She lay in the street, her face against the asphalt, between life and death -- and they had turned away, writes Injy El-Kashef. What is becoming of us? The Ant Bully is an animated release currently playing in movie theatres. It is the story of a boy who ends up shrinking to insect size after flooding an ant nest with his water- pistol. When the ants drag him before their queen, she sentences him to hard labour in order for him to find "the ant within" and learn "togetherness". As I watched the film with my son, I found relief in the thought that if Western pop needs to remind children of connecting to the "ant within", perhaps ours is not the only society forced to shed the values of communal living. Under immense economic pressure, deprived of an active role in political life, oscillating between extremes of religious fanaticism and complete debauchery, and in a serious identity crisis, our society seems to be in the process of transforming into something it never was. Heroism and chivalry aside, ours was always a benevolent, generous and bravely valorous culture. If a person fell, others would rush, even compete, to offer succour. Yet, as witness to an incident that took place on the streets of Cairo, I had the misfortune of seeing a much changed reality. Driving home in the early evening, I had turned the corner of a fairly dark side-street. Near the intersection was a figure lying across the road, completely inert. That is where I saw her, helpless, half-dead, and alone. I didn't make her out at first. I thought it was a rolled up carpet or... anything else. Anything but a human being. I stopped. I looked out the window of my car and heard barely audible moans of agony in the silence of the deserted street. I couldn't believe it; such things only happen in the movies. I got out at once and walked to her. Her face was covered in blood; it trickled on the street, all the way down to the intersection. She was immobile. Just moaning, and barely. She was badly bruised on her back and stomach. She had been knocked by a car, I thought -- cowards who hit and ran. I asked her if she had been in an accident. She just moaned. I wanted to take her to the hospital, but quickly decided against it for fear of damaging her further if I tried to move her. I asked her if she could help me help her. And then, only then, did others approach. They told me they had seen her, and turned around the block, hoping that someone else would get to her. They did not want to be the first to find her. They would be interrogated by the police, they said. "If you take her to a hospital, or if the police arrive and find you near her, you will get into trouble." I was in shock -- what kind of trouble? "They [police] could ask for your ID and you'd spend a humiliating night at the station. But when we saw you standing by her, we came. You shouldn't have stopped. You are a woman, and on your own. Is this your car? You should drive it a bit further away." As I knelt by her, she held my hand and cried, repeating that she couldn't take it anymore. The air smelled of slaughtered sheep at Eid time. When she was taken away, the doorman of a nearby building who had gathered along with the crowd told me that he had seen her standing by a car, speaking to those inside through the window. Then they ran her over, and left. He had seen the whole thing happen, yet did not want to get involved. I could not understand: what exactly makes being a witness to an accident a part that people want so much to avoid? According to a police officer speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity, "if the police arrive to the scene, they need to file a report at the station, and that requires that witnesses testify to what they saw and sign it." So why would a witness fear doing so, was the Weekly 's next question, to which the source replied that, "people are just lazy and have come to lack the drive to get involved in anything that does not concern them." When asked to comment on what bystanders in the aforementioned incident described as a humiliating experience at the station, his words were, "the station is certainly no five-star hotel. While the person awaits his or her turn, they may see or hear unpleasant things as criminals are rounded in, but this has nothing to do with the treatment he or she receives as a witness. People just lack the will." Author of What Happened to the Egyptians, renowned sociologist Galal Amin, offers a rather different take on the matter. Although the bystanders' reactions "is obviously a bit inhuman," it is nonetheless what he describes as "quite a rational attitude," adding that, "due to all that is happening around us, people's confidence in the observance of the law is weak, they cannot trust that in such a situation they won't be subjected to troubles themselves, and they are no longer sure that if they do the right thing they won't end up suffering for it." The police officer, however, insists that the problem lies in cowardice, and ignorance. Citing a small clip shot inside a police station that circulated on e-mail (one of many such "documented" proofs of alleged mistreatment at the hands of the security apparatus making the electronic rounds recently) he elucidates that, "the person you see in that clip being slapped by an officer had raped a nine-year-old girl. People don't know that. All they see is the slap, and they form their own judgement based on such ignorance. If you are brought in as a suspect guilty of a crime you have to prove your innocence, but if you walk into the station as a witness, all you need to do is sign a statement, show your ID, be thanked and be off. Officers never mistreat witnesses." If such is the case, judging by the unanimous apathetic reaction of the crowd gathered around the half-dead woman, much needs to be done to dissipate this "ignorance" and restore the Egyptian individual's sense of duty towards his community as well as his faith in the security apparatus. How? This is a question Amin has no answer for, stating instead that, "we are in a state of very severe decline, and in a very bleak period of our history." The police officer's advice in such a situation is to "do what your conscience dictate; after all, it is a choice to either turn your head or go through the hassle". In The Ant Bully, the boy is asked by the ant how things work in the "human nest", to which he replies that, "it's every man for himself." The ant, puzzled with surprise, exclaims: "how primitive! And how can you survive this way?"
