I just witnessed an assault, the type of assault that the very self defense techniques I taught yesterday in Babuan\u00a0would have made a difference in.\u00a0 This all took place on the train platform about 70 yards from where I was standing (across the street and on the rooftop of the house I’m staying at while hanging my laundry to dry).\u00a0 A man grabbed the wrist of woman who obviously did not want to go with him.\u00a0 She sat down on the ground as he pulled at her arm.\u00a0\u00a0 He was verbally berating her, but she sat her ground and did not get up.\u00a0 But finally, after about half an hour of this, and despite a small crowd of people, she stood.\u00a0 She then protested some more, at which point the man grabbed her by the hair and shoved her in the direction he wanted her to go.\u00a0 She protested and sat down again.\u00a0 He grabbed her wrist and started pulling, and she reluctantly stood up and he led her alternately by hair, wrist, and shoulders down the train platform and out of sight.<\/p>\n
There was one thing that struck me as I witnessed this:\u00a0 first, if she had had the techniques to fight back, would she have?\u00a0 It seemed that she finally just gave in.\u00a0 Maybe she thought, ultimately, she had no choice.\u00a0 And this is the prison of what a lack of education and exposure to new ideas creates.\u00a0 It is why my heart jumps\u00a0every time I see a school here.\u00a0 It is why I gently admonish the students who rush out of class to see the white foreigner back to their studies.\u00a0 Because without education, I could be just like that woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just witnessed an assault, the type of assault that the very self defense techniques I taught yesterday in Babuan\u00a0would have made a difference in.\u00a0 This all took place on the train platform about 70 yards from where I was standing (across the street and on the rooftop of the house I’m staying at while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}