Thank You, Hans Saner!

Swiss Philosopher Hans Saner (1934), in an interview with the Basel newspaper "Basler Zeitung" (bazkulturmagazin, 28 october 2008) on the financial crisis,has made a fine statement on the misconception of democracy that has prevailed during the second half of the twentieth century and continues to prevail in the 21th century.
When the citizens of the German Democratic Republic took to the streets before the fall of the Berlin wall, they used to cry: "Wir sind das Volk!" (We are the People).

We all, Hans Saner says, use to cry: "We are the People!", but we should cry: "We are the Economy!, we are Politics, we are the Culture!" instead.
In fact, pseudo-religious neo-liberal prophets have tried to outdo the marxist hope for the inevitable death of the State by nurturing the hope that global wealth and well-being could be achieved by the forces of the market alone. In contrast to this concept, classical liberalism has always asked for a minimal coherence between regulatory interventions and the market forces.
In this context, it is refreshing to hear a philosopher say that democracy must not stop short of the concept of "The People" (or "The Nation"), but has to include, Economy, Politics, and, last but not least, Culture.

Peer Steinbrück and the weight of history: "Die Schweiz, das kleine Stachelschwein, die nehmen wir auf dem Rückweg ein.."

German minister of finance Peer Steinbrück must have slept back in 1968 and 1969 when during his training as a reserve officer of the Deutsche Bundeswehr the subject of the relations between the German Reich, the Wehrmacht and Switzerland was discussed. The above slogan was used by members of the Wehrmacht to explain why they did not invade Switzerland between 1939 and 1942.
Switzerland, when frontally attacked, is no easy adversary. The questions that are to be discusse these days are neither the inappropriate behaviour of Swiss banker Joe Ackermann at the helm of Deutsche Bank nor the behaviour of hundreds of milliardaire German citizens that have evaded German taxes by buying houses in the Swiss Alps, but the excellent cooperation of the Swiss Federal Reserve (Schweizerische Nationalbank) with the European Central Bank and the anger of hundreds of thousand of Swiss citizens and foreign inhabitants working in Switzerland who pay heavy taxes on the communal, cantonal an federal level over
unqualified remarks by a member of the German government.
The Swiss are themselves very well aware of the imperfections of their tax system, but they are absolutely adamant in asking for the right to fix this mess themselves.
Peer Steinbrück may be reminded that e.g. in the Canton of Basel-City, taxation is not negotiable, whereas such solutions are in use in certain Central Swiss Cantons.
An excuse not only to the Federal government, but to the ordinary Swiss citizens by Peer Steinbrück is overdue.

Theater and Politics - From Shakespeare's personalities to clones of Silvio Berlusconi

Shakespeare's drama Anthony and Cleopatra is rarely seen on stage in Continental European theater. Shown at the THEATER BASEL under the direction of Christina Paulhofer in a German translation by Elisabeth Plessen, it earned a cool welcome by the Basel public and the press. However, the most virulent criticism came from those who deplored the balanced description of both the geopolitical struggle between Egypt and Rome and the private problems of the protagonists in the foreground of the play by director Christina Paulhofer.
In fact, Paulhofer's interpretation was proof of the modernity of Shakespeare's view of political drama. The great difference between today's political scene and the one Shakespeare described lies in the fact that political leaders nowadays seldom pay with their lives for what they do to their own people - or to others. Most probably,they will die in their beds. At least, this seems to be the case for the senior autocrats Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe. Others, like Silvio Berlusconi, will try to achieve eternal youth through biomedical tricks and might one day become immortalized either by virtual digitalized dummies who can continue to play their role, to do their dirty tricks and to make silly jokes ad infinitum or, who knows, by clones.

The assisted suicide of the smaller of the "Sister Republics" and it's assistants

Switzerland and the United States of America were considered, throughout the 19th century, as "sister republics", based on the similarities of their Constitutions.In Switzerland it was assumed that the United States had copied the Swiss political system, but this is clearly the result of complete historical ignorance. The Swiss were very much interested to know how the United States managed to overcome the colonial rule of the British Empire. An example: the first translation of the original text of the declaration of independence into German was published by the Swiss Isaac Iselin, secretary of state of the city republic of Basel (in: Ephemeriden der Menschheit, October 1776) http://www.dhm.de/magazine/unabhaengig/dippel_e.htm
And when Switzerland adopted a new Federal Constitution in 1848, after a short civil war between a separatist coalition of conservative, mainly roman catholic cantons (the so-called "Sonderbund") of central Switzerland against the radical liberal majority, it's parliamentary system became an exact copy of the American two chamber parliament, i.e. the  House of Representatives and the Senate. This choice was the fruit of more than a decade of patient lobbying for the American model of parliamentarism by a Swiss philosopher, Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler (1780-1866).The friendship of the unequal "Sister Republics" has survived many political storms but it may soon come to an end thanks to a form of "assisted political suicide".The subprime crisis, the subsequent downfall of UBS chairman Marcel Ospel and the latest developments in the law suit against former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld may produce permanent damage to the image of Switzerland and to it's self-esteem, as a place where serious business is done in a clean way.If the youthful and dynamic Barack Obama is elected as President of the United States, a 21st century reenactment of the "New Deal" will most certainly take place,
and it may even take a nationalist(-social) turn, with harsh winds blowing over the Atlantic. The damage that Switzerland has done to itself by to closely linking it's political and economice fortunes to those of it's megalomaniac global banks
might lead to a softly assisted suicide of the smaller of the two Sister Republics",
will then weaken it's international stand in a way that may push it to take shelter in the arms of the European Union, thus committing an assisted suicide.
It may be the last consequence of a dubious tradition, initiated by Ludwig A Minelli, the founder of DIGNITAS, and Marcel Ospel may become the dignified assistant of the political suicide of a country that once was proud of it's independence.

The New USSR - PP

Considering recent trends in European politics, with particular emphasis on three countries: Russia, Serbia and Switzerland, we can observe a convergence on certain values and on political methods.
One interesting phenomenon is the attractivity of Christoph Blocher's Swiss People's Party for newly nationalized Swiss citizens of Serbian origin. Another common feature is the staunch resistence against participation in the European Union which is considered as a major threat to national identity and for the maintenance of local values in all three countries. Isolationism is another common phenomenon
The result may be a revival of the USSR under new auspices:
The blogger community is kindly invited to comment on my proposal to call this new sphere of common interests USSR-PP, the Union of Serbian, Swiss and Russian People's Parties.

The uses and misuses of the "NAZI-KEULE"

On February 14, 2008, the editorialist Martin Senti of the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" complained about the use of the so-called "Nazi-Keule" in a recent exchange of verbal injuries between the President of the Swiss Confederation, Pascal Couchepin, and one of the most outspoken and aggressive protagonists of the Swiss People's Party, Christoph Mörgeli.
In recent political disputes in Switzerland comparisons of present-time extremist tendencies have shown a preference to associate the adversary's position either with Italian fascism or German national socialism.

My repeated suggestion to draw a line of distinctio between the two forms of totalitarism has not been successful for the simple reason that the perception of historical political events and trends of the twentieth century has continued to fade away even in the heads of cultivated journalists.

The visitor of this blog will find a comment to President Couchepin's failure to make the necssary distinction on the blog http://www.arlesheimreloaded.ch, in German ("Sie irren, Herr Bundespräsident") and in French ("à M.le président de la confédération").

A letter to the editor that I wrote in response to the editorialist of NZZ has not been accepted for publication.
Therefore I present it here:

Ich bin grundsätzlich damit einverstanden, dass es historisch unsinnig ist, extremistische Tendenzen in der Schweiz mit dem Nationalsozialismus zu assoziieren.
Richtigerweise haben Sie, Herr Senti, die Absurdität des entsprechenden Vorwurfs von Herrn Mörgeli an die Adresse der
SP, dargelegt. Ich stelle aber fest, dass auch in Ihrem heutigen Text der Nationalsozialismus und der (italienische) Faschismus in einem Atemzug genannt werden, was ebenfalls historisch falsch ist, selbst unter Berücksichtigung der Achse Berlin-Rom.
Der italienische Faschismus war in der Phase seiner grössten Virulenz (und Akzeptanz) antisozialistisch, und stand damit ideologisch in diametralem Gegensatz zur nationalsozialistischen Bewegung in Deutschland, die ja selbst von zeitgenössischen Kommunisten wie Curzio Malaparte (in seinem Buch "Technik des Staatsstreichs", "Technica del Colpo di
Stato" von 1932) als "bestgetarnte kommunistische Bewegung" wahrgenommen wurde.
Benito Mussolini hat nach seiner Wahl als Abgeordneter in der Kammer sein Programm wie folgt definiert:
"Der Staat muss auf seine wesentlichste, einfachste Form zurückgebracht werden. ein gutes Heer haben, eine gute Polizei, eine glatt funktionierende Justiz, und er muss eine den Erfordernissen der Nation gemässe Aussenpolitik betreiben. Alles Übrige soll der Privatinitiative überlassen bleiben..." (Emilio LUSSU: "Marsch auf Rom und Umgebung", Folio Verlag, Bozen, 2007, p.24. , Originalausgabe "Marcia su Roma e Dintorni", Paris 1933).
Der heutige Leser würde zweifellos ein solche Programm als "neoliberal" identifizieren, und so konnte denn auch Mussolini sich mit dem von Lussu beschriebenen ideologischen Ansatz die Bewunderung und die zunächst still-schweigende, später offene Unterstützung der liberalen Kräfte in Italien sichern.
Emilio Lussu, der sardische Föderalist und spätere Minister in der ersten italienischen Nachkriegsregierung De Gasperi, der Mussolini von Anfang an konsequent bekämpft hatte, liefert in seinem Buch eine hervorragende Analyse der
psychologischen und soziologischen Besonderheiten des Aufstiegs des italienischen Faschismus.

Die Tatsache, dass Italien während des Faschismus eine Monarchie geblieben war, dass der König Mussolini absetzen konnte, dass schliesslich die Justiz eine partielle Unabhängigkeit bewahren konnte, hat die Erinnerung an den Faschismus ist in- und ausserhalb Italiens durch dessen Fasasade der "Bonhommie", einer gewissen Eleganz und Modernität verklärt, die Brutalität des Regimes quasi verniedlicht. Zur Ambivalenz gegenüber dem italienischen Faschismus hat auch dessen zum Teil ausgesprochen elegante Architektursprache beigetragen, wie die "Casa del Fascio" des berühmten Architekten Giuseppe Terragni in Como beweist.
Das weichgezeichnete Bild des Faschismus hat auch dazu beigetragen, dass der starke nicht-sozialistische, liberale Widerstand gegen das Regime und dessen hervorragende Repräsentanten wie z.B. der Schwager Emilio Lussus, Max Salvadori, und deren Wirken im heutigen Italien kaum noch bekannt sind.
Mit den Zinsen dieses psychologischen Kapitals und dieser im Gegensatz zu Deutschland fast vollständig verdrängten Vergangenheit wuchern im heutigen Italien die Herren Berlusconi und Fini. Ihre "Forza Italia", "Polo della Libertà"
oder neuestens "Popolo della Liberta" reklamieren für sich das Erbe des Liberalismus, während sie gleichzeitig den aufgeklärten Ordnungsstaat, Conditio sine qua non eines liberalen Staatswesens, verhöhnen.

Man muss blind sein, um die zweifellos vorhandenen Parallelen zwischen dem italienischen Faschismus, seiner
postmodernen Epigonen und der Rhetorik gewisser "Volksparteien" zu übersehen. Dass die NZZ, und leider auch die FDP,
nicht in der Lage oder nicht bereit sind, den ideengeschichtlichen Hintergrund, welcher allen Dementis zum Trotz die
Basis für die hemdsärmelige Polemik zwischen unserem Bundespräsidenten und Herrn Mörgeli bildet, wenigstens zur
Kenntnis zu nehmen, ist bedauerlich.