Boys with Sticks

As you know, we try to stay fairly neutral in cultural custom issues. We respect norms of modesty; we use Muslim greetings and expressions and we happily wish people happy Islamic holidays despite the fact that we are non-religious. Generally we try to live in a way that does not indicate any sort of judgment over local practices and are purposely self-conscious of the fact that we need to show people that all Americans do not hate Muslims. (Thanks a lot bigots in the US for putting that burden on the shoulders of people who actually travel around the world…)

There are limitations to this tolerance though, and for us, usually they involve incidences in which one person is being physically harmed by another. For us, that is not a cultural issue- that is a moral issue. Well, the other night we reached one of these moments where we faced the limit. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to share the story, because in some ways it might perpetuate dangerous stereotypes but in other ways it does reflect an aspect of life here that is a real challenge. We decided that in the spirit of sharing our true experience here, we should write about it.

We were watching a movie on tv when he heard a commotion outside. We went to our balcony and checked in on the commercial breaks as a crowd seemed to be forming outside (it was about midnight) and something was definitely going on. We noticed our landlord – the military man- was out there, and so we were interested with whether it involved our building. After a while, there were lots of neighborhood guards (these are private security hired by the neighborhood society – not police) and we noticed they had someone being held. There was a crowd gathering around and we got a really uneasy feeling. They brought out some shoe (apparently it was literally a case of “if the shoe fits”) and then things seemed to start happening. The guy was yelling, clearly afraid (who wouldn’t be?) and we started to get more uneasy. “Oh shit,” said Sam “I really don’t want to see a public beating in front of our house.” We noticed lots of the crowd, including little Al-amin, (the 7-ish year old child-domestic worker in our building) sadly, had sticks in hand.

We have read many articles here about people being beaten to death by mobs of vigilantes for petty crimes like pick-pocketing or theft. Our friend , affectionately known as the Kiwi, had gotten involved in a mob violence issue around this same time last year. He came across a mob ready to cut off a man’s hand for theft, and he demanded that they stop and call the police. It was a brave interjection on his part, and we were proud of his willingness to stand up against the mob.

In some ways, articulating the idea gave us a minute to figure out what our position was going to be. As one of the guards began to hit the guy with a stick, Jon yelled out “Hey- Stop it” and given that Jon has a nice loud voice, everyone looked up. Sam chimed in “Stop it- you have no right” although her voice is less pleasant at high volumes.

Our landlord called up “Go back inside- this does not concern you. You do not understand. Go back to bed.” This was infuriating actually. We aren’t children – and we understood full-well what was happening. It concerned us as much as anyone. So Sam yells back “You can’t do this. This is illegal.” Jon yells out “Call the police so the man can stand trial; he has a right to trial.” They seem to be dismissing us. Sam yells some more “What’s the matter with you? Judges are appointed by the government - you are not a judge.” (or something to that effect). Meanwhile, Jon decides they are not paying attention and he runs downstairs (no shirt and all).
On the way down, Jon saw all the women peeking out of the doorways and he noticed the obvious gender context. He yelled all the way down “This isn’t right- they have no right to beat an accused man in the street,” etc. just to make sure these ladies knew that all men weren’t the same.

On arriving at the ground level (remember we live in the fifth floor) Jon began yelling more for them to stop it. The landlord’s son, who is a guy our age and who has lived in the UK and other places abroad and is fairly Western (at least he wishes he was), pulls Jon aside and starts making excuses. “I know this isn’t the way its done other places but this our custom,” he says. “No it isn’t,” says Jon, “Bangladesh has a court system – this is vigilante justice and it is illegal.” The landlord’s son is interestingly caught in the middle – his father –the classic patriarch is clearly in charge, but he knows this seems (and is ) atrocious to foreigners , which he wants so badly to be like. The debate goes back and forth – it is revealed that the guy apparently stole a cell phone and broke a lock to do it.

Jon tries to explain that a property crime is not the same thing as violence- they are committing violence, which is far worse. They ignore him. They argue that the “Criminal” is part of a gang and that if they call the police then the corrupt police will only let the man go and he’ll come back again. They say they are only beating him to get him to reveal information about his gang. They also keep claiming that this is their culture – annoyingly simplistic and convenient as an excuse (if a rich man is accused of a crime he gets a trial – how does that fit into this “cultural” practice?)

OK- so on one hand, what they say is partly true- the police are terribly corrupt. We are also aware that in truth, being beaten by these guys might be better than what the man would face in police custody, but that isn’t the point and frankly we don’t have a lot of time to think about all of it. What we know is that a mob of people are beating a man in front of us and we have to decide what we will do about it.

There are moments when a person has to stand up for the things they believe in, and this felt like one of those moments- the guy was accused- not convicted. If he had been a rich man accused he would have gotten a trial, but a poor man gets beaten in the street by powerful men that are pissed off that he dared to try and take a little something of theirs. They are sending a message about power- not culture. This is not a cultural difference between us and the crowd- this is injustice.

As the beating begins again Sam yells out “Are you animals or men? What is wrong with you?” and Jon sees that reasoned argument isn’t helping. He says “Fine. I’m going to get my camera and take a picture of every one of you participating.” He runs up to grab the camera.

By the time Jon gets back downstairs, amazingly despite their insistence that they weren’t doing anything wrong, the crowd has dispersed. (Turns out maybe they don’t want their photo taken? Hmmm…, maybe what they are doing isn’t so morally clear cut.) They tell Jon that they called the police and they haul the guy off down the road. Our landlord gets into his car and heads off.
We’re not stupid. We know they didn’t call the police. We know they just took him out of sight from the foreigners and did whatever they wanted. It is upsetting and we hate that the whole ordeal happened. We could have done more, but we also could have done less. We had to find a balance and in our moral equations we think we made out ok. One thing we really hope came through was that all these guys with their big sticks thought they were oh-so-powerful, but we weren’t impressed at all (we decided there was most certainly a direct inverse proportion of stick size to penis size, as evidenced by the 7 year old having the biggest stick). For some reason, it was especially important to us that little Al-amin saw that being a man, or protector, or whatever cliché gender performance was being enacted, wasn’t as simple as displaying strength by beating a tied-up man from the safety of a crowd. Maybe somewhere in his mind, he’ll understand masculinity in a slightly more complicated way.

We feel like there needed to be someone that called them out for their behavior and while there is certainly some socially awkward fall-out, we are glad we did it. Despite some regret over the possibly excessive cursing and yelling at our landlord, and clearly violating the social-patriarchal hierarchy of our relationship with our landlord, we still feel we did the right thing. We have since seen both our landlord and his son in the hallway and said hello, as if nothing happened so the long-term damage seems to be minimal.

The arena of cross-cultural interaction is complicated, and we don’t always navigate with the ease and confidence we’d like, but we’re trying and it is part of life living in a foreign country. The effort though, we feel, is educational and part of the experience we’re gaining here.