Petrol Attendant Quotes

Then the mob parted and there was the boy, with his arms twisted behind his back and the foot of a man, a petrol attendant in Cohydro cap and uniform, stamped firmly on his neck. The boy’s mouth was bleeding and the side of his face was squashed flat on the uneven concrete of the forecourt. It was a scene I had witnessed numerous times during my stint covering Africa. Quick and brutal, African mob justice is a terrifying thing.

He marvelled at how easily Americans socialized with each other and liked how openly affectionate his host parents were with their children. He even got a kick out of the tolerance for what, to his eyes, was the shoddy service and poor-quality merchandise Americas were used to. Perhaps the Japanese, who expected their petrol attendants to bow and their food to be always beautifully presented, were just too uptight.

I was with young Islamic militants in a Cairo slum a few weeks after the war. They no longer attended the state school because their families did not have the money to hire teachers to tutor them. The teachers, desperate for a decent income, would not let students pass unless they paid. These militants spent their days at the mosque. They saw the Persian Gulf War for what it was, a use of force by a country that consumed 25 percent of the world’s petrol to protect its access to cheap oil. The message that was sent to them was this: We have everything and if you try to take it away from us we will kill you. It was not a message I could dispute.