What I perceive here (accurately or not) is someone who usually keeps to the fringes of events suddenly finding himself very much in the middle of something bewildering and scary.

Jerome Delay/AP
Riot police officers approach a homeless man as they charge a group of election volunteers who were marching towards the Independent Elections Commission office in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on Aug. 2, 2006. Election volunteers were demonstrating asking for the 70 USD salary they were promised for their services during the vote.