Don't be a bystander

~ Dedicated to every child who has felt powerless.

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” ~ Joel 2:25

I was almost four years old, on holiday with mum in Honiara, Solomon Islands. (we lived in Solomons twice in my childhood and at this point were staying in New Zealand). Emma had had to leave and go back to N.Z. early, she had school.  So this extension was a bit special, just mum and me.

Returning from the market opposite where we were staying, I chewed on a stalk of sugar cane absent-mindedly.  Mum carried packages of food, including fish and fresh fruit. Solomon Islands grow vibrant tropical fruit; various types of melon, pineapple, mango; colour and true deliciousness.

“Taua baeu”, I reached my hand up to her command, as she shifted a bag to her right hand to free up her left to hold mine.  We crossed the road with the throng of market visitors, families, mums carrying heavy burdens.  Somewhere a mother scolded her children and a newborn cry was heard in another direction.  Afro-haired black-skinned children rubbed shoulders with me as the crowd crossed.  A blonde boy hair to my left looked longingly at my sugar cane, his bright hair contrasting with his smooth dark forehead. I stared back at him, gripping the stalk more tightly for a moment before his mother whisked him off in a different direction.

Across the road was a shaded clearing, the large native ‘Christmas’ tree dotted around still flowering in late January.  Groups of youths and young men stood or reclined here and there, one group leant on a low bough of a tree, the bark worn smooth and glossy from the hands and bodies that pressed on it daily.  Their ghetto blaster rested on it’s side on it in a hollow of the limb, a tinny sound blaring from it.  Older men chewed betel nut, spitting the orange pulp to the side as they conversed in loud voices.  As we passed one group, a man laughed, mouth wide as I stared up at his big teeth, stained deep orange.  Betel nut sure seemed delicious I thought… before turning back to clumsily keep up with mum’s pace.

We were staying across the road with family friends and were heading back for lunch, I assumed the fresh fish mum had just bartered for would be fried up in the small frying pan over the gas cooker.  Hopefully after I could have some of the sweet warm coconut pudding wrapped in large banana leaves that I saw mum buying, I wondered...  My stomach rumbled in anticipation.

“Mum...”, I went to enquire about the pudding but was cut short as my reality shattered in an instant with chaos and confusion. I fell to the ground as mum’s grip was snatched away roughly.  Someone was angry, very angry.  Where was mum?  I searched, barely able to stand as the legs of adults moved back against me.  “mummy…?  Mum!”  The legs around me were foreign, the clothes smelled different.  Mum, where are you mum.  I squeezed through a gap and in that moment mum was flung like a rag doll onto the dusty hard ground, sprawling before me.  In alarm I instinctively went to leap onto her, but not before she was roughly dragged to her feet by her hair.  Such brutality and force, I fell back as I beheld it. 

It was hurting her so much…it was destroying me to see.  No no no.  Help, someone, help… I stumbled as I tried to reach her, what was happening?

But wait, it was one of my “uncles”, from the house, harming her.   Why..? What..?  He was so angry.  He was hurting my mum.  No, no, no.  Someone help.  .  With a vice like grip on her long thick hair, he drew her head down as he brought his knee up, the dull smack sound belying the impact I witnessed. I thought my heart would stop beating. Mum’s guttural shrieks were instantly gagged, and my voice seemed choked in synchronisation with hers. Any resistance she made utterly feeble in contrast to a man, a wildly angry man.

Oh help, help, help.  I was screaming but it was muffled, like underwater or in a dream.  Mum… mum… mummy…

I picked up gravel that lay around me, casting it pitifully through tears… Why can’t I throw harder.

Throw it harder, Vicki, throw more, make it stop

I’m trying. I can’t

It was as if I was standing to one side, looking at my small frame, seeing my profile, fine hair tousled, some stuck to my face streaked with tears, dirt and mucous.  My intentions felt liquified… rendered ineffective.  No impact.  

Powerless.

And the people… so many people… standing, like tall fuzzy shadows, motionless, emotionless.  Watching.  Making space for this assault, literally and figuratively.  Empty of emotion.   Stepping back at times.  But always indistinct. I couldn’t discern curiosity or concern, I couldn’t interpret anything.  All I knew is they watched.  And did nothing.  Their inaction made them lifeless, indistinguishable.  Male or female, I didn’t know.  Just adults, silhouettes and shapes, as passive as the Christmas trees.  They couldn’t see me.  Why couldn’t they see me?  Why couldn’t they do something?  Mum, mum, no one’s helping and I’m trying but I can’t help you, mum…I’m not strong enough

Now Uncle was dragging her towards the house, up a grassy bank, by her hair.  Oh please, you’re hurting her so much, please, please stop.  No, no.  I separated from the crowd of onlookers, running, stumbling again.  I turned back one more time, searching the hazy faces for eye contact, for connection, for any detail or soul. Still nothing. Scrambling to my feet, sobs racking my body, I hastened as well as I could after them, I needed to get to her.

~~~~~

In the years that followed, we would often drive past this same spot next to the main road. I would remember crossing the road with that crowd. I would see groups of young men congregating under the Christmas trees and I would wonder, “were you there that day?” “Were you among those who saw and did nothing?”…. And another difficult question… “Where was God?”

“You are the God who sees me… I have now seen the One who sees me” ~ Genesis 16:13

To those who stood and watched. I forgave you decades ago, among others as I shed burdens for my own wellbeing. I observed your inaction, whether you just didn’t know what to do… whether it was cultural pressure holding you back, or the ‘bystander effect’ of the responsibility shared between so many left no one responsible…. I don’t know. Maybe some of you still remember this incident and it did matter somewhere in your conscience. All I knew was, no one did anything.

But overall I am thankful for the invaluable lesson it taught me: To be aware of wrong things, let alone witness them and to stand by and do nothing… is to be implicated.  When someone is oppressed, attacked, assaulted, or just intimidated, it’s my problem, it’s your problem, it’s our problem.

“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” ~ James 4:17