Cordial hardness

Vienna is a first world country. That became visually clear to me as our plane landed on the airport in a lusch, well-maintained part of the city. The airport is not large, but well organised. The traveller is given the best possible reception. Neat airport, excellent restaurants, clear indications of facilities, banks, information counters, trolleys, efficient baggage delivery and all the luxuries one expects from a first world country. The facilities are impressive. The train, according to the huge advertisement, will take you to the city center within 16 minutes for ten euro. With the bus you pay six euros, but the journey takes you three times longer.

I wait at the information counter for a woman to help me with information to reach my hotel. She is still youngish, neatly, even stilishly dressed. I wait as she speaks with a woman of Near Eastern appearance, a Muslim, given her head cover. The scarfed woman asks her questions haltingly, but clearly. She clearly needs the help. And yet I can see that the communication is limited. Her questions receive one sentence replies.

When it is my turn, the atmosphere changes. The woman is exceptionally helpful. She picks up information brochures, give me extensive indications, sells me a train ticket in a most friendly manner and gives me more information than I bargained for. I feel good. Reassured about my pending journey into the great city.

And yet I leave a bit disturbed. I have just witnessed something sad. The alienation between people upsets me.

As I travel on the bus, my mood does not improve. I seen many similar people and my heart keeps on asking me how they live in this first world country. The city is full of labourers with Near Eatern appearances. They drive taxi’s, clean the buildings, serve customers and fulfil menial tasks that no one else seems to be willing to do. I see families with the father and his brothers walking in front, children in the middle and the wives with head scarfs at the back.

It was one of them who reached out to another women to ask simple questions, who wanted help. It was one of them who got the luke-warm response, the shortest of replies, all under the guise of cordiality.

It made me think of the Parable of the Samaritan. Those who should recognize the need of others, who should reach out to them, are often the ones who are the hardest and the merciless ones. It is, in this case, even more disturbing. The people that you rely on to keep your country’s basis infrastructure running, are the ones whom you do not trust, whom you treated cordially, but with the minimum of communication. They are the strangers at your front door, Lasarus, the foreigners in your land. How deeply rooted are our prejudices, our fears, our lack of mercy – mostly of those who need our care most.

The woman behind the counter is most probably also a mother, a respected neighbour, a religious person who is active in her church. But she sees another woman not as a person. Under her cordial attitude she conceals negativity, sharing the minimum which she is allowed to share.

Xenophoby is rife in our world. It lives in our hearts. It tears our societies apart. It sows hatred and reaps violence. And it begins, seemingly innocuous, at a counter where the outreaching hand of those in need is discarded. Not in a disrespectful, violent manner. But in sophistication, under a layer of civilized cordiality, the other is turned away. Was it no Foucault who wrote about how our prison system became more cruel as we developed more sophisticated means to punish criminals?

The Samaritan saw the victim who had been assaulted. He kneeled at his side, gave him his time, cared for his needs, bound his wounds, carried him to a safe place and saw that he would be cared for. It was a face to face meeting which brought healing.

And as we listen to this story, it makes us recognise who we are, what we are busy doing – often in the name of religion. It is a mystical story that brings us to contrition. It draws us into transformation. We can never look at those in need in the same way as we did previously.

Or is it just another goody-goody reflection that underestimates the harsh realities of our times? But what then, will break the cycle of violence in our world and where will peace come from?

The woman at the counter paused for a moment, as if she was going to say something again. I saw she needed more information. But then, in her moment of hesitation, she seemed to realise that she should not bother the cordial assistant behind the counter again. She turned and left to become part of those in the big, first world city who, though the city would fall apart without them, still lived a life of need.