Love thy neighbour?

A few months ago a twenty one year old was stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens, NY in plain view of neighbours while she screamed for help. A few weeks later, in Philadelphia, another man was brutally attacked with a hammer while riding in the subway with his young son and other passengers. In both cases no one did anything.

This condition of inertia known as ‘bystander apathy’ or the Genovese Syndrome is an established phenomenon in human psychology and refers to situations where different people see something wrong taking place but no one does anything about it. The common explanation is that each person diffuses responsibility by assuming someone else will intervene and so they each individually do nothing and feel less responsible.

I can almost hear people say ‘ that’s because the western world is so cold, so impersonal, not like in Nigeria where we get involved, where when a child is being beaten by his mother people rush to the rescue, to beg the mom and ‘scold’ the child.’ But that is not true. What struck me most when I watched the video of the assault on Uzoma Okere was what I am sure must have occurred to others: why didn’t anyone do anything? A young lady was being assaulted in middle of the afternoon by a group of armed men in uniform and no one tried to intervene or to ask them to stop.

Ironically in Nigeria we suffer from the two kinds of dysfunctional ‘group’ behaviour – we are quick to join mob action when action is for something ‘bad’ like setting an alleged thief on fire or destroying property. However when we can act collectively for ‘good’ then we are frozen, incapable of acting, the ‘siddon look syndrome’ in Naija speak.

Bystander apathy is not unique to Nigeria and vast amounts of research have gone into researching the role and psychology of bystanders during war, domestic abuse, child abuse ad infinitum. What is interesting is that while there are discussions in other jurisdictions about how to make ‘citizens care more’ e.g., with Good Samaritan laws, Nigerian statutes are silent on the issue, we can’t even get our sworn protectors to care about us. Today almost every state in the United States has a version of the Good Samaritan law but this was not always the case. Traditionally common law held a person liable if that person tried to help someone and the person being rescued or helped got injured in the process.

This was enough of a deterrent to keep citizens from helping people in need or from providing useful information to the police in the investigation of crimes and it was to deal with this growing apathy that, in 1959, the Good Samaritan laws were passed. The law is based on a principle of tort law that provides that a person who sees another individual in imminent and serious danger or peril cannot be charged with negligence if that first person attempts to aid or rescue the injured party, provided the attempt is not made recklessly. Prudently, Samaritan laws seem skewed towards ‘rescue’ from harm e.g., stopping at the scene of an accident or helping someone who is ill as opposed to intervening in or preventing the commission of a crime.

Clearly this law does not deal with what might have been the reason for bystander apathy in the case of Ms Okere – fear. Unfortunately there is no way to legislate against fear, especially the fear for life however, there must be a way to legislate to ensure that when bystanders get involved and they get hurt, the punishment of the perpetrator is much more severe and the compensation required is more. If this were the case, maybe Ms Okere’s assault could have gone another way. As a passive observer, the bystander does not realise that as an ‘audience’ he is part of the spectacle he is watching. He does not realise that although he is not actively participating in what is unfolding, he serves as encouragement for the perpetrator who sometimes feels driven to ‘perform’ for the audience. It is possible that if an equal number of people or more had approached the naval ratings to intervene, there would have been a break in the assault which would have provided the perpetrators with the opportunity to rethink their actions and back down. We will never know now but this is the ideal time to ensure something real and sustainable comes from this episode: laws which change the way bystanders and people who act out of moral decency and kindness are treated or protected. For instance in Massachusetts the law requires passers-by to report a crime in progress.
While the subject matter is relatively new with different applications and variations, many countries have adaptations of Good Samaritan and duty to rescue (applies to employers, parents etc.) laws and Nigeria should be considering something similar. Eight states in the United States (Florida, Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Ohio, Wisconsin and Washington) have laws which require a person to help a stranger in peril.

Undoubtedly, the fear of deliberately placing oneself in jeopardy is not something that can easily be overcome and the legal right or obligation to intervene might be of little comfort but the law coupled with ‘mob action’ for good might just do the trick.