The white van approaches and can clearly see the child in the middle of the street
On Monday, October 17th, 2011, CNN introduced a video that was shot in China. The station were appalled by what had happened. Maybe you will be too:
A two-year old girl, a child, was walking in an alleyway on her own when a white van came along and knocked her down. She had wandered away from her parents who were both working. The driver was aware what had happened and stopped immediately. He apparently looked and saw that the girl was laying between his right front wheel and the back wheel on the ground. She was bleeding and in a lot of pain. He realised that he had run over her with the front wheel. Without doing anything else he promptly drove over her with the rear wheel and drove off.
What kind of callous bastard was this despicable person?
The story does not end there.
The child lay on the ground for ten minutes while EIGHTEEN people walked over her, around her, cycled past and not a soul did anything to help her. Another larger truck came along and drove over her leg, as though she was an animal that was road kill. Finally a middle aged person came along and organised help. (I saw the entire tape on Spanish TV.)
CNN could not understand the thinking of any of the people who passed this child by, so they interviewed a psycologist to try and understand what we had seen. He was worse than no help to us at all because, although he agreed that people did not respond as we would have expected them, he was quick to urge us not to be judgemental because "we could not know what was going through their minds at the time."
I don't have to know, although we can be certain it was not one humanity-like thought of kindness or responsibility toward their fellow humans. World-wide, throughout human society there is what is right, and what is wrong. In this case there were no gray areas. This was a child who was gravely hurt and for far too long, not one person stopped to assist.
Now, before we rush to a conclusion that indictes Chinese culture, and before we go on about how low in esteem little girls are there, let's take a moment to note that in London and in New York people have been robbed, knifed, shot, and they have lay on the sidewalk with people also stepping over them. In fact, so many people live on the sidewalk that it is such a common sight that they are seen and not seen.
Would I have responded as a proper human being had I been there, either as the driver or as a person on the street? I can't see any other answer than that of course I would have acted to get the child to hospital as quickly as possible, together with her parents.
To do nothing, especially as we are talking about a child in distress, is so out of the question for me that I can't even begin to understand how another person could be so stone cold.
Later in the week the child succumbed to her overwhelming injuries and died.
I have a wish for each and every one of the eighteen persons who passed her by without helping: May your turn come soon to feel what the little girl felt. And may you die a thousand deaths before the world is finally rid of you!
Bastards!
Copyright (c) 2011 Eugene Carmichael
