Normally, when you hear a person calling out for help, your immediate reaction is to help that person.
Last night around 22:00 hours when I was watching TV, I was distracted by some noise coming from my neighbors house. There was banging on the wall and the clutter of items falling on the floor. I turned down the volume on the TV and heard a woman crying out for help. I could also hear a man's angry voice. My neighbor was drunk and he was beating his wife again.
This is not the first time this couple was fighting. I have heard them fighting on not less than 4 occasions. I listened to the angry outbursts for a few minutes and then turned on the volume on my T.V. set and continued watching Cheaters.
I know some of you may have expected me to open the door and go out to stop the fight. No. I can not do that. You ask why? The reason is simple. I simply do not have the guts to go out and intrude in someone's domestic issues and I know I am not the only one.
I don't know exactly why it is so hard for me to just gather my wits and go out, knock on that door and try out my peace keeping skills. Many of you may have found yourselves in this awkward situation before, with all your senses and muscles ignoring to do the most sensible thing at that particular time, which is to intervene before someone is hurt.
I have noticed that fights involving the wife and husband usually go unstopped by the neighbors. The only time such fights are stopped is when one of them runs outside the house into the street. That is when a lot of people would come out and stop the fight because they assume the street is a no man's land.
It is very rare that you will see anyone go to a neighbor's house to stop a domestic dispute going on inside the house. I know it is wrong but it is like none of us have the guts to do that. It is almost like two countries. If there is a civil war in a neighboring country, do not expect it;s neighbors to rush in to stop the killings immediately.
I once asked a group of friends why it was so hard for many of us to intervene in domestic fights involving our neighbors and I got very diverse answers. One person gave a very interesting reason. He said the reason why he cannot go at a neighbor's house to stop him from beating his wife was because the man may accuse him of having an affair with his wife.
As we burst out laughing at what we thought was a ridiculous answer, the man told us that he was serious. He even went ahead and gave us an example of a man who went to stop a similar fight and was hacked with a machete in the shoulder by the man's wife who even accused him of trespassing.
Someone also said some women enjoy being beaten by their husbands. Going in to stop the husband from beating her would be an interruption of an intimate session. He explained that there are some African women who believe that if a man does not beat you or scold you when you make a mistake, then that man does not love you. Although this seems hilarious, I know there are lots of other people who believe that beating your wife is a sign of love.
At one point it was reported that some men in Kenya were up in arms at the proposed Protection Against Domestic Violence Bill because parts of the bill infringe on Kenyan culture which allows a man to beat his wife. That could be a topic for another day.
My concern right now is why do we fail to intervene in domestic violence involving a husband and wife? With an estimation that of all women killed in 2012, almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members, it is time we seriously thought about correcting this cowardly trend.
When you see a thief entering a neighbor's house whilst he is away, it is your responsibility to raise an alarm or apprehend him. If you just sit there and listen to the breaking windows and then watch as the thief hauls away some goods, I am sure you will make headlines as the most heartless neighbor.
However, that is not the case with domestic violence. People do not even bother to go and check on their neighbor in the morning to see if they are still alive. We all know that marriage is a private matter. We are not allowed to know whatever is going on in every marriage because it is a matter between two consenting adults but when it comes to violence, someone must intervene.
There have been incidents where a neighbor comes to know of a secret affair of the neighbor's wife or husband. In most cases, like with domestic violence, the neighbor will not say anything. He or she will continue as if nothing is wrong. Most of the time even the guilty party is not worried because he knows that you do not have the guts to go and tell his wife that you saw him with another woman.
After the wife finds out on her own that her husband is cheating, that is when people will start coming out saying "I used to see them too", "I knew he was having an affair long time ago. I was just scared of telling you."
The truth is while you were holding on to that vital information, your neighbor got infected with a sexually transmitted disease. If you had told her in time, she would have taken some action and put a stop to the affair. Many people have been infected with deadly diseases because we did not intervene in time.
However, I can not entirely put the blame on people who hold on from snitching on their neighbor's infidelity. Like in the case of the neighbor who is reluctant to stop a domestic fight, even the neighbors who spot his neighbor's spouse having an affair have their own excuses why they stayed quite.
Most of the time it is either they did not want to be involved in court cases or they simply feared that they do not have enough evidence. There have also been circumstances where a person reports such infidelity to the wife of the neighbor and instead of being appreciated, the wife goes and tells the husband " Our neighbor thinks you are having an affair. Is it true?"
When the man denies having an affair, the wife will not push him further. She will will turn her wrath on the neighbor and accuse her of being a home wrecker bringing false accusations about her husband. I have see this happen with my own eyes.
Sometimes one may go with information to give to the neighbor about how they saw her husband kissing someone and how they think the two may be having an affair. As soon as they finish telling her, she curtly says she already knows all the details but does not just want to spend time dealing with a stupid husband.
Last week on Sunday morning I went to buy a newspaper. As I was going back home, I saw a small crowd and decided to see what was going on. A woman was slapping a man around and pulling him in all directions. The man was drunk and he had a bottle of Mosi Lager in his hand. He may have been drinking the whole night. As the crowd grew, the man lost his temper and swung the beer bottle at the woman, missing her head by a whisker. The bottler shattered on the ground.
When I asked why no one was stopping this fight, one woman replied "She is fighting with the husband."
And so there we stood watching the couple as they beat each other for almost 5 minutes until a brave woman came in and intervened. She pulled the woman to one side and told her that she was far more respectable to be seen fighting with a drank husband in public. The wife complied and left the scene.
I hope all of us could have enough courage to intervene in domestic issues like the way that brave woman did.
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic freedigitalphotos.net
No comments:
Post a Comment