The story is about two white old women who are sitting in some fold-up seats in the pram space in a bus. A Somali woman is standing with her pram squashed tightly up against the aisle. The two women see her but they do not move and instead they pretend that they have not seen anything even though the narrator makes them aware of that there are other free seats. The narrator is sitting in another seat with her young daughter Mariam, and just observes without interfering.
The bus driver who is also black shouts at the Somali woman and orders her to fold up the pram but she refuses. In the end the two women leaves the bus and the Somali woman shouts out “racists” after them. The narrator helps the Somali woman to get her pram of the bus and says that she should report the driver for taking the white women’s part, but the Somali woman says that he is just a slave.
The narrator is a black, polite, sensible and helpful person.
She also raises her daughter, Mariam, the same way and teaches her not to let anyone walk over her just because they are white, stronger or richer. She also teaches Mariam to be against violence and bullying. At home she has political posters and slogans all over her house, and one of them is a speech of a German priest, Martin Neumuller who is against Hitler. The narrator is upset at herself because she is not sticking up to the Somali woman, and because she is not saying anything to the women nor to the driver.
The conflict that the narrator experiences is about apartheid which stands for racism and discrimination, because the two white women are just sitting in the fold-up seats in the pram space even though they know that the Somali woman, who is standing with her pram, needs the pram space. But they do not move just because she is black. The bus driver who is also black, knows that the Somali woman has the right to use the space but he is taking the two white women’s side and according to the Somali woman he is “a slave” because he does not have the courage to go against the white women even though he knows that they are wrong.
The narrator knows that the whole situation is wrong but she does not have the courage to speak up, because she is afraid that the other people in the bus would go against her, which could result in that her and Mariam would end up in the cold, and that Mariam would not get to her dance lesson, and then they have to pay for new tickets and everything will be wasted. She is disappointed in herself for not sticking up to the Somali woman. She wouldn’t give up her seat for a middle-aged woman who gets on the bus, which she usually does just because the white women do not give up their seats for the Somali woman.
She knows that it is very wrong to think in this way, but she is not the one who started the whole situation. 4. Write a short essay in witch you explain the saying Silence is Complicity and discuss its relevance in the story. Silence is a problem we see today in our society because it is much easier to avoid the problems instead of being part of them and because we have become more selfish and only think about ourselves. Unfortunately we do not care about each other today like we did many years ago.
In the sense that we have become more indifferent about the things that happens around us. We just do not care about other people and we are also afraid to involve ourselves in other people’s lives. That is exactly what is happening in the story. The narrator and the other passengers don’t say anything even though they all know it is very wrong, but no one does anything about it and that means that the old white women are “allowed” to do what they want. The Somali woman does not have the courage to speak up for her self and I think that is why the narrator is silent.
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