Meditation on Duty

First a disclaimer.

I didn't write this post to make me look like a hero. What happened doesn't so much flatter me, but rather denigrates those around me. I only did what was normal; it was everybody else around me that are at fault.

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On my way to work this morning (11th of September), I heard two men shouting at each other. This was in a very busy part of London, near Victoria station and close to the bike rails in the corner of Grosvenor Gardens and Buckingham Palace Road. It happened at 9 am in the morning, and the streets were packed with people walking to work and tourists. I stopped to see what was going on and there were two old men in their early 60s engaged in a shouting match. They weren't dressed for work like all those office workers walking by us and I might say they looked rather like pensioners. The shouts gave way to fists and soon they were engaging in the clumsy style of streetfighting that is little more than grabbing the other person's jacket with one hand and throwing haymakers with the other. I ran in their direction but when I got there I wasn't sure what to do. If I grabbed one, the other would surely continue to keep punching and would have an advantage that could make him cause even more damage. So I did the only thing I thought I could and shouted that the police was just around the corner and coming over to get them. This made them stop - probably just to acknowledge me, but they did stop. Another man came up and just stood there looking at the 3 of us, doing nothing. I shouted to him to grab one of the fighters, so we could break them apart, but instead he walked away. Thankfully, two bus drivers who were nearby taking a break came over and started telling the men to break it up.

And that was that. Some more insults were traded before the old men got on their respective bikes and rode off in opposite directions. They had their faces busted up, with mouses under the eyes, cuts on cheeks and at least one of them had his nose broken. Besides that, no real or permanent damage.

What shocked me about this whole thing wasn't the two people fighting, as that happens naturally. It wasn't that I couldn't break it up because, to be honest, I am not trained to do it and I did the best I could. What shocked me is that all those commuters in the street saw what was going on and didn't do anything. These guys could be killing it each other and clearly it was none of their business. They looked at the situation, analysed it, and realised that there was nothing to be gained from it. I too did that analysis as I walked to work, but I chose to do something, even if I was woefully equipped to do it. There's something to be said here about hypocrisy, selfishness, society and community, but I will let you draw your own conclusions. Just remember that next time, when you don't want to get involved, that you could be staring at yourself being beaten down, or you could be staring at yourself under the wheel of a truck or you could be staring at yourself fainting in the tube as the other travellers curse you for delaying their journey.

p.s.: apparently this is quite common - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect