#60
 
 

Stereotypes

by Anissa Kempf

While traveling to Lausanne, I was sitting next to a “modern” Moroccan couple. At the beginning of our common train ride, they were focused on their smart phone. Each of them had the newest version of the Samsung Galaxy SX and was staring at it as if their whole life was depending on what was happening at that particular moment on the display of their phone. Then, both started to call their friends or sisters or brothers or other family members. It started in a peaceful tone but very soon they started to speak very loudly. Their mutual conversations became louder and louder, obviously because they were sitting in front of each other and because they had to understand what the person at the other end of the line was telling them. Every single person in the train was disturbed by the noise they were making and people sitting next to them (including me) became a little nervous. Moroccan dialect may be perceived as a very harsh language, which didn’t help at all. When their numerous phone calls ended, we were very relieved. But, unfortunately, not for so long. Because, soon after, they started a massive fight. And they were even louder than while they were speaking on their phone. And each of us was getting more and more nervous. Some people started to change their seats. And I tried to increase the volume on my laptop until I couldn’t do so anymore. I felt very ashamed of their very disrespectful attitude. Everybody around me felt ashamed. Except that I was the only one with Maghrebian roots. This made me feel even more ashamed, in a different way, than everybody else who was sitting in the train. And I thought that this is how stereotypes are made. Could you imagine a Japanese couple exacerbating people sitting in a Swiss train?

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