We had all just finished cycling. Finally, after a month of working on nearly all the public holidays and weekends, I could finally join my Saturday training group today for an early morning ride.
We were just there at the open-air food centre, having a drink after our ride when I was beckoned to another table by a friend I hadn’t met for ages. We had barely started our conversation when a voice, deep and solid and rolling in anger boomed out, loudly and unabashedly, such that it pierced the entire atmosphere and caught the attention of some thirty of us riders there.
The voice belonged to a tall, athletic man who leapt out of his seat from just across the table I was at.
” Who says you can touch it! Stop touching it! How DARE you touch my things!”
Everybody’s eyes were transfixed on him as this man of formidable height stormed over in a rage. He was charged up. He was ready to attack. Bristling with anger, and shouting still, he sized up a Bangladeshi sweeper who had placed his hands on this man’s roadbike so he could shift it slightly to sweep up the area around it. From the man’s tone of voice, however, one would have thought someone had smashed his expensive roadbike or run off with it.
“WHO SAYS you can touch my bike!” he bellowed again. “DID YOU ASK ME?!”
All of us, aghast, watched the drama unfold. Many of us exchanged glances and shook our heads as we gazed upon the scene, appalled. The thin Bangladeshi sweeper held onto his frail bamboo broom, simply taking the blow from this enraged man.
“MUST YOU TOUCH MY BIKE? WHO SAID YOU COULD TOUCH MY THINGS?”
It was at this point that my friend whispered to me, “Dogma.”
“Dogma?” I asked quizzically.
“Yea, Dogma. His bike is a Dogma bike- ten thousand dollars.”
“I don’t care what it is,” I muttered. “That guy is a bully.”
I wished I had done something, I wished we had done something-but till now, I don’t know what I would have done. Everyone saw the injustice. Everyone was soaked with disgust. But that was all.
Just then, another voice erupted, “Hey, who do you think you are? This guy is just doing his work, you have no right to scold him like that! This place is not a bicycle parking lot for you!”
The voice belonged to an unattractive balding man clad in a white, tattered singlet- the mee-pok man (man selling chinese noodles). Out of all of us, all of us from educated backgrounds who had grown up learning civic education and high moral values and social consciousness, it was the mee-pok man selling fishball noodles from the stall nearby who had the guts and strength to make a stand for righteousness, to help a fellow brother who was wronged and in need.
They had a brief, heated tussle of words. Then they parted.
I wished I had done something, but I’m not sure what it would have been. I keep replaying the scene over and over, with myself going up to the man and calming him down, or reasoning with him or telling him off, and wondering if any of those choices or permutations of actions would have resulted in a glorious end of his shameful retreat, the Bangladeshi sweeper’s vindication, and all of us clapping and celebrating righteousness and a happy ending.
I keep wondering, if a man like him, might beat up a girl like me.
It reminded me, of the stink of pride, importance of humility, and how dear and precious the poor, the needy and the contrite are to God, simply because they are often bullied, hassled and oppressed. In society, the natural hierarchy of the world order is merciless in reminding the poor of their status or lack thereof, and in taunting them about their place in this world. Do we need to rub it further in their faces and consciously reinforce their social standing to elevate our own?
In our schools, offices and communities, have we taken the time to smile and say hello to the cleaners or allied staff workers? In our hospitals, do we only nod and hold the lifts for doctors and turn a snobbish smirk to those we deem “lower” than ourselves? Do we realize that without them, our lives would be vastly different? I am beginning to see, that how we treat the oppressed, is a reflection of how much pride we have within ourselves.
This morning, I learnt the importance of loving the oppressed. I learnt the importance of feeling their shame and to be indignant and not apathetic for their oppression. I learnt, that we each have a responsibility to ensure that no further injustice be done unto them.
So we were all there this morning- we, from universities, and high-paying jobs which allow us to buy five-figure dollar roadbikes, and comfortable lives… but it was none other than the mee-pok man who felt indignant enough for the injustice done to make a stand for what was right.
He was the man with the most courage this morning. The mee-pok man.
Learn to do good.
Seek justice.
Help the oppressed.
Defend the cause of orphans.
Fight for the rights of widows.
– Isaiah 1:17
I wanna be like the meepok man…! Always wanted to be. Just always had no courage.