Saturday, December 18, 2010

Is Switzerland an important factor of instability for the future of Europe?

According to an interview of DIE ZEIT with Luxemburg's prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker,"Switzerland would be stabilized by joining the European Union".
It is quite evident that the European Union is in an unstable financial and political condition these days despite the harmony displayed during last week's meeting of the heads of government and their stabilization program that should be functional by 2014.
Why does the prime minister of a tiny European country which has been known as a tax haven consider Switzerland as unstable?
The image of Switzerland has been tarnished lately by our inconsidered use and abuse of direct democracy to address problems which are virulent throughout Europe, namely xenophobia, ethnic and interreligious conflicts, and by the constant rise of the New Right which tends to transform the Confederation into a nationalistic, corporatistic, neofeudal structure. The new right has a strong appeal to evangelical fundamentalism and in many aspects has shown an image and an activity comparable to the excesses of the Tea Party as spearhead of the New Right in the United States "The Sister Republic").

From a European point of view, the new right in Switzerland is a driving force and a
factor of encouragement for a restaurative counterproject to the European Union: a Europe returning to a status before the French Revolution, a Europe composed of greater and smaller monarchies which would interact through their sovereigns, not through a democratic process and most certainly not through parliamentary democracy.

Back to the Ancien Regime
In the Europe of the "Ancien Regime", wars were fought as a kind of innocent child's play between kings and princes, by professional armies, the victims of these wars were no-names, the sons of poor peasants who lost their lifes more often through hunger and infectious diseases than through the effect of weapons.

Within this Europe, Switzerland was known for it's foreign services (--> Jean-René BORY: "Die Fremdendienste",1980)system which produced troops of excellent discipline, led by descendents of noble families from the countryside (von Salis, Pfyffer von Altishofen, de Diesbach,de Graffenried etc.) and leased to European sovereigns by the Cantonal governments which were at the time under the control of the same noble families.
Swiss cities like Basel, Zurich and Geneva, less keen to deliver armed services to
foreign powers, were active in the financing of these troops.
The discipline of the foreign services had been forged during the so-called "Burgunder Kriege" between the Swiss and Charles the Bold of Burgundy when commanders of Swiss troops had been adamant in securing the control over the bounty. Withholding bounty from the authorities was severely punished through penal procedures in the hands of judges that had been elected within the military unit (an element of small scale, communal/local democracy typical for Switzerland). Willibald PIRCKHEIMER described the quality of the Swiss troops and the "commercium hominum" it produced in his famous book "Der Schweizerkrieg" of 1499).
A major part of the Burgundy bounty was sold through intermediaries in Basel to the Fugger merchant family in Augsburg (cf. Günther OGGER: Kauf Dir einen Kaiser, 1978) and the fact that the soldiers of the confederate forces that had fought in Morat, Grandon and Nancy never saw a cent of the sale led to important unrest within the country (Saubannerzug of 1477).

The Swiss New Right as a factor of encouragement to restaurative trends throughout Europe


The leader of the Swiss New Right, Christoph Blocher, and his biographer, Markus Somm, a historian (and since recently the boss of the "Basler Zeitung")know this part of history very well.
Their project for Switzerland is an idyllic one: a country which is a strong economic force with multilateral connections, a military force and a formal federalistic democcracy in the hands of some newly rich families pleased by the ideas that finally, the good old times have come back. Swiss citizens should work hard, ask no questions about their bosses, vote for the Swiss People's Party and enjoy yodelling and serving fondue to people like Vladimir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi, and last but not least, be militarily organized in order to protect the neoliberal helvetic elite.

This is a project that is likely to work as a model for the European New Right, and if Jean-Claude Juncker thinks that Switzerland could be more stable, the main question is:
Does he think of a stable neofeudal Switzerland in a stable neofeudal Europe? Are his historical references anchored in a period before or after 1789?

A phantom is haunting Europe: it is not the phantom of communism, but the phantom of neofeudalism.

Monday, December 06, 2010

Mit Gott, König und Vaterland
zogen die Deutschen 1914 in den Krieg, dessen mangelhafte Aufarbeitung unser Nachbarland und die Welt direkt in die Katastrophe des 2.Weltkriegs führte und Europa für immer aus dem Kreis der Weltmächte verbannte. Mit Gott, Blocher und Vaterland will die SVP die Schweiz in eine paranoide Umklammerungspsychose führen, in der Alles, was nicht auf eidgenössischem Mist gewachsen oder wenigstens mit heimatlichem Mist gedüngt wurde, als gefährlich, weil "heimatmüde", "link" und "nett" und neuerdings sogar "gottlos" deklariert wird.
Die Parallelität der Anrufung des Allmächtigen durch die Führungsriege der SVP zur frommen Tea Party Strategie einer Sarah Palin ist erschreckend. Sara Palin soll kürzlich J.F.Kennedys Einstellung zu Staat und Religion kritisert haben, der gesagt hatte, man solle ihn nicht wegen seines Katholizismus wählen, sondern wegen seines politischen Programms. Sara Palins Urteil: Kennedy sei "vor der Religion davongelaufen".
Die Trennung von Kirche und Staat, eine Errungenschaft der Aufklärung, ist offenbar nach der Auffassung der "konservativen Revolutionäre" hüben und drüben des Atlantiks nicht mehr opportun.
Wie heisst es noch in einem Brief des Preussenkönigs Friedrich des Grossen vom 22.Juni 1740? "In meinem Staat soll Jeder nach seiner Façon seelig werden." Von dieser Haltung entfernen wir uns täglich weiter.
Und die bange Frage lautet, ob als Gegenmodell zum shiitischen Gottesstaat, unter dessen Rute das iranische Volk zu leben versucht, nur noch der evangelikal-christliche Gottesstaat in Frage kommt?
Sollen Alle, die nicht mehrmals täglich Gottes Gnade lautstark für sich und für ihre Sache - und möge die noch so schräg, irrational und menschenfeindlich sein - zu monopolisieren suchen, als gottlos und verworfen gelten?

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Collegium logicum

ANALOGIEN und PARADOXA

Wenn der Satz richtig ist
"Nestlé kills Babies"
Warum
trinken dann Alle Nespresso?

Wenn der Satz richtig ist
"Schweizer wählen SVP?"
Warum
gibt es dann Menschen, die nicht SVP wählen?


ERKLÄRUNGSVERSUCH

1. Nestlé tötet (wahrscheinlich) nicht Babies und (noch) nicht Alle trinken Nespresso
2. (Noch) nicht alle Schweizer wählen SVP und unter denjenigen, die nicht SVP wählen, befinden sich (wahrscheinlich) viele BewohnerInnen von Städten und/oder AuslandschweizerInnen.>

Oder so ähnlich

Osservatore Profano

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Who will teach the Swiss to realize that they are tough against petty criminals while showing a blind eye on corporate crime?
The popular initiative for a constitutional amendment on the expulsion of criminal foreigners ("Ausschaffungs-Initiative") which has won a narrow majority of the vote last weekend (the negative outcome in the cities where foreigners are present has been overruled by the majority in the countryside where foreigners are rare) will have to be treated in parliament where modifications on details will be possible.
Since the amendment obliges criminal courts to compulsory expulsion of foreigners convicted for murder and robbery, but also for a series of petty crimes such as non declaration of small amounts of income in housekeeping personal, the parliamentary discussion will be an interesting one.
Will the catalogue be expanded to include criminal activities in economy and finance?
So far, Swiss voters have shown a blind eye on organized crime which in the past has great quantities of capital into our bank accounts and are unwilling to reduce inequality which has risen to heights never seen in the past.
Unfortunately, corruption is lingering in a country which is regularly praised for it's competitivity and it's corruption-free public institutions, under the umbrella of one of the most important, if not the most important international sports organization, the FIFA, and it's president, Mr. Joseph Blatter, who cannnot be expulsed under the new constitutional amendment - because he is a Swiss citizen.

It will be very interesting to follow the debate on detailed regulations based on the constitutional amendment in parliament.