Dear friend, For reasons you may call inquisitiveness or love of interference, I often get into disagreements with car drivers who steal special parking places specified for the disabled in markets, hospitals and other facilities. I wait until the driver gets out of his car to see if he has a right to the parking place or is he a thief stealing it. If I find that the driver has no right to the space, I will not hesitate to attack him mercilessly. Most of the times my aggressive berating fails, as the driver is simply unconcerned and shrugs me off. I then try to scare him into submission by telling him, “look I have jotted down your car number and you will be held responsible for this violation.” As usual, this tactic too fails with the driver bluntly asking me to “go to hell' and do whatever I can do. Despite my repeated failures, I have continued to be meddlesome. This nosy nature is still with me, and it resurfaced recently when I was shocked to see an airport employee parking his car at the place set out for the disabled. I still believe that this is a matter of public awareness and that it will be a long time before we develop the culture of respecting the rights of the disabled. When we have that culture deeply inculcated in us, only then will we leave the parking places for the disabled free for them to use. And it will come naturally without even us being told to leave the parking spots free. Few weeks ago I was compelled to give up on my “inquisitive nature” and my endeavors to ask other people to respect the rights of the disabled. It was in King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh that I lost my will to question these ‘parking' offenders. At the KFMC, a man stopped his car in the middle of the road and got down to remove the barriers surrounding the parking lots for the disabled. He then drove his car and parked it right in the area allotted for the people of special needs. I entered into a quick and brief discussion with the man and rebuked him for stealing a parking spot, which is not his. His reply was prompt and decisive. “I am an official in the hospital,” he told me. That shut me up. But I did ask myself: Is it the right of the upholder of law to break it? Since that day I stopped being nosy and inquisitive not out of fear that if I dared to complain to the traffic police about the theft of the parking space of the disabled they would tell me to mind my own business but because I have become completely convinced that the crisis has nothing to do with awareness but with humanity. The question to be answered by all is, what shall we do if the strong does not protect the weak? I hope you will not answer me back with a query: Does it only stop at this? This question usually demoralizes me because it is an attempt to bury all our big issues.
