I have been meaning to post his since Sept of 2006. In my final day of my first, but not to be last, Bali holiday, I saw an accident. Not 20 meters from me, one of the numerous street mongrels was getting too close to a group of boisterous men. Acting like so many of us everywhere, with consequence firmly placed behind the veil of an unknowable future, a group of the men kicked at the dog, and act which belied the place where animals lay in the hierarchy of social justice.
The dog lept away from the blow…right into the street…where it got underfoot of a scooter, causing the poor women to crash, trapping her left ankle underneath the vehicle…all of this maybe 3 meters from the men who had not moments before casually kicked the dog, unintentionally, into her path. Seeing the poor woman tumble, and hearing the associated screams of pain, the men reacted quickly, lept to her aid, lifted the bike off her, and last I saw, were carrying her away, presumably to get medical aid.
My point here is not to show how treating animals poorly is bad (duh) or how Balinese men are senseless….(um they are but this has more to do with the fact that they are men, rather than Balinese), but does show the powerful effect of money.
In America, this wouldn’t have happened (or would have been far less likely to happen). In America, the person would not have been on a moped, but an armoured behemoth, and would have crushed the dog ‘underfoot’ with the slightest of effort. Money buys you this, and nothing more, the insulation from the vagaries of the random that is life.
