Nomads!

I was expecting to arrive in Zurich and see a large community of expats - people far away from home, trying to build a new life in a new country, either longing for return, or happy to consider this their new home - but always feeling some attachment to their original country, striving to keep at least some connections with their "identity".

What I found instead was a large community of nomads - people that don't seem to belong anywhere.

Before 30, many of them have lived in three, four or more countries. Most of their adult life was spent "away", and they don't feel any attachment to "home" anymore.
Frequently the answer to "where are you from?" is met with a "what do you mean?" or "it depends...". Some don't care about voting, and have only a vague interest on what's happening on their original countries, going there once or twice a year - usually for Christmas.
If they eventually change countries again in the future, chances are it won't be to the one where they were born and their family is in - the fact it is "home" isn't factored at all in the decision about "where to live".


I found this deeply disturbing (still do). In my mind, nomads were people that were forced to move - nobody able to choose would want to stay for long in that situation. And there would always be a special attachment to the place where one was born, where most of one's family still reside.
Here, privileged people - a financial and intellectual elite - seem to accept it willingly without any reserve.

This forced me to realize how much my opinions were distorted by a limited world view, based on a particular relation with my family and country. While here, I found several good reasons for not wanting to "go back":

- Broken families
- Weak national identities
- Poverty
- Repressive and/or authoritarian political environments.

Add to this the fact that being away for long weakens ties to the point where people "feel like a foreigner in switzerland, and a tourist in my country": friends move on, family gets used to remoteness, countries change, a mindset of "being away" is created - the result is a sense of not belonging, of not having (and in some cases not needing) roots.


Maybe this rootlessness is positive - they are the true "citizens of the world", able and prepared to live in any place - while I continue to be bound and limited by my locality, which will always pull me to the same place.