Luxembourg’s Huge Diplomatic Success in the US.
No, I will not share the glory with Jang.
In 1989, years before AJ
(Anno Johannes also called Asselborn Jang) the Luxembourg Government, in its broad
wisdom sent me to New York as Consul General of Luxembourg. I was of course
well aware of the challenge as expectations were high to do at least as well as
Peter Sellers in “The Mouse that Roared”. For more information please go to Netflix.
In Europe you might think
you know everything about the US? Sorry you mostly get fake news. One important
skill I had to acquire was to really dig deep into the meanings of the commonly
accepted politically correct language, among others on the phone. If you have any
questions about politically correct ways to express yourself, the Hallmark card
section at your pharmacy gives you hundreds of politically correct ways to
express joy, sorrow, pride, congratulations with finely crafted messages for
your spouse/parents/children/uncles/grandparents/stepmothers. Read those while
you wait for your medications to be filled.
Ugly words you can use in
an argument are: you discriminate against me or also you singled me out! Then
you win the argument. There is worse language but getting blocked on Facebook
is a risk I’m not ready to take.
So, one of the first
things you do when you arrive in the US, is to call police because someone
stole the moving van. Some machine picks up your call and speaks English. Good
I learnt some. They say: “For English, press one. Para español, oprima dos”. I
waited for Luxembourgish, but they don’t have that. I complained about the
discrimination against Luxembourgish ever since. I escalated the dispute to
successive mayors, Koch, Giuliani, Bloomberg shaming them into admitting that
the Irish were singled out and were allowed to have an annual parade on Fifth
Avenue, but not Luxembourgers.
Then, when I started to
understand climate, I took my battle to Florida. Friends, we won! The
authorities have recognized their blatant violation of Luxembourgers’ human right
to speak Luxembourgish. The County’s website for Voter Registration allows you
to choose another language than English. But of course, it would be
discriminating against voters who don’t speak English. So, I immediately jumped
to “aha!” Expecting to see only Chinese,
Spanish and Farsi as the other options. I was ready to charge and furiouslyd
requested “Luxembourgish”. Friends, we won! Here it is:
