By Reza Ganjavi
8 September 2017
Disclaimer: This essay is NOT about all Swiss people. The jerk illustrated in this essay was an exception.
Some racist jerk attacked me tonight. He wasn't a skin head -- just a tense, retired, racist Swiss jerk who decided to exercise stupid hateful xenophobic racist will-to-power, and give me a hard time about having my laptop next to me while waiting for the tram. Of course he didn't know he was messing with the wrong guy so he got a civil push-back that might have taught him a lesson next time he wants to harass a "foreigner looking" person to fulfill his belief that he's superior. A supremacy problem which is very common in Switzerland. A native-Swiss friend told me that they are taught since childhood that they're the best in the world. Well we are in some ways -- I saw "We" because I am a Swiss Citizen and I'm very happy about that fact, as it is a great country in several ways - beautiful nature - great economy - music loving - etc. - etc. - but as with every place it has its shortcomings, and a combination of a) arrogance of superiority and n) ignorance of narrow vision being very common.
a) is as explained above: probably rooted in the conditioning that "we are the best"
b) a French author attributed that to the Alps -- where there are many mountains, the sky is small, he pointed out - and when you grow up with a small sky, your inner horizons tend to be small. Of course there are many wide-horizoned, big minded people in Switzerland too, but statistically, I believe the French author is correct. I've seen many mind-boggling small thinking.
A note on flexibility, the known, decisions
One of the stereotypes that many foreigners make about Switzerland, is narrow mindedness, on top of inflexibility - which is outside the scope here but that's also a big Swiss feature (with exception of course) - - the culture, mentality, institutions, in general (with exception) are very inflexible. And there is a huge value assigned to knowing, the known, so there is very little room for the unknown in the Swiss conditioning. And as such, decisions are worshiped -- of course I'm talking figuratively. When a decision is made, however ignorant and based on false notions, even if God comes down and says it is not so, the decision will likely remain. As expected, this has bad consequences, because truth clashes with reality of the falsehood on which that decision is based.
Racism is everywhere, but this flavor of it is very special. Another ingredient that stands out is the common Swiss habit (of course, with exception) of wanting to edify foreigners. A a good friend, who is a professor of music in Switzerland and speak 13 languages, and he's not originally Swiss, told me he had never seen this in all his travels: the "people stop in the middle of the street to try to teach you something". This is also happened to me in every single case it was absolutely unnecessary, and it was just a matter of the other person, thinking that they are superior, oh, and wanting to exert that sense of superiority onto you because you look like a foreigner, by trying to teach you something.
So this aspect of allowing yourself to reach out to strangers who look like foreigners and asserting, is something is very Swiss in my opinion. I have not seen it in any other place, I have traveled almost 80 countries and lived in four continents. Of course, there is nothing wrong with reaching out to people, or even giving tips to others about how to do something better, like striking a conversation with a smoker which may end up giving the person some tips because you've been through it, and you learned a lot of lessons. But that approach completely lacks this arrogant state of feeling that you know, and they don't and you are better than them, and you want to exert some thing onto them.
So this added spice to the combo and you get a triple toxic mix : arrogance of feeling superior, ignorance of thinking small, arrogance of wanting to exert onto others (which is born out of the first and second items).
Again, I want to make it clear that I am not talking about everyone in Switzerland. I personally know many great people in Switzerland. I'm just pointing out to one of the weaknesses that I have observed, which got worse after Trump came in the office: closet racists like the jerk who's the subject of this essay came out of the closet.
~~~
My verbal, logical, polite push-back against the jerk was augmented by a push-back by a passerby who witnessed what the jerk told me. The passerby hollered at the racist jerk that what he said was NOT ok. Another Swiss person who saw what the racist jerk said also spoke up and rejected the jerk's racist attitude, and told the idiot that there's absolutely nothing improper in working on a laptop while waiting for the tram. The young Swiss man went away in the next tram, and the jerk tried his bluff again to see if I'll get intimated by threatening to call the police (because I had a laptop on my lap while waiting for the right tram, and I wasn't bothering anyone). I told him to get lost as he shamefully walked away, having been shamed by two others and myself for his racist rants.
Oh, he also tried to scare me by saying let's go to the authorities -- for what jerk? I happen to know my rights far better than you obviously -- and I know I did NOTHING wrong by sitting on the chair at the waiting area, waiting for the tram, working on my laptop. The jerk harassed me and said in an aggressive, demeaning, belittling way: "this is not your office". There were other empty chairs around. He wasn't even waiting for the tram. I should have flashed my Swiss ID card that showed I'm a citizen!
I recorded part of the incident (clicked the record button on the laptop after his first insult).