This has been a week of events that I feel strains my belief that there is a humanity in all of us; a humanity that makes us human (and not something less).Two events in particular have been thoroughly disturbing.
The first is the murder in cold blood of Muammar Gaddafi – who was a tired, broken man begging for mercy when he was eventually captured. That anyone could brutally murder a helpless man who had surrendered to his captor's good heart is beyond me.
Granted Gaddafi was less that merciful of his detractors and perhaps was due what was meted to him. Just because he was less than human does not give his captors the same license – after all a man cannot still be a man if he subsequently chooses to bite the dog that has bitten him.
The second incident, which occurred about the same time that Gaddafi was killed, took place in the city of Foshan in Guangdong province of China. The incident was captured by a surveillance camera and subsequently aired by a local TV station; to be later picked up on youtube.
The clip shows a two-year-old girl in a covered market being knocked down and then run over under the wheels of a white van. The van only pauses briefly before driving over the little toddler to escape, leaving her bleeding on the street.
What is telling of the inhumanity is that over the next several minutes, more than a dozen people walk by the injured girl, yet not one of them stops to help.
In fact in one instance, a passerby sidesteps the girl's motionless body. In another, a motorcycle slows down only to veer around the girl and continue on its way. A mother and son pass by, with the son looking at the prone girl yet nether stop.
The girl was struck a second time by another vehicle before a woman is finally seen pulling the girl off the street, leaving behind a pool of blood. Local media reports identify the woman as a trash collector who places the child in safety and rans off to alert the girl's mother.
The video clip was lifted off a Huffington Post online report, which in turn was lifted off youtube. Click below to watch, but bear in mind that the images are startling as much as they are very disturbing.
While the first 40 seconds of the 3:30 minute clip says it all, the clip also features interviews with the elderly woman who helped, in Cantonese. A translation of what the woman said was in the Huffington Post report, which I reproduce below the clip (highlighted and in italics):
*
While cameras looked on, she tried to comfort a grieving family member, saying she was trying to call for help from many people.
Later on, in interviews, she described how she dragged the girl to side, then how she went out looking for help.
The reporter at the 2:20 mark asked “at that point, were you looking for people to help?”
The woman said she asked people all around, but no one acknowledged my pleas.
Then the reporter asked at the 2:30 mark: When you took her aside, was she conscious?
The woman said, “Yes, she was awake. One eye was closed, one eye was open,” then added that the girl was really heavy, and she didn’t have the strength to carry her, leaving her to look for help.
“Why didn’t so many people walking help?” she asked reporters at the three-minute mark, saying she walked all over the place, including the nearby stairs. She said she was asking passersby “why aren’t you helping?”
The reporter asked at the end, “Were you scared about the inconvenience of helping out?”
The women replied: “I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t thinking about whether I should bother.”
*
The little girl, identified as Wang Yue by the Xinhua news agency, was taken to the hospital where she was taken while in a deep coma. The state media quoted Guangzhou Military District General Hospital as saying that the child was unlikely to recover.
She died a few days later.
There is little consolation that the police eventually arrested both the drivers.
I say again, what does it take to be human? I vote, humanity.
And I am dismayed to note that there are a lot of people who clearly fall short of that mark.
No comments:
Post a Comment