Poverty as a pretext

Last Saturday, when I was taking the bus I witnessed a fight that erupted between a guy who didn’t pay for the bus ticket and the controllers who make sure that the people taking the bus really paid the transportation fees .It’s not a rare occurrence since it happens several times a day, in fact I really sympathize with the workers there, the driver and the other employees have a though time in this line of work.

At the bus stop ,five controllers boarded the bus and started checking the tickets ,they found a guy who didn’t have it which means he didn’t pay the fees ,I was in a seat near them and had the opportunity to witness everything that happened from the start to when I finally got off the bus .the guys talked to the man in a severe tone at first ,telling him to pay twenty dirham’s which is the penalty for not getting the ticket ,he refused straight away with a “No ,I don’t have it” but with a haughty attitude what obviously made the workers quite mad ,I guess it was because it was said in a challenging way as if daring them to do something to him ,they started throwing words at each ends ,but with five against one .Five guys surrounding one might seem quite unfair ,but I thought it was normal since they were upholding a sort of law and kind of represented the authority in there ,but what I noticed is that the majority of the passengers weren’t of the same opinion as me ,and one of them even started shouting and yelling at the guys for –and I emphasize- bullying a poor man ,even blaming the passengers for letting them do that and ignoring the poor man who’s being treated unjustly ,at this point I really found it amusing ,since the self proclaimed justice upholder didn’t look anything like a person of good morals and he proved it by the way he conducted himself ,he started swearing at the controllers ,wanted to hit one of them and turned the whole thing into a bigger mess that it already was ,the people spent a lot of time trying to calm the guy ,who I’ll like to call a major troublemaker ,and finally he calmed down and started demanding that the controllers accept for him to pay instead of the guy ,they refused saying it should be him since it’s his punishment ,but what surprised not only me but all those in the bus is that he didn’t mean paying the penalty but buying him a ticket ,at this point I really had a hard time trying to control my laughing ,but I soon didn’t have to try since I lost all the humor when I heard the passengers blaming the five guys calling them heartless and wicked for not pitying the poor fellow who only kept saying things like “If I have money I wouldn’t be feeling hungry right now” and “May Allah see what they’re doing to their fellow unfortunate brother” ,at the end it was an old lady who begged them to accept for her to pay in his stead ,when it was done ,our so poor man ,the cause of all that big fight tore the ticket they gave him and throw the shredded pieces of paper at their faces while saying “Have it yourself ,are you satisfied ?” and by that he managed to start another confrontation ,it was at this part that I had to get off the bus and so I finally managed to get away from it all .

Before discussing what happened and saying my opinion, I’d like to stress the fact that the guy in question said he didn’t have any money,didn’t eat for more than a day and he’s just looking for a job ,so he’s using his poverty as a pretext and excuse for what he did ,does that mean that being poor can make you break the laws and get away with it ?Or that just because it’s a little infraction ,he shouldn’t be inconvenienced by it given the fact that he doesn’t have the money ?

Well ,first the man was obviously lying ,I am not someone who judges people easily but also I am not an idiot to believe that a person who’s wearing decent clothes and looks sturdy like him is lacking money to the point of starving ,in fact I suspect he’s a worker in the market ,anyway he surely wasn’t in a bad state and from his manners and how he changed his way of talking to make others pity him ,I think he was only pretending and clearly lying to find a way out from what was happening .Things like that make me seriously question not only the morals of these kind of people but also of those who jump to their defense without doing much thinking ,I mean if you’re not sure about the situation ,why get involved ? There was some three or four people who were looking at him in a suspicious way, and an elderly even said it but no one paid him attention, they choose to give their attention to the loud troublemaker who by the way kind of confessed he was a thug when he told the controllers that he has friends who are going to make them regret getting against him, also when they told him he was just a jobless thief he responded by saying “So what? Thievery is not as easy as you think it is”, if that’s not enough to make them ignore him, I really don’t know what’s going to make them do it.

Situations like these prove that there’s a serious issue in our society, people use their lack of money to justify their wrongdoings and the wrong choices they make, and others only encourage them when they let them get away with it and justify their actions for them .Not paying the transportation fees is but a little thing, but there’s many serious crimes that happen in the same way, theft and assault, fraud and deceit, are other crimes that may be justified by poverty.

So as a conclusion I really think a person should think carefully before doing something, and poverty may be the cause for some bad actions, but it’s still a choice that a person make, individuals with good morals and values would never give in and stoop so low as to deceive others, they work hard and prefer eating leftovers and sleep in the cold to losing their dignity.

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