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Hi from Zagreb!
I returned from Egypt via Switzerland, instantly transferring from a sunny winter to a rather foggy one.
From the blue Nile, the Red Sea, and the gray Giza, I brought a diverse collection of memories. One such mental “souvenir” from Cairo Airport still rolls around my brain, mostly in that box labeled “WTF is wrong with people?”.
I flew with Lufthansa, but I only had hand luggage. So when I got the check-in confirmation in my email, I was happy to learn that I could just come to the dedicated check-in counter 364. For everyone with baggage to check in, counters 356-366 would be open.
As I approached my hand-luggage counter, just next to a long snake of passengers waiting for regular check-in counters to open, I could feel penetrating eyes of some impatient people standing at the beginning of that queue. If gazes could throw fire, my tiny backpack would be set ablaze!
Then a “human shield” stood behind me, in this “special assistance” line. A young couple with four kids and trolleys. Respect for traveling to Egypt in that arrangement!
Just before I could hear staff inviting me to approach my counter, I heard those blaze-gaze throwers from the regular line addressing the family behind me, telling them: “Hello?! The queue is over here!”
The mother of the family responded: “We are in this special line as we need assistance.”
“There are no special lines! The queue is only one, and it’s behind us!”, hissed the all-knowing Karen, the head of the long snake of passengers.
My eyes rolled back in my head as I was communicating with the counter staff and listening to that shameless conversation behind my back at the same time. Why in the hell did this grumpy couple care whether a family of six was standing in the “wrong line”? What do they truly gain by throwing their wisdom around, if they are the first in the queue, a head of the snake, I tell you, anyway?
Yes, there ARE special lines in this world. The world we live in has decided that, for the sake of feeling justice, not everyone has to go through the same set of inconveniences.
As a traveler with hand luggage only, I was spared of the waiting in the long queue of passengers with several bags each. There is no point in making me get my 30 seconds at the counter only after a hundred passengers drop off their luggage.
There is no point in sending a family with four little kids to the end of the line when all of us are going into the same plane anyway. And those snake-head Karens certainly don’t want to hear restless toddlers screaming during the flight.
There is no point in quarreling with someone’s disability, either. Yes, I’ll confess, my friend with Parkinson’s disease and I used his disability card to enter some of the Egyptian tombs more quickly than other able-bodied tourists. To be fair, nobody objected to that, as probably a visually recognizable handicap is something people wouldn’t want to trade with.
But the point is: there ARE special lines, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the reason is a privilege (hello, business class!). Sometimes it is a disadvantage (people with enough hardships in their lives already).
So your criticizing of someone standing in the special line that doesn’t affect you AT ALL (as you are the head of the snake of passengers) is just – out of line. If it were for me, I would be kicking people who enjoy the misery of others out of the queue, and let them do what they hate the most: wait.
I wrote about the Eurovision boycott calls back in April, even before the event arrived in Basel. Last week, the European Broadcasting Union cowardly didn’t vote on Israel‘s place in the competition, and yet concluded that this most controversial song contestant is welcome back. You can read all about it in my latest op-ed on that topic – how Israel won Eurovision and secured another year of artwashing.
Four countries decided to leave such a company that pretends to be united by music while it prioritizes political and other particular interests. It is expected that more countries will follow the moral lead.
But as soon as Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia announced their special line of walkout, Karens asked “How dare you?!”, and then used the heaviest artillery against these countries’ musical and moral heritage.
“Nobody will miss you anyway”, many said.
Dana International, Israel’s Eurovision transgender winner, called the four countries’ decision “violent and insulting”. LOL. She went on to speak about Israel as “the only country in our region that is this liberal”, praising Tel Aviv Pride as one of the largest in the world, and even reminding that “almost every Eurovision winner would have been hanged in the town square of Gaza“.
If these are the liberal voices of Israel speaking, it only shows how deeply disturbed this society has become. Data already tells us that 80,000 Israeli soldiers are treated for psychological disorders, and nearly two million Israelis need mental health support. It will take decades and decades for everyone to heal in this process that dehumanized people.
Despite what Dana and similar voices say, countries like Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia have all the right in the world to stand in their special line.
Today, when expressing one’s moral stance is both a privilege and a handicap, brave examples like the one we saw in Geneva boost optimism that the world of humanity still has a future.
I did meet the Karens from the passenger snake’s head in the Cairo Airport duty-free shop, too. The guy stepped in front of me with his large suitcase and blocked my passage. Just standing there carelessly, as if there was nothing else for him to do than to occupy, molest, and make points.
I could only say: “You poor Karen-Man!”
Have a very special-line week,
Ivan Kralj
Pipeaway.com
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