Should I have intervened ?

Yesterday on the way back from work, all bored out of my mind and just wanting to get home I sped out of the office trying to reach home and lay down on my bed as soon as possible. Coming up on the way in Rabyeh I cam across a Srilankian maid, as I assumed, she was signaling out a driving instructors car to stop. So I smiled at the fact she was doing that and thought she confused it with a taxi but wondered why the hell is she doing that in the middle of the street rather than on the side.

So it came my turn to pass her, and she signaled me down and that raised up a dozen questions in my mind at "what the hell is she doing?".Then I noticed an elderly man, in his late fifties I assume, he was standing around her holding her from the shoulder and seemed to be talking to her (rather than screaming) and trying to stop her. So I passed them but a part of me felt guilty so I parked a bit ahead and decided to observe. Things were escalating and it seemed like the man was getting impatient with her and more forceful in his request for her to come back with him. Then she started hitting him and although he tried to restrain himself, from what I saw, he did lash out a bit... at this point a younger guy, probably the guy's son, was heading towards them and things calmed down a bit so I decided to drive off.

The whole incident just made me think for a while about quite a few things and I tried to honestly recognize why I reacted to the whole thing by trying to avoid it.

So first observation was why did I first consider that she doesn't know the difference between a cad and a driving instructors car; that was because I perceived her a foreign made and I am biased to think that they will be less cultured and I consider maids to be less street smart than the rest.

Then it came the fact of why didn't I stop and help resolve it. The conclusion that I reached is a chain of thought whether moral or not it's how I came to do what I did, or didn't in this case.

The perception I have in my head is to side with the employer of the maid rather than the maid herself, that is purely based on my personal experience with maids. While I recognize the injustices that might befall them I still also can't distance myself from the crap the maids caused me and I had to put up with and the troubles they caused within my immediate family. So while she might be an honestly genuine victim the cost of verifying that and my skepticism were too high of a cost for the reward.

On the other hand the realization that, really it is non of my business to step in to resolve this did pain me to say the least. When I said the cost of verifying, I meant the fact that if I had stepped in it might have escalated the altercation and shifted the focus to me instead of her and I won't be glad about that since I know how volatile people in this country are when they see a stranger butting into their business. Thats beside the fact that there is a high probability that the maid erred them rather than what I would initially assume, that would put me in more heat in that case.

Thoughts about racism scantly skipped through my head at that point, would I have stopped if it wasn't a maid(someone who is more prone to be victimized). quickly the answer jolted in my brain with a resonating "NO, I wouldn't have even thought about it as much !". I usually don't like to involve myself into the troubles of two strangers and even people am familiar with since my experience is that they end up ganging up on you rather than appreciating the fact that you are trying to calm them down to rationalize the issue, so at an early age that was the rule whenever i observe something of that nature.
The only exceptions I have to that rule is when it involves a child or someone unable to stand to himself (for instance some of the special kids) . In that case it is irrelevant to me who wronged who, the child has a leeway not allowed to others.

So I guess inaction is what I found to be the best action, but is it the morally right thing to do ? and is it worth the risk and cost ? What would you have done ?

ENJOY!

* art by Spalenka

Opening windows

Earlier on, Kinzi in a comment dropped a certain term... Johari window. At the time i never heard of the term and as usual it was on the list of things to read about (its an obscure list in my mind of random curious lil tid bit for instance the etymological root of arctic is arktos, the greek word for bear. back to the subject matter)

Now according to wiki;

A Johari window is a psychological tool created by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955 in the United States, used to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. It is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise.
When performing the exercise, the subject is given a list of 55 adjectives and picks five or six that they feel describe their own personality. Peers of the subject are then given the same list, and each pick five or six adjectives that describe the subject. These adjectives are then mapped onto a grid.

The grid is based on four quadrants based on who knows what, so you have stuff that others know about you and you don't know about your self (blindspot), others that you know about your self and others don't (facade). At first I thought it would be an interesting tool especially in teams to establish a common ground of familiarity between the team members and help then connect on a personal level which, in my opinion, helps a team operate more efficiently when you consider the other team memebers more than a 2-dimensional paper cut outs. Turns out that it also helps identify problem elements in an easy going exercise which sounds interesting.

OK so thats not exactly what I want to talk, but it served as the inspiration. Now if you notice there is a quadrant for secrets (things that you know but others don't) but what spun around in my head is that a secret is not problematic until a person you don't want to share your secret with knows about it.

After thinking about a bit more I tried to figure how would such a situation come about; First thing that came to mind is intuition and stumbling on them. For me its a big part since I do trust my intuition about things and it serves as an insight about the person am dealing with that won't be readily available otherwise. when it comes to its accuracy its relative but it always serves as an impetus for what follows.
Second thing that occurred to me, well the six degree of separation in Amman has been cut down in half. It is not that hard to learn about the life history of a person and his family in Amman, all you have to do is ask anyone. whats funny about that is usually you will be looking to gain as much information without raising any alarms.

The Third and last thing that occurred to me is to ask the person about what you are thinking about, the gutsy option. Usually i would say this is the most honest and better option out of all, since you don't have to beat around the bush.
The problem and the reactions that occur from it is what is problematic, people tend to not mind sharing their public information but as soon as you step on a private only topic a red flag will be raised. Since it will raise the question of how did you find out about it, rarely does intuition and stumbling upon them fly as a plausible answer since the person would have invested a great amount of energy in safe keeping that part. That usually starts to fester issues of mistrust.
Then the second logical path would be "why are you so interested in knowing that ? you want to black mail me or something?" which, I'd like to think, is rarely if ever the case. Non of us are really that important to be worth blackmailing.

So since the reaction will be mostly negative if you do go about the direct path the best way is to take the indirect one and drop hints about it candidly. Till the trust level reaches a certain point that he/she is willing to confide in you.
Though honestly if that level is never reached it really doesn't mean that you are not trust worthy, it might simply mean that somethings are better left off from the conversation.

I kind of lost my point along the way, the thing is that brought all this up is just how small Amman is and people by nature are curious. those two options combine for a lethal combination is that if you ever confide to anyone the news will travel like fire in august.
So happy secret safe keeping and enjoy life.

ps. nope don't think about that you know who you are :P muwahaha