Ordinary People...

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I’ve always wondered why it can be so easy for law-abiding citizens to just slip into violence and chaos. And by this, I mean your regular neighbors who you thought would never hurt a cat, or always had their things together. However, when the time calls for it, you could very well find them at the forefront of a violent mob, calling for more blood, fire, and stones.

This can always be unsettling when you experience it, because you wonder how that is even possible. What changed? Did they suddenly lose their minds? And even worse, if you were in the same situation, would you make the same decisions? Will you also lose your minds and unleash violence?

I’ve always wondered why during protests, it’s always a fragile line between order and chaos. And it’s unsettling that many times, the people who are protesting corrupt government practices, or embezzling of public funds, end up setting the homes and businesses of regular citizens like them on fire. They set cars on fire, they break into boutiques and loot them all, taking everything they can lay their hands on.

This is usually how protests get hijacked! Because I’ve come to learn that this particular behavior is not unique to a people, it’s unique to humans in general. We all do it. When we protest, and the governments foolishly try to stop it, instead of listening to what we want, it always escalates. And then we, the protesters, end up doing things that have nothing to do with the reason for the protest.

How will breaking into the phone store at the side of the road force the government to change its mind? How will burning down the mansion of your neighbor make them enact a new will? It never really works because most of the time, the real people the protests are directed at are usually left untouched. Hidden behind rows and rows of soldiers and police officers.

This is just not the case with protests, but in other instances where people feel that they have a moral justification to do certain things, there’s always a capacity to take things a bit further and inflict more harm than necessary. That’s why jungle justice is so dangerous. Someone could steal a biscuit, and he’d be beaten half to death by an angry mob, they’d do this for ‘justice’. A woman could be accused of something heinous, and she’d be stripped and disgraced in front of the entire community.

The people who do this are just regular people like you and I. Under the cover of doing “the right thing,” they seem to derive joy in hurting and harming others. So, they see such situations as an opportunity to unleash their inner demons. That’s why when someone is suspected of a crime, you’d see people slapping them all over the face, dragging them by their clothes, and ripping them. What’s wrong with simply holding them down and calling the police? No, they have to give their pound of flesh first.

Thankfully, not everyone is like this. Only a small percentage actually have this mob mentality. Sadly, their voices are usually the loudest in the midst of the chaos. They’re the ones who ruin protests that should be peaceful and make it all about burning down buildings. In the same way, not everyone is open to jungle justice. No matter what the person allegedly committed, there are people who are meant to handle the enforcement of the law.

When you have protests, do your best to keep them peaceful. I know that the government will also do its best to frustrate the people, so it can be escalated to the point where violence will ensue, and hell will break loose. But then, it’ll be up to the people to keep the peace, don’t let them hijack it. And don’t let it be hijacked by people who simply want to satisfy their sadistic urges.

Let’s just all be safe.

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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