Bassim
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Bosnian
- Home Country
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Current Location
- Sweden
This is the second part of my text. Would you please correct my mistakes?
Let us imagine the young student had not run away but stayed with me and was interested in listening to my arguments. Maybe she wanted to hear something she could never read about in the glossy tourist brochures, magazines, or watch on TV. Let us imagine she was an open-minded woman who was not obsessed with appearances but wanted to scratch the gleaming veneer. She was observant and asked questions. Why are these people so silent? Why they drink so much, even when alcohol is so expensive? Why they never rebel? Why they accept anything and everything from their government as a divine law? Why do they almost all think the same? What are they afraid of?
If she were patient and had enough time to talk with me, she would get answers to all her questions. I would also show her some of the suburbs avoided by the Establishment and those who officially promote multicultural society. She could meet immigrants who had spent decades languishing in them, like some kinds of creatures discarded by the local authorities, which could not find any use of them. These people from different countries had created their own reality and parallel society without any contact with the Swedish society and the natives. Tourists and student never visit such places, and if they do, they feel unease. The scene is not what they expect to see in the affluent country: dreary grey block of flats and among them shuffling women in black burqas, bearded men in long robes, alcoholics, drug addicts with pit bulls on the lead, and youth criminal gangs who sell drugs and weapons. This is the fiction tourists and students would like to read, but not be part of it.
It is impossible to know how the young student would react after those impressions. Maybe that could be her moment of epiphany after which she would see the beautiful country in another light, or she could push her experiences into the deep recesses of her mind where they would fade away and become harmless.
But let us forget the ugly suburbs and turn to the young student the moment she walked away from me. She was looking forward to an exciting year with parties, concerts, outings, discussions, and probably sex with fellow students. She appreciated free education and the cheap room in a corridor. As an English speaking person, she made many friends, and people bought her a drink just to be able to practice their English with her. Her friends took her to pristine rivers and lakes, and to snow-covered mountains. They taught her Swedish songs, and they danced around the pole on a sunlit Midsummer Day. She said her goodbyes with tears in her blue eyes and returned to the US with the most beautiful memories.
“Such a great country, clean and well-ordered. Such great people.” I heard her tell her friends, showing them numerous pictures from her trip. And then, she posed for a moment and said, “Can you imagine, when I arrived in Sweden I met a strange foreigner, and he started to rant about how Sweden is a totalitarian state.”
“Was he stoned?” someone asked.
“I don’t know. Such an unpleasant and ungrateful person. Generous Swedes have given him everything, and he, instead of saying thank you, accuses them of brainwashing and manipulation. He must be sick in the head”
The fiction created by the young student would be appreciated by the majority of people around the world. Her impressions about Sweden matched their expectations and reaffirmed their opinions. My fiction, on the other hand, would be seen as an anomaly – the product of a deranged mind. Even if I presented all the evidence for my assertions, many of people would still see me as a loner. My words would never be able to mar the picture which had been formed in their minds since their childhood. They had lived with it for years and they were satisfied with it. I was the last person they needed to tell them something was wrong.
TO BE CONTINUED
Let us imagine the young student had not run away but stayed with me and was interested in listening to my arguments. Maybe she wanted to hear something she could never read about in the glossy tourist brochures, magazines, or watch on TV. Let us imagine she was an open-minded woman who was not obsessed with appearances but wanted to scratch the gleaming veneer. She was observant and asked questions. Why are these people so silent? Why they drink so much, even when alcohol is so expensive? Why they never rebel? Why they accept anything and everything from their government as a divine law? Why do they almost all think the same? What are they afraid of?
If she were patient and had enough time to talk with me, she would get answers to all her questions. I would also show her some of the suburbs avoided by the Establishment and those who officially promote multicultural society. She could meet immigrants who had spent decades languishing in them, like some kinds of creatures discarded by the local authorities, which could not find any use of them. These people from different countries had created their own reality and parallel society without any contact with the Swedish society and the natives. Tourists and student never visit such places, and if they do, they feel unease. The scene is not what they expect to see in the affluent country: dreary grey block of flats and among them shuffling women in black burqas, bearded men in long robes, alcoholics, drug addicts with pit bulls on the lead, and youth criminal gangs who sell drugs and weapons. This is the fiction tourists and students would like to read, but not be part of it.
It is impossible to know how the young student would react after those impressions. Maybe that could be her moment of epiphany after which she would see the beautiful country in another light, or she could push her experiences into the deep recesses of her mind where they would fade away and become harmless.
But let us forget the ugly suburbs and turn to the young student the moment she walked away from me. She was looking forward to an exciting year with parties, concerts, outings, discussions, and probably sex with fellow students. She appreciated free education and the cheap room in a corridor. As an English speaking person, she made many friends, and people bought her a drink just to be able to practice their English with her. Her friends took her to pristine rivers and lakes, and to snow-covered mountains. They taught her Swedish songs, and they danced around the pole on a sunlit Midsummer Day. She said her goodbyes with tears in her blue eyes and returned to the US with the most beautiful memories.
“Such a great country, clean and well-ordered. Such great people.” I heard her tell her friends, showing them numerous pictures from her trip. And then, she posed for a moment and said, “Can you imagine, when I arrived in Sweden I met a strange foreigner, and he started to rant about how Sweden is a totalitarian state.”
“Was he stoned?” someone asked.
“I don’t know. Such an unpleasant and ungrateful person. Generous Swedes have given him everything, and he, instead of saying thank you, accuses them of brainwashing and manipulation. He must be sick in the head”
The fiction created by the young student would be appreciated by the majority of people around the world. Her impressions about Sweden matched their expectations and reaffirmed their opinions. My fiction, on the other hand, would be seen as an anomaly – the product of a deranged mind. Even if I presented all the evidence for my assertions, many of people would still see me as a loner. My words would never be able to mar the picture which had been formed in their minds since their childhood. They had lived with it for years and they were satisfied with it. I was the last person they needed to tell them something was wrong.
TO BE CONTINUED