Swiss/Swedish......???

I am in Switzerland and visiting my friends. I have spent almost a week in here and I like it so far after having been in Zurich, Lucern and Basel where I am right now. This small country with a population of roughly 7 million belongs to one of the richest countries in the world. Their system of direct democracy with many referendums in the 26 cantons(federal states) is one of the things that I have found to be very exciting.

20 % of the people are said to be having a migrant background in one way or the other, yet the issue of migration is a delicate one even in here as elsewhere in Babylon or Zion. My friend who has moved to Switzrland after having lived in Sweden for many years, tells me that he feels more at home in Switzerland than Sweden.

80 % of his friends are Swiss people while in Sweden he had no friend of ethnic Swedish background except for Peder who as a matter of fact is more Eritrean than the Eritrean president himself :-) This hard fact actually explains the attitude of people towards foreigners.

Integration is a mutual project where both the host and the guest give and take with the will to build a better society. Switzerland is not of course a success story and Sweden is not a failure either in this respect. The question is more complicated than that but I have got some understanding why my friend feels better in this part of Europe than the north.

Why me! Never kneel down!

Fire on fire

clumsy people

lousy days

speechless

cloudy

foggy

swedish summer

Eritrean dishes

poems and poetry

chicken bones

surialism

sufism

perfectionism

existentialism

presidential

statesman

A Humanbeing