People have been saying for generations that travel broadens the mind. These days, it also regularly comes as a shock. That’s exactly what happened to me yesterday on my return flight from the ‘Weltwoche’ summer party in Zurich. Thanks to my frequent-flyer card (the ‘last generation’ will have to forgive me), I was standing in the priority queue for security at the airport, which was as long as the normal queues used to be. Suddenly there was such a commotion that I thought someone was being physically attacked or that a brawl was about to break out at the very least.
The incident took place two metres behind me: a man who, judging by his appearance – including his clothing and his large, veiled entourage – was immediately recognisable as ‘someone who hasn’t been living here for very long’, was engaged in a heated verbal exchange with an airport employee. He insisted on being ushered right to the front, along with his whole family, even bypassing the priority queue – which the brave Swiss man in uniform refused to allow.
The man reacted both loudly and hysterically, shouting something about being ‘handicapped’ – though there was no outward sign of any disability – and I was afraid he was about to go for the airport staff member’s throat. Everyone in the queue looked away and pretended not to see or hear anything, even though that must have been difficult if you weren’t visually or hearing impaired. I turned to the man in uniform, who already had beads of sweat on his forehead, and whose steadfastness impressed me – in Germany, such steadfastness would hardly be expected these days. “I’m happy to stand by you and can testify at any time that you were friendly and courteous,” I said to the man, who thanked me with relief.
Suddenly, the troublemaker started speaking in a different language and shouted at me in Swiss German with a distinct accent in such a way that I was afraid he was about to strike me. I was so shocked that I can’t remember the exact words anymore, only that I thought the whole thing was escalating. “It’s all just because I’m a Muslim,” he finally shouted. “No, it’s because you’re not behaving yourself,” I replied, thinking he was about to grab me by the throat. I turned away.
An elderly Swiss couple standing in front of me turned round and rolled their eyes – whilst everyone else acted as if to say, ‘Move on, there’s nothing to see here’. That alarmed me almost more than the man’s insolence. The Swiss woman whispered to me how appalled they were to have to experience something like this in their own country – and that it was no longer an exception. The couple took a little longer at security than I did. Later, I bumped into them again in the duty-free shop. There they told me that the testosterone-fuelled lout had also been aggressive towards the security staff and them, and when they told him to behave himself, he’d become even more aggressive – and the security staff had then told them – not him – off, saying they shouldn’t interfere.
And that is precisely why hardly anyone turns around anymore. Because, in line with Mao’s motto ‘Punish one, educate a hundred’, for years we have been forced to watch – for all the world to see – as people who stand up for themselves in such situations are publicly branded as racists, Nazis or ‘inciters’. The message has got through: anyone who intervenes risks being pilloried by society. Those who look the other way get off scot-free. The majority are as good as paralysed.
The elderly Swiss couple in the duty-free shop were resigned. They said they felt not only increasingly like strangers in their own country, but also as if they’d been silenced, muzzled. And that is precisely what is worst of all. Not the individual, brazen pusher. But the system that protects the pusher and disciplines those who have the moral courage to stand up.