Under a cloud in Europe
Every time I land at JFK Airport in New York I notice it. No one is smoking. The air, although pumped into the buildings through old airshafts and smelling very much like in any other airport in the world, is smoke-free.
Arriving back in Brussels, however, I get a harsh reminder of where I live: the dirty capital of Europe. Waiting for their luggage, normally disciplined politicians and lobbyists from countries like Sweden or Finland happily light up.
Going south these people tend to stray from the straight and narrow path. Dinner bills have a tendency to become larger abroad, expenses growing at roughly the same pace as the distance from the office back home.
Unfortunately, smoking seems to be one of the new European “freedoms” they enjoy. Unfortunately for them, considering they pay for it in several well-known ways. Even more unfortunate for us standing beside them, trying to escape the poisonous clouds.
Being liberal can mean a lot of things. Any trigger-happy liberal can argue that he has the right to shoot clay pigeons on his land, but few claim the right to place their neighbours in the line of fire. This is basically what happens when smokers light up in the presence of non-smokers, since about four fifths of the harmful substances in a cigarette go into the air.
When I was a kid my mother had a friend who sometimes dropped by the farm in the afternoons, on her moped. Together they sat in the best room of the house, discussing the course of events – and smoking one cigarette each.
In their way, they created a space of their own. At the same time, it makes me admire the “Father of Spin”, the cunning Edward L. Bernays, who created this image of feminism, “torches of freedom” as he called them, in 1929. That year the PR guru staged a women’s march down Fifth Avenue in New York, with women smoking in the street (hitherto banned).
The effect of this American Tobacco-financed march is still evident in the statistics. In Europe as in the US smokers are a shrinking minority, except in one group: low-income women. Smoking for these women is still seen as a mark of independence, something to make up for their lack of education or a way of saying that they are equal to men.
My mothers’ friend was very unhappy, I think. I was still a pre-school kid when one night she took the dog out for a walk and never came home to her husband. The dog, a brown dachshund, found his way back alone. The men of the village searched for her in the woods and by the dark, slow-flowing river. In the morning they found her.
She had let the dog loose, walked to the top of the communal diving tower, and hanged herself in the dog-leash from the top of the wooden construction. I believe she wanted to say something, but I was too young to understand the message. I just know that I never cared much for the summer swimming school after that, and that I pedalled very fast when biking home to the farm after sunset.
And I’ve always considered smoking as a habit connected with pre-mature death.
Published in Euro Metro, 21 October 1999
Arriving back in Brussels, however, I get a harsh reminder of where I live: the dirty capital of Europe. Waiting for their luggage, normally disciplined politicians and lobbyists from countries like Sweden or Finland happily light up.
Going south these people tend to stray from the straight and narrow path. Dinner bills have a tendency to become larger abroad, expenses growing at roughly the same pace as the distance from the office back home.
Unfortunately, smoking seems to be one of the new European “freedoms” they enjoy. Unfortunately for them, considering they pay for it in several well-known ways. Even more unfortunate for us standing beside them, trying to escape the poisonous clouds.
Being liberal can mean a lot of things. Any trigger-happy liberal can argue that he has the right to shoot clay pigeons on his land, but few claim the right to place their neighbours in the line of fire. This is basically what happens when smokers light up in the presence of non-smokers, since about four fifths of the harmful substances in a cigarette go into the air.
When I was a kid my mother had a friend who sometimes dropped by the farm in the afternoons, on her moped. Together they sat in the best room of the house, discussing the course of events – and smoking one cigarette each.
In their way, they created a space of their own. At the same time, it makes me admire the “Father of Spin”, the cunning Edward L. Bernays, who created this image of feminism, “torches of freedom” as he called them, in 1929. That year the PR guru staged a women’s march down Fifth Avenue in New York, with women smoking in the street (hitherto banned).
The effect of this American Tobacco-financed march is still evident in the statistics. In Europe as in the US smokers are a shrinking minority, except in one group: low-income women. Smoking for these women is still seen as a mark of independence, something to make up for their lack of education or a way of saying that they are equal to men.
My mothers’ friend was very unhappy, I think. I was still a pre-school kid when one night she took the dog out for a walk and never came home to her husband. The dog, a brown dachshund, found his way back alone. The men of the village searched for her in the woods and by the dark, slow-flowing river. In the morning they found her.
She had let the dog loose, walked to the top of the communal diving tower, and hanged herself in the dog-leash from the top of the wooden construction. I believe she wanted to say something, but I was too young to understand the message. I just know that I never cared much for the summer swimming school after that, and that I pedalled very fast when biking home to the farm after sunset.
And I’ve always considered smoking as a habit connected with pre-mature death.
Published in Euro Metro, 21 October 1999
posted by Pelle at Thursday, October 21, 1999
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