View from the Parc de Bastions

The US is not the center of the universe. That is what everyone I meet here in Geneva seems to understand.

Here in Geneva nearly everyone I speak to admires and respects Americans for a number of virtuous characteristics, such as resourcefulness and ingenuity, although they are confused and puzzled by what they see as incongruent behaviors, such as electing George Bush as President, twice.

How lucky I have been to meet people from all over the globe: a hairdresser from Baghdad, au pairs from Brazil, Denmark and Poland, an engineer from Germany, gobs of Brits, young French men and women enterprising enough to leave France to work, lots of Italians savvy enough not only to leave Italy to earn a living, but also to obtain dual citizenship in Switzerland, bankers from Luxembourg and Amsterdam, Swedes, Belgians, people from Northern Africa, and, of course, lots of Swiss people: Swiss Germans, Swiss Italians, Swiss French.

What these warm and charming people tell me is the reason Americans thinkthe US is the center of the world: "The US is so big that you can’t even see that you are not the center of the universe." We are geographically blinded. They make excuses for our ignorance, I think, because it is incomprehensible that it could be intentional, given our virtues.

What are our virtues, I ask. "Well," they say, "you always come to the aid of everyone in a disaster. You take care of things and you get things done." Thencomes a puzzled expression, a pause, and this question: "What we can’t understand is why you couldn’t do the same thing for the people in New Orleans." Explain that, they ask.

That is when I start ranting and raving—about how our government doesn’t care about the poor and neither do most Americans, how all political discourse in the US has disappeared, how we are governed by an oligarchy of self seeking, self interested politicians, and how neither the media nor the universities, not even the churches or the unions, are challenging the monolithic blob that rules our political life.

When I stop for a moment to catch my breath, my new European friends calmly ask me if I might not be exaggerating a bit. Or, perhaps, my extremely polarized view is because I am still in the honeymoon phase of my European experience, the misty rapture that engulfs all expatriates for the first couple of years.

I go on: "No, you don’t understand. I see it now. Now that I too can see the US from here, I can see that it is so big and so isolated and so homogeneous that we are numb."

We are paralyzed by our bigness and sameness.

We can’t speak, much less act, in response to the steam roller of patriotic platitudes and moralistic demagoguery fueled as it is by our coast to coast television, our interlinking highways, our uniform laws and language, and, God forbid, in the not too distant future, a single, state religion.

We don’t have any Socialist or Green parties advocating workers’ rights or protecting the environment or organizing "manifestations" to make speeches that people actually listen to about the dangers of elitism and the importance of equality and human rights.

We don’t have citizens who actually expect government to serve the public, to provide a safety net of public benefits, to build parks, pools and community centers, to sponsor cultural and social events.

Europeans think they have a right to expect to have meaningful lives, to be treated with respect and dignity, and to be able to socialize with their fellow citizens in safe and appropriate environments.

And they travel, not just to other European countries, but to parts of the world most Americans, me included, would consider remote. India, Thailand, the Pacific Islands, China, you name it, and where they are going is not make believe. And, they actually have the time to spend two or three weeks to experience these foreign cultures; they are not justbuying the ticket, standing in line and taking the ride.

I go to Parc des Bastions near my apartment on Sunday and I put down a blanket and sit among citizens of the world. I watch children kicking soccer balls, parents sleeping in the grass, peoplereading, talking, or sharing a picnic meal with friends. Students lounge in circles, sharing bottled water and cigarettes, and they laugh and talk.

The people in the park are Arab, African, European, Asian, Latin American, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, you name it. We are in each other’s company and experiencing the joy of the diversity of our cultures and the sameness of our pleasures—green grass, fresh air, a cool breeze and the warmth of the sun.

Somehow, in the US, we all have to be the same to get along. We were a nation of diversity, independence and freedom and we have become a nation of uniformity, conformity and intolerance.

Somewhere along the line our admirable and vibrant economy has gobbled up the diversity and dynamism of our political, cultural and social lives. Somehow being American could no longer mean speaking more than one language at home, believing that government had obligations beyond building roads and sewers, or forming unions to demand a living wage and health benefits.

When my new European acquaintances talk with admiration about the flexibility of the US economy, the resourcefulness we demonstrate in so many ways andour approach to work that appears nimble and dynamic to most Europeans, I think to myself, they don’t want what we have.

They wouldn’t be able to cope in a world where it was no longer reasonable to spend 20 minutes every time you enter a room to individually greet each person, no longer rationale to spend 40 minutes to drink a cup of coffee the size of a thimble with a friend or colleague, and no longer possible to take the time to travel the globe to experience cultures with different customs, music, food and religious beliefs.

The most diverse experience I had ever had in the US was going to the Post Office in Chinatown in San Francisco, one time. I remember a sensation of joy and feeling like I could drink in the sound of the Chinese language, the beauty of the people, and the unfamiliar ambiance. It felt so fine: an oasis of different in a land of all the same.

That was 20 years ago. I hope it is still like that in Chinatown; I fear that it is not. I hope it is still like that in Europe 20 years from now.

In the interim, if you get the chance, come for a long visit and avoid the temptation to go to seven countries in seven days. Stay in one place and learn how to say hello, good-bye, and thank you and please in a foreign language. It will make a big impression on the people you meet. Hopefully, it will make a big impression on you, too.