So what we have now, I would say, is not money (very short), nor freedom (we are still registered as Ausländer), but dignity. And this is what I think everyone needs. After the basics of food and shelter that we need just as animals, first thing after that: dignity. Everyone needs and deserves this, just as part of being human. And yet this is a very undignified world. And so we struggle. You see how it is. And yes, dignity is something you get from other people, it’s in their eyes, it’s a kind of regard. If you don’t get it, the anger rises in you. This I know very well. That anger can kill you. Those young men blowing things up, they’re angry because they don’t have dignity. Which is something other people give you, so it’s tricky. I mean you have to deserve it, but ultimately it’s something other people give you. So the angriest of our young men blow things up because they aren’t given it, and mostly they blow up their own people’s chances in this world.
Take the Chinese. Chinese tourists who come in tell me, in English of course, that for a century they were oppressed by European countries, they were humiliated. They had no dignity anywhere on Earth, even at home. But who can imagine that now? The Chinese are so powerful now, no one can criticize them. And they forced that to happen by standing up for themselves. They didn’t do it by killing strangers at random. That is so wrong I can’t even express it. No, if it’s going to happen, it has to be done like the Chinese did it. Possibly Arabia with its new regime will change, and the wars end and the rest of our suffering countries change in ways that force the rest of the world to give us the respect we deserve. It will take changes all around. It will take the young to do it.
Meanwhile we fill our restaurant, night after night. We are legal permanent residents of Switzerland. The years here will pass faster than in the camp, that’s for sure. That the boredom of the camp made time go slow, so that I must have lived a very long life by that protraction, is an irony that I don’t find all that funny. Better to have it all go by in a tearing rush. That I am sure of.
To get by here in this country, I’ve become a different person, and more than once. But this new person standing here now is not so bad. And there are things about the Swiss you have to admire. They are so punktlich, so punctual— this is funny at first, but what is it but a regard for the other person? You are saying to the other person, your time is as valuable as mine, so I will not waste yours by being late. Let us agree we are all equally important and so everyone has to be on time, in order to respect each other. Once we had the restaurant reserved by a single group, we decided to do it on Monday, our usual night off, so as not to inconvenience any of our regulars. So we were cooking away, fixed menu, pretty easy but had to be done right, and my daughter looked out the door and laughed. Look, she said, the invitation is for eight but some of them got here at quarter till, so they are waiting outside until it turns eight. Here, look at the clock, you’ll see I’m right. And at eight there was a knock on our door. We greeted them with huge smiles, I’m sure they thought we were a little tipsy. Then also in the train stations, this I like to watch, the clocks over the platforms show the time, and whatever your train’s departure time is, if you look out the window of the train right before, you’ll see the conductor of the train also has his or her head out the window, looking at the clock; and when the clock hits the very minute and second of departure, the train jerks and off you go. That’s the Swiss.
These people will accept us, if we aren’t too many. If we are too many, they will get nervous, that’s pretty clear. I think it’s the same in Hungary or in any of these little European countries. They’re prosperous, yes, but there are only a few million of them in each country. Seven million Swiss, I think, and three million Ausländer among them; that’s a lot. And it’s not just the sense of the nation, but the language. This I think is the crux. Say only five million people on Earth speak your language. That’s already far less than many cities hold. Then another five million come to live with you and everyone speaks English to understand each other. Pretty soon your kids speak English, pretty soon everyone speaks English, and then your language is gone. That would be a big loss, a crushing loss. So people get protective of that. The most important thing, therefore, is to learn the language. Not just English, but the local language, the native language. The mother tongue. Their culture doesn’t matter so much, just the language. That I find is the great connector. You speak their language and even when you’re messing it up like crazy, they get a look on their face: in that moment they want to help you. They see you are human, also that their language is a hard one, a strange one. But you’ve taken the trouble. The Swiss are very good about that. Their language classes are free, and besides they have four languages among themselves, which they hack to bits with each other every day. Take the tunnel under the mountain from this town to the town at the other end
