The price of doing nothing

CC Image Courtesy of Library of Congress | Flickr

It starts with the little insignificant stuff. Like looking away when your friend screams at a waiter.  For the simple reason that she’s upset, and he’s a waiter, and she thinks he’s beneath her in social status, so she can scream.  Or the business owner who shouts out on a social media platform that he is stressed out at how stupid his employees are.  Some people click the like button for it.

Just because you get to pay a group of people their wages doesn’t mean you get to trample on their dignity.  It doesn’t mean you own them. It doesn’t mean you get the right to insult them, screw them or call them stupid to their faces.

At what point in a human’s brain does one begin to convince himself that because he has more money and there are people who are dependent on him for their salaries and basic survival — that he begins to believe he can treat them any way they want?

And this question enters my head because I am becoming increasingly incensed at the small injustices around me everyday.

Sometimes it’s the small stuff like people who think that throwing their empty Coke cans on the pavement before they step into the car are the most normal thing to do. And before you know it, everywhere around us is litter.  People who let their dogs poop and not clean up after them.  And yesterday, something happened that made me question myself, and the courage I thought I have that makes me stand up for the things I believe in.

CC Image S.Ali-Al Mosawi | Flickr

Yesterday, a guy got on the tram smoking a cigarette.  He reeked of alcohol, and if I didn’t know any better, he might as well have been stoned.  He settled directly opposite my seat, in front of another guy.  The guy turned around and looked at him, then turned back just as quickly. I looked around the tram and no one said anything. I glared at him disgustingly. He looked right back at me. I stood up and moved two cars to the front.

As I got off the tram at my stop later, I was very upset with myself. There was clearly an internal struggle going on with me.  Why didn’t I say something?

I recounted the incident to my husband when I got home and he was equally surprised why I didn’t say anything. It just seems so out of my character.  I told him I was angry, but I was also afraid.  I was scared that maybe he will hit me. He looked quite capable.  And I said anyone daring to go on a tram with a lighted cigarette must be prepared for trouble.  I asked him what would he have done if he were in my place?

My husband said he would just tell him calmly. And if anyone can get away calmly telling a guy it is not allowed to smoke on a tram that person would be my husband.  I said there was no way I could be calm at that moment, so I walked away…  I was disappointed with myself.

And as I opened the news, I am more incensed and aware and confronted with all the injustices happening all over the world: Men beating their wives to a pulp and not getting convicted for it.  People jumping on trains from Guatemala to Mexico to become illegal immigrants, to fulfil the American dream.  Bigger houses, better food, better education, breaking up families and leaving sons and daughters behind. In exchange for material goods.  People dying from hunger. In this day and age.  These are big injustices.

CC Image Courtesy of DarkB4Dawn | Flickr

And yet we don’t do anything about it.

And somewhere in The Hague, in another tram, in another ride that guy will step on and defiantly smoke again.  But at least I know now that my next time with him is going to be different.  I cannot wait to meet him again.