I am troubled by a difficult question. What should I do when I witness a person committing an injustice against another person. I am not talking about a gross violation such as murder, theft or assault. There is no doubt as to what should be done on those occasions — either rescue the victim or report the matter to whomever can take the necessary steps to stop the violation. This kind of injustice or aggression is clear or at least, it is clear to me and I have no doubt about what should be done. It is more or less a cut and dried situation.
What I am confused about is a situation in which injustice and the demands of social etiquette and politeness get all mixed up. I wonder how I should proceed with correcting an injustice without embarrassing the person or persons involved. The issue is difficult to answer and I remain undecided between implementing literally the Islamic teaching on the matter and a sense of shame in interfering in other peoples’ affairs. This shame often prompts me to ignore the injustice, pretending that I have not seen or heard anything.
What prompted me to write this was an incident I witnessed a few days ago. Never in my life have I experienced so pathetic and shameful a situation. Nor do I want such a thing to happen again. One of my friends invited me to dinner at one of Jeddah’s upmarket restaurants. There were other guests at the dinner. I enjoyed the company; the food was excellent and the conversation stimulating. We were very relaxed and it was very pleasant to be free for a short time from the worries and cares of the outside world. And then I noticed two women entering the restaurant. The older one of them had a very stern authoritarian air, perhaps bordering on the cruel. She was very much in charge and I was so fascinated by her that I did not at first observe much about her submissive companion.
The two women sat down at a table next to ours and the older woman helped herself to plenty of food, eating with enthusiasm and relish. It was then that I looked more closely at the younger woman who was apparently a servant. The older woman neither asked the younger one to eat nor did she even seem to notice her. The young one sat there, saying nothing and looking around in different directions. I was deeply disturbed by the sight of the poor woman who might have been both tired and hungry but who was not invited to eat so much as a morsel. She was not offered even a drop of water.
My friends and I spent what remained of our dinner party looking furtively at the old woman, wondering when she would allow her companion to eat even a little of the pile of food on her plate. She finished her meal and still the young woman sat still, having eaten or drank nothing. We were appalled by the terrible woman’s lack of humanity. We wanted to ask the young woman to eat from our table but felt that would be interfering in someone else’s business. We also wanted to point out her merciless behavior to the older woman — but were restrained by shyness. Now my question is what is the limit? Are we to remain silent when we see people’s rights violated? One thing that kept us quiet was our fear that whatever we might say, the younger woman would suffer later.
Never in my life have I suffered such self-contempt as I did on that night. I could not — and cannot — forgive myself for not making the slightest move to correct the injustice done to the younger woman. Perhaps I am motivated to write this in a spirit of self-redemption rather than trying to discredit the older woman. In this context, however, I must remind myself of a warning from Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He said that if people do not stop an injustice when they see it being committed then God’s anger will descend upon them. It is not pleasant but I must live with that.
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(Reem Mohammed AlFaisal is a Saudi photographer. She is based in Jeddah.)