The news is making headlines worldwide: A homeless man discovered a bag containing €2,000 at the Amsterdam train station, where he usually takes shelter, and handed it over to the police.
The man, likely a Muslim from his name, Hadjer Al-Ali, aged 33, has attracted international attention. If he weren’t homeless, this act might have made the local news at best.
However, the fact that he lives on the streets without a job, income, or property and still chooses to turn in the money so it can be returned to its rightful owner, has surprised many and turned this into a global story.
A similar reaction occurred recently in Greece when a migrant jumped into a stormy sea to save an elderly man struggling with the waves, sacrificing his own life in the process. The man, aged 37, was from Egypt and lived in Greece with his wife and two children.
A few years ago, another story captured global attention. A child was hanging from the fourth floor of a building in Paris. Suddenly, a young man began climbing floor by floor like Superman – a Superman without a red cape and, importantly, black. A 22-year-old undocumented migrant from Mali.
Around the same time in Spain, a Senegalese undocumented migrant selling bracelets on the streets rushed into a burning building and rescued a disabled man from certain death. Before the firefighters arrived, he took his merchandise and disappeared, fearing the authorities. However, the locals knew who he was since he frequented the area, and he was found and rewarded with a residence and work permit.
Similarly, the young man from Mali was hired by the Fire Service, having already proven his capabilities.
For the homeless man in the Netherlands, a donation account was set up, quickly accumulating over €34,000, and several employers, impressed by his honesty, offered him jobs.
A similar fate befell another homeless man in Boston who found a backpack containing $42,000 and turned it over to the police, returning it to its Chinese owner. “Even if I were desperate from poverty, I would not keep a penny of money that belongs to someone else,” he said. He was homeless but honest, a migrant but good.
This is often how we process such events in our minds. However, we are all human. In every group, there are good and bad, honest and ruthless individuals.
Alas, after every negative incident (like the murder in Ormideia yesterday), the news clarifies that both the victim and the perpetrator are Greek Cypriots.
This clarification is necessary because our minds tend to attribute the wrongdoings “to all those who have crowded our country.”