such a short period of time?

First off, I think there is a difference in the severity of the crime.  An unarmed man trying to steal a backpack from another man in broad daylight is one thing.  The victim was of the same physical size as the assailant, and, call me sexist, but was also a man.  He thus was in little to no physical danger.  But a thug with a knife who grabs a petite girl in the dark and tries to steal her cell phone and valuables, and could have possibly stabbed her in the process, is in a whole other league in my opinion.  In that case, you’ve got someone who is bigger, stronger, and using a deadly weapon.  It is thus, without a doubt that the girl was in physical danger.

Secondly, I realized that the fact that it was a person I knew, and another American at that, really made my blood boil.  This was not just a random guy I saw on the beach, but someone from my country, who shares my culture, speaks with the same accent as I do, and who I have spent a decent amount of time with through our various trainings.  In short, she was one of my own, and that, I think, increased my anger to a level above what it otherwise would have been.

Now I’m not saying that I would have enjoyed watching the perpetrator die.  That would be a punishment out of proportion to the crime.  Yet, at the same time, I think I very much might have enjoyed witnessing a good ass-beating to teach him a lesson before the cops showed up.  And had some tall guy wearing Texas swim trunks tried to step in to stop it, I probably would have pushed him aside and told him to mind his own business.  I guess it just goes to show that maybe we are not always as civilized as we think we are.