before coming to Morocco, I spent 4 days in Paris with Maryam, and something happened that I have been thinking for some time... As Maryam and I sat at a little boulangerie in St. Germain des Pres, having a salad with baguette, a man approached our table and dove for our basket of bread... my reflex was to grab his hand and tell him that he could not do that, but he angrily shook me off, took the piece of bread and walked away.
After 5 minutes, he came back and tried to get another piece of bread, this time I got up and grabbed the basket and told him that he had to ask for it... he backed up a few steps and started screaming obscenities at me... no one has ever said anything like that to me, with so much spite and hate in their voice.
I was also livid, I could not understand how someone would get to a place where he felt it was his "right" to steal, to take what did not belong to him, and be offended if he could not get it.
The amazing thing is though, that he didn't look like your typical homeless person... his clothes were not very bad, and he clearly had enough resources to buy cigarettes and booze... so his anger didn't come from being hungry, or from not being able to feed his family... bis anger was the anger of a 5 year old, he could not get what he wanted.
In my head I kept thinking that this was how communism was faulted... you encourage laziness and slothiness (I just made up a word)..
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