• Ga naar canuck s's profiel

    @ alexander, roger and just in general

    geplaatst door  canuck s in Zwitserland forum 

    To Alexander,

    Looks like someone is still in his honeymoon period and needs to take the rose coloured glasses off :P Before moving to Switzerland I spent 3 months here. And, what do you know, I LOVED IT! The scenery was beautiful, the towns were quaint, the nearness of everything astounded me, the people were friendly to me. Now all of these things remain unchanged and true today except for one. Guess which one?

    I'm not trying to be purposely rude against the swiss. Because when I first came, I was SO excited to be here, to make a new start, to build up a new life with my Swiss husband. I did not come from a war torn country or a country where I worse off. I had it really good in Canada. It was only AFTER i moved here that the problems began. And these problems remain today. And i think i know why. I accept Rogers defense on the "reserved xenophobes" and I commend his efforts to uphold his people. (Kudo's to you, because I know it's hard when everyone is making fun/insulting your country, the Swiss love to make fun of the "ami accent" ;D )

    But I think it goes deeper than that. I'll give an example. Last weekend I was at my husband's company's excursion (geschäfts ausflug) where we visited MR. Setz in the Setz museum. Mr. Setz talked in great length about his company, and even more about politics. He blamed all of Switzerlands problems on the Ausländer. ANd every single one of the people from the company nodded and ate that shit up. Whenever I speak with swiss, they are always blaming foreigerns, at the moment they especially love to blame the "Jugos" I just had a conversation with a swiss about road rage, and he said that only Jugos have road rage, not swiss people. He also told me that car insurance is based partially on race (herkunft) and that Jugos have to pay higher rates. I asked him if he thought this was discrimination, and he said yes, but they use statistics to sugar coat it so that it doesnt look like racism. So he admitted to it, but the old adage is, no one gives a shit as long as it's not happening to themselves.

    I wonder how this will ever change if more Swiss don't make an effort to make foreigerns feel welcome, especially the ones that are trying to integrate. The ones (like me, who constantly get complimented on how good my germand (high and swiss) is considering that I've only been here for two years) If all the Swiss constantly hear is foreigerns are shit, they will pass this attitude around. Of course I can't say that we foreigerns are any better, when all we constantly do is talk about how much Switzerland sucks. It's a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.

    So for the Swiss, I emplore you, break the fuck out of the bünzli mentality, take a cool foreigner by the hand and say, let me show you how wonderful switzerland can REALLY be. And when you talk with your swiss friends, tell them about your foreigner friend and if there is something positive to say, SAY it! Because not all foreigners are assholes, just like not all Swiss are assholes. I hope that you, Roger, are doing your part, and not only in defending Switzerland.

    In Canada I had lot's of Russian friends, they turned out to be really good people. I made an effort to spend time with them. Here I managed to make 2 swiss friends of my own accord (not through my husbands circle) and the 2 of them don't even hang out with me or write me, unless as a last resort and all their swiss friends are busy. I feel this is because I told them the truth about how i am feeling about living here, but that i said i was looking for exceptions to the rule. Now i will have to pay for being honest because it doesn't look like any swiss person wants to be an exception and have fun with a foreigner.

    Anyways enough of a long blame. I kinda wanted to bring the conversation back to the difficulty in making friends, and not just racism in general, which is only a small part of the problem.

    If there are any cool Swiss girls that want to hang out and prove to me that they are awesome, let me know :D

    It would be a shame for me to have to go back to Canada and say the majority of you truly do suck. Of course, that wouldn't bother you swiss one bit, just one less forgeigner to complain about.

    :)

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