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| Myslef, Mark Schmid, founder of the Organization for Animal Dignity and my companion Zeno, 2006. |
For those who have seen James Cameron's blockbuster movie Avatar, I (Mark Schmid) am in many ways like its lead character, Jake Sully. I am a kind of real version of Jake Sully.
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| Jake Sully in James Cameron's movie Avatar, 2009. |
Like Jake Sully, I am a crippled looser and all I ever wanted in my sorry-ass life was a single thing worth fighting for. And I found it, just like Jake Sully did in Avatar. Like him, I am facing the cultural differences of different people. However, my handicap is not paralysis of my legs, but a slight case of Asperger's syndrome (something between autism and normal). That and a social or cultural incompatibility with the behavior and ways of Swiss and European people, among which I am forced to live. Just like for Jake Sully, there would be treatment that could make me whole again: Giving me a green card so I could live and work in my culture, the US. But like for Jake Sully, that's not something done for a cripple like me. Not in this economy.
I was born and mostly grew up in Switzerland, but I spend some important years of my early childhood in the beautiful Pudget Sound area of the US. In that time I was imprinted with the culture and ways of the people in the US, and ever since I came back, I had difficulties with European and Swiss culture and people and with adjusting to them. My US-imprinting during childhood as well as my slight Asperger's syndrome make it virtually impossible for me to get along with European people in a competitive surrounding such as work.
To spell out the differences in short: In Europe, it does not matter much what you say, all that matters is that you have a social position allowing you to say something (and even then you must be much more quiet and indirect than in the US). In the US, it is much more important what you have to say, your message, than what your social position, in other words, who the messenger is. This makes the culture of US citizens much more open to new ideas, messages and concepts. Breaking traditions is literally a tradition and a way of life in the US. If you have a good new idea, it's cool and accepted in the US to say it out loud, and you will be socially accepted and honored for it. In Europe, it's the exact opposite. If you do not have the leader-position, you are not allowed to speak, to issue new ideas or deliver a message. If you do, no matter how good the idea or how important the message is, people will not listen to you, be envious and you will be reprimanded socially, you will be mobbed, put down and excluded from any social group if you do not shut up very quickly.
Due to my cultural imprinting during childhood in the US, and perhaps also due to my slight Asperger syndrome, I behave very much like a US citizen in Switzerland. When I try to please other people, I try to use all my abilities to help them. And since intelligence is one of my abilities, I will have new ideas and speak about them out loud naturally. Due to the nature of European culture however, this is not understood as "wanting to help" and as actively participating, but as disrespect for the existing social hierarchy, as an attempt to disrupt the social structure upon which everything rests in European social groups. Thus, my issuing my thoughts and ideas is understood as a direct attack on the fundaments of the social group I happen to be in.
As a consequence, I am put down, mobbed, ridiculed and labeled as being not team-oriented. And the more I want to prove my dedication to the team, the more I try to participate actively, the more I will try to use my abilities and my intelligence for the group and its goals, the more I will have ideas how to do things better and the more I will speak about these ideas and try to make people understand them. And this in turn is then seen as even more disruptive and un-correctable, un-cooperative, etc. It's a true vicious circle which left me today as a total looser on a small disability rent, despite my intelligence, good school education (Matura), good physical skills, etc.
Not being able to leave Europe legally (I have no relatives in America), this situation leaves nothing in my life than to look for a fight that is worth fighting for. Just like Jake Sully in Avatar. Because I have a very strong sense of justice and because both my parents were biologists (Avatar fans might say I was raised by Dr. Grace Augustine), it was only natural for me to see and become aware of the injustice and lack of respect towards others that were closest to me, that committed against animals in our society.
For me, animals were always individuals, non-human persons for whom I had and have great respect. Cutting off healthy body organs of a natural animal, such as cutting off their sexual organs such as is done in castration, to silence them or to make them commodities for easy human use was always an atrocity, a sin and a sign of true disrespect to me. So fighting for those who cannot defend themselves against the stronger, fighting for animals, first against their degrading mutilation through castration, then for animal, and later even for human rights in general, became the fight for me which is worth fighting for.
Unlike Jake Sully I have no machine gun and unlike James Cameron I have no movie studio to do so. My primary weapon must remain my pen, or more accurately, my computer and this web page which you, dear reader are looking at right now.
Before James Cameron made his movie Avatar, I wrote:
They laugh because I'm DIFFERENT,
I laugh because they're the SAME.
Now I have Avatar... and there is no more need to laugh.
Thank you James Cameron!
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