Mediator?

Walking around Aston a few days after Christmas I got a bit of a scare. A group of four guys were having a row, shouting at each other and gesticulating wildly. Getting a bit nearer I saw that two of them really wanted to have a go at each other and that the others were trying to restrain them. What scared me was that one of the guys who stepped in beween and tried to keep the two protagonists apart, received some blows in the process himself and lost his cool as well. This could become an uneven fight with serious consequences, but fortunately the shouting had alarmed some more people and together they tried to pacify the hotheads. It took some time for the shouting to go down but in the end the two opponents, still glaring angrily at each other, parted ways.

Hopefully this was the end of the row, but it is by no means sure. Newspapers regularly carry stories about knife crimes, in which an initial fight that ended in a draw was decided at a later stage by more violent means. It all depends on how humiliated the aggrieved parties feel and whether the initial problem can be solved. I for one had no idea what the row was all about. The shouting contained some English words but most of it was in, what I suppose, an Asian language from Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Mediation needs true insiders. As long as these are around and willing to commit themselves, escalation of a conflict can be prevented and the peace maintained. The whole incident brought forecefully home to me that I do not belong to that category. I felt very much the outsider, present, but unable to understand and to act.

Ton