Marsch auf Bern und Umgebung

2011-04-10T11:22:00.004+02:00

Die Ständeratskampagne der SVP ist eine gute Illustration für die Konsequenz, mit der die Weisungen des "konservativen Revolutionärs" (Markus Somm) C.B. von seinen Jüngern umgesetzt werden. Der Vorwurf an den Ständerat, er sei eine "Dunkelkammer" enthält nicht nur einen antiparlamentarischen Subtext, sondern stellt einen direkten Angriff auf die Bundesverfassung von 1848, die staatsrechtliche Piece de résistance der modernen Schweiz, dar.
Jeder Schweizer Bürgerin und jedem Schweizer Bürger sei deshalb vor den Wahlen im Herbst die Lektüre des Erfahrungsberichts des sardischen Abgeordneten Emilio Lussu aus den Zwanziger Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts unter dem Titel "Marsch auf Rom und Umgebung" empfohlen.

Parsi-Bâle

2011-04-05T19:22:00.008+02:00

Les amateurs de Richard Wagner peuvent admirer, au théâtre de Bâle une mise en scène par le régisseur allemand
Benedikt von Peter qui est à la fois anti-wagnerienne dans la scène austère de Natascha von Steiger et la profondeur de la recherche psychologique rigoureuse du régisseur, mais aussi pleine de respect pour l'oeuvre musical de celui qui disait: "Denn im Kunstwerk werden wir Eins sein" (car dans l'oeuvre d'art, nous serons Un - dans le sens de réuni, ensemble, intègre)...

Photo Copyright Tanja Dahrendorf T+T Fotografie

L'orchestre symphonique de Bâle sous la direction d'Axel Kober, les chanteurs: Alfred Walker dans le rôle d'Amfortas, Ursula Füri-Bernhard dans celui de Kundry, le Parsifal de Rolf Romei, le Gurnemanz de Liang Li, chacun des autres solistes et le choeur,tous contribuent à une soirée d'opéra merveilleuse.

Trois jours avant la première, le premier avril 2011, on pouvait observer, sur la scène politique du Canton de Bâle-Ville, un spectacle qui correspondait dans plusieurs aspects au libretto mystique, plein de contradictions syncrétistes et de mysogynie ouverte ou à peine cachée de Richard Wagner. Les présidents des partis bourgeois "traditionnels", donc des démocrates-chrétiens (PDC/CVP, représentés par leur vice-président en remplcament de leur président, actuellement président du Grand-Conseil), des radicaux (PLR/FDP), de leurs cousins fédéralistes non fusionnés, les libéraux (LDP), et de l'UDC/SVP, soutenus par les trois conseillers d'état PDC,FDP et LDP présentèrent aux médias un candidat commun pour le Conseil des Etats lors les élections fédérales de cet automne. A la surprise des représentants des médias et plus tard du public, qui d'abord croyait à un poisson d'avril, c'est le conseiller national UDC/SVP Sebastian Frehner, arrivé à son mandat dernièrement grâce à la retraite du chirurgien vasculaire et grand-seigneur Dunant qui avait été le premier UDC à sièger à Berne pour Bâle-Ville.

Photo Copyright http://www.onlineports.ch Peter Knechtli Basel

Ressemblant au garçon innocent Parsifal de par son apparition externe et par sa politesse peu commune dans les rangs les représentants des l'UDC dans le Canton, le candidat reçut de la part du groupe réuni en conférence de presse des éloges que l'on n'avait jamais auparavant entendu vis-à-vis d'un politicien UDC. L'impression d' assister à une assemblée de chevaliers du Graal impatients d'être délivrés d'une grave calamité était complétée par le fait qu'il n'y avait aucune femme présente dans la cérémonie. Un des participants, le libéral Christoph Eymann, avait déclaré, quelques années auparavant, de vouloir oeuvrer pour un "Canton libre de la présence de l'UDC".
Ses chances d'être nommé candidat pour le mandat de Conseiller des Etats et même d'ètre élu à la place de la Conseillère des Etats actuelle, socialiste, avaient été intactes en début de cette année, jusqu'au moment où la direction du PDC/CVP avait renoncé à des listes communes avec l'UDC pour le Conseil National et avait, par ce volte-face, anéanti du coup les chances d'Eymann. Le même PDC/CVP était maintenant, quelques semaines plus tard, rentré dans les rangs pour présenter le coup candidat commun pour les Etats. Machiavellisme parfait.
Reprenant le scénario de Parsifal de Richard Wagner, il faut peu d'imagination pour comparer le candidat libéral trahi avec Amfortas, le chef des chevaliers du Graal,
blessé par son adversaire Klingsor. Chez Wagner, Klingsor n'est présent dans le déroulement du drame que pendant un tiers de l'action, il agit à l'arrière-plan.
Nul autre que l'actuel président du Grand Conseil de Bâle, Markus Lehmann, absent lors de l'inthronisation du jeune Parsifal Sébastien Frehner, pourrait mieux incarner le rôle de Klingsor qui, on le sait, a mortellement blessé Amfortas.
Ainsi, en parallèle du drame wagnérien sur la scène du théâtre de Bâle, s'est déroulé sur la scène politique de l'ancienne république rhénane, un drame similaire.
Les libéraux traditionnels LDP et leur homme de tête Eymann dans le rôle d'Amfortas,
et le PDC/SVP avec son président dans celui de Klingsor. Mais où est Kundry, la femme qui représente, pour Wagner l'énigme féminin par lequel on est éternellement attiré et dont on doit se débarasser pour être "heil", guéri? C'est aussi simple que le reste,
elle est incarnée, pour les chevaliers du Graal bâlois, par la Conseillère des Etats
actuelle, la socialiste Anita Fetz.
Les élections fédérales de cet automne promettent des combats d'une intensité wagnérienne, et on ne doit pas être prophète pour deviner que le candidat principal
pour la mise en scène sera le disciple fidèle (converti politique) et lieu-tenant local de Christoph Blocher, le rédacteur-en chef de la Basler Zeitung, Markus Somm.
En résumé, on peut s'attendre à une bataille rangée entre wagnériens et anti-wagnériens et peut-être tout simplement entre hommes (de droite?) et femmes (de gauche?).Les couleurs des partis s'estomperont au cours de cette bataille acharnée pour les âmes de citoyens. On le saura lorsque toutes les voix seront comptées et lorsque les amazones et les chevaliers du Graal retrouveront le souffle pour lècher leur blessures, infligées réciproquement au détriment de la République.

2011-03-27T17:41:00.003+02:00

Peripheral Fading and Swiss politics

In 1804, the Swiss ophthalmologist (later a political philosopher) Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler (1780-1866) published the results of his clinical studies on the changes in visual perception when a certain object is fixed intensively. The title of this publication was: "Ueber das Verschwinden bestimmter Gegenstände aus unserem Gesichtskreise" (on the disappearance of certain objects from our visual field), and the phenomenon described by Troxler, the "peripheral fading" is known in neuropsychological research as "Troxler Effect".
The Swiss People's Party's central theme is Switzerland, i.e. a certain isolationist, paternalist and corporatist image of our country and of the nation defined by the party's senior mentor, Christoph Blocher.

The glasses, through which the actual president of the SVP, Toni Brunner, invites Swiss voters to view the world, in order to win the federal parliamentary elections in Switzerland, are an excellent illustration for the loss of peripheral perception in the field of culture, politics and economy which commands his party's politics and which renders the party and it's followers blind to whatever happens outside our territory.

2011-01-02T14:39:00.002+01:00

Will Christoph Blocher zurück ins Réduit?
Christoph Blocher, der Spätgeborene, bedauert offenbar, nicht zur "Aktivdienstgeneration" gehört zu haben, die vordergründig mit der Waffe in der Hand, im Hintergrund aber abgeschirmt vor einer Besetzung des Landes durch die Achsenmächte dank umfangreicher wirtschaftlicher Konzessionen, vom ungehinderten Güterverkehr zwischen Deutschland und Italien mittels plombierten Güterwagen auf der Gotthard-Linie bis zum Waschen von Raubgold, das alpine Kernland der Eidgenossenschaft unter Aufgabe des Mittellandes und der Region Basel verteidigt hat.
Wenn er Meinungsäusserungen von Prominenten aus Kreisen der Europäischen Union zur gegenwärtigen und der möglichen künftigen Rolle der Schweiz in Europa als Echo der nationalsozialistischer Propaganda interpretiert, beweist er, dass ein erfolgreicher Unternehmer noch lange kein Politiker ist, der über seinen geistigen Tellerrand hinauszublicken imstande ist. Sein Kommentar zum Juncker-Interview in der ZEIT bestätigen den Verdacht, dass er noch immer der Réduit-Strategie nachtrauert. Auf die seiner Partei, der SVP, nicht sonderlich wohlgesinnten Romands und auf die nach seiner Auffassung unheilbar linken und degenerierten Stadtbasler, deren Industrie immerhin substantiell zum BSP der Schweiz beiträgt, würde C.B. wohl gern verzichten, wenn sich Gelegenheit dazu böte. Es bleibt nur zu hoffen, dass im Wahljahr 2011 die noch verbleibenden wirklich liberal denkenden Bürgerinnen und Bürger dieses Landes dem Condottiere endlich Paroli bieten und weder den antikapitalistischen Schalmeien-Klängen der SP noch der grobschlächtigen, pseudoliberalen und faschistoiden Propaganda der SVP auf den Leim gehen.

2011-01-02T10:37:00.003+01:00

Lob der Sterblichkeit
Eloge de la mortalité*

*Version française suivra.

Der deutsche Philosoph Wilhelm Schmid hat in der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung vom 26.Dezember 2010 einen bemerkenswerten Essai über das "Ewige Leben" verfasst. Darin fragt er danach, wie die Menschheit, bzw. die Wenigen, die über die materiellen Mittel verfügen, mittels des heute denkbaren biotechnologischen Fortschritts ihr eigenes Leben unbegrenzt zu verlängern, mit dieser materiellen Unsterblichkeit umgehen sollen. Unter anderem wäre ein Fortpflanzungsverbot zu diskutieren.
Wilhelm Schmids Erwägungen laden dazu ein, sich zunächst einmal nach aktuellen Kandidaten für die materielle Unsterblichkeit umzusehen, ferner, in der Menschheitsgeschichte nach bereits bestehenden Vorstellungen über das Wesen der Unsterblichen zu suchen.
In der ersten Kategorie wird man sehr rasch fündig: Namen wie Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi, drängen ins Bewusstsein, gefolgt mit erheblichem Abstand von Gerhard Schröder und Nicolas Sarkozy.
Der Abstand zwischen den zwei Spitzengruppen ergeben sich aus den Unterschieden in den materiellen Mitteln.
Suchen wir nun nach Vorbildern für die Unsterblichkeit in der Menschheitsgeschichte, so stossen wir unweigerlich auf die Bewohner des Olymp, die Götterfamilie der griechischen Antike. Diese haben in Varianten vorgelebt, was Wilhelm Schmid unter dem Fortpflanzungsverbot versteht, allen voran der zwar nicht pädophile, wohl aber pädophage Übervater Kronos. Auf die zentrale männliche Figur, Zeus (in der römischen Mythologie Iupiter) treffen alle Eigenschaften zu, über die ein ernstzunehmender Kandidat für das Ewige Leben verfügen muss: unbedingtes Machtstreben und rücksichtsloser Machterhalt, ungehemmte Willkür, grenzenlose bisexuelle Libido, Vergleichen wir nun die Charakteristika der olympischen Götterfamilie mit den im 21.Jahrhundert bereits verfügbaren Kandidaten, kommt unter den Spitzenkandidaten Silvio Berlusconi dem Ideal des Göttervaters Zeus am nächsten. Mag sein, dass seine mediterrane Herkunft ihn dafür besonders qualifiziert. Seine Vorliebe für minderjährige Models und die Präsenz seiner zürnenden Gemahlin Veronica/Hera/Iuno runden das Bild idealtypisch ab.
Nicht von ungefähr trugen Figur und Maske der Rolle des Giove (Zeus/Iupiter) in der Inszenierung der Barockoper La Calisto im Theater Basel (Saison 2009/2010) unverkennbar die Merkmale des Presidente del Consiglio, nämlich glatt nach hinter gekämmtes schwarz gefärbtes Haar und einen weissen Bademantel (als Zeichen sexueller Betriebsbereitschaft).
Inwiefern Vladimir Putin in jeder Hinsicht dem von Silvio Berlusconi vorgegebenen und vorgelebten Ideal entspricht, ist nicht sicher. Möglicherweise liessen sich aus der Figur des knabenhaften, an Ganymed erinnenden Dmitry Anatoljewitch Medwedew, den Putin sich als Staatspräsident "vorangestellt" hat, Hinweise auf eine mehr als monovalente sexuelle Orientierung des russischen Ministerpräsidenten ableiten.
Von den materiellen Mitteln, vom Alter und von der sportlichen Fitness her würde Vladimir "Weltenherrscher" Putin sogar noch leichter qualifizieren als der doch etwas ältlich wirkende, geliftete Silvio B.

Als Sterblicher ohne materielle Mittel zur Erlangung der Unsterblichkeit, und ohne Interesse an der Langeweile, welche die Bewohner des Olymps dazu veranlasst, ständig angestrengt auf bösartige Streiche und/oder sexuelle Attacken gegen die Sterblichen zu sinnen, wünscht sich Osservatore Profano für das eben begonnene Jahrzehnt im Fall der Realisierung der Vorstellungen Wilhelm Schmids vor allem Eines:
Dass die neuen Unsterblichen mittels einer soliden Trägerrakete auf eine feste Umlaufbahn um die Erde oder noch besser auf eine hyperbole Bahn in den Weltraum geschickt und auf ewige Zeiten verbannt werden mögen.
Mittels konfiszierter Milliardengewinne aus Öl-, Diamanten-, Uran-, Kriegsmaterial- Menschen- und Organ-Handel sollte auch den materiell etwas weniger qualifizierten Kandidaten die Unsterblichkeit verliehen werden und diese im Gegenzug verpflichtet werden, als "Heroen" die aus eigenen Mitteln finanzierten Unsterblichen auf ihre Reise begleiten dürfen.
Die Liste der Kandidaten wäre demnach zu ergänzen durch Individuen wie George W.Bush,
Gerhard Schröder, Nicolas Sarkozy und Christoph Blocher (letzerer als unsterblicher Repräsentant der Confoederatio Helvetica).

Warum "Lob der Sterblichkeit"? Schon die Geschichte der Antike im Mittelmehrraum beweist, dass es stets Sterbliche waren, welche wirklich Heroisches, intellektuell und ethisch Hervorrragendes geleistet haben. Nicht materielle Unsterblichkeit, sondern unendlich vielfältigen Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der Philosophie, der Mathematik, der Astronomie, der Physik schliesslich gehören zum unsterblichen Schatz der Menschheit.
Das möge auch in Zukunft so bleiben.

2010-12-18T09:47:00.005+01:00

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.

2010-12-06T18:53:00.002+01:00

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?

2010-12-05T15:27:00.002+01:00

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

2010-12-04T10:40:00.003+01:00

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.

2010-11-28T15:32:00.006+01:00

Switzerland on it's way to a two-party system
While in many other European countries, and even in Britain, the trend goes towards a more differentiated political party system, Switzerland has now set sails towards a two-party system. The traditional center to center-right parties (Liberals, Christian Democrats and some smaller groups) are continuously loosing their grip on the electorate, while the Swiss People's Party, with it's fundamentalist right wing rhetoric and appeal to political frustration,has managed to successfully undermine the electoral base of the center.
Despite it's claim to represent the true politival values and traditions of this country,the Swiss People's Party tries to classify all those who are against it as leftists (cf. an earlier post on this blog on the question whether all antifascists are communists).
As a traditional liberal, I am horrified by the continuous flow of fascistoid rhetoric produced by the Swiss People's Party and it's monopolization of Swissness.
The emerging right wing bolshevism tries to stamp out differentiated political dialogue in the name of a self-proclamed mission to save the political and cultural auto-stereotype of the country.
In two subsequent votes on popular initiatives it has launched, Swiss People's Party has now won a majority and it is clear that it will use the legitimation from these votes without restraint.
Unfortunately, it is hyighly probable that in the near future anyone who is against the Swiss People's Party will be automatically considered and denounced as a socialist and a bad patriot.

2010-11-22T18:25:00.001+01:00

Fragen und Antworten nach Schweizer Art

2010-11-15T21:15:00.002+01:00

"Der Patron wettert gegen die Liberalen", notierte Roger Köppel am 15.November 2010 in sein Tagebuch. "Je kleiner, desto frecher. Sie dürfen die Übernahme der Basler Zeitung nicht überleben. Sie sind, was in der innerzürcherischen Auseinandersetzung die Splitterparteien (GLP,EVP) waren, sie suchen jede grosse Lösung zu verhindern, sind bestechlich, feige und korrupt." Für Christoph Blocher waren die Basler nichts anderes als ein "missratener Zweig unseres Volkes". Bei anderer Gelegenheit schrieb Roger Köppel von der "geradezu giftsprühenden Hassstimmung gegen uns in Basel. Aber die kommen ja auch noch mal dran. Dann wird diesen verkümmerten Chemielaboranten das Maul gestopft."

Leicht abgeändertes Zitat aus SOMM, Markus: General Guisan - Widerstand nach Schweizer Art, Stämpfli Verlag, Bern, 2010, Seite 104/105.

2010-11-14T09:12:00.005+01:00

Heim ins Reich
Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler wurde 1830 als Ordinarius für Philosophie nach Basel berufen, weil ein Deutscher, der Theologe De Wette, in ihm die Figur sah, welche der Universität zum Status der ersten National-Universität der Schweiz verhelfen würde. Zwei Jahr später, nachdem Troxler Stellung für die aufständischen Baselbieter bezogen hatte, war er nach Aarau vertrieben und De Wette fragte sich, welcher Teufel ihn geritten habe, diesen Mann nach Basel zu holen.
Troxler hat unter der Vertreibung aus Basel sehr gelitten, aber er war intelligent und bescheiden genug, um sich in einer der schwierigsten Phasen der jüngeren Schweizer Geschichte zu einem klugen Ratgeber für die Weiterentwicklung des Staatswesens zu wandeln. Ihm verdanken wir das Zweikammerparlament nach amerikanischem Muster.

180 Jahre später kommt Christoph Blocher gem. NZZ am Sonntag vom 14.November 2010 mit einem umfassenden Mandat für die Restrukturierung der Basler Zeitung nach Basel, weil es Menschen gibt, die ihn als Wunderdoktor für die Genesung von Staat und Gesellschaft betrachten.
Der Subtext seines Kommens lautet aber über ein Restrukturierungsmandat hinaus: die Stadt am Rhein "heim ins Reich" zu holen, in das Reich seiner Partei, der SVP.
Das Mandat, das er von den Herren Wagner und Tettamanti erhalten hat, ist so etwas wie ein mediales Ermächtigungsgesetz.
In einem historisch überholten, aus der Zeit des 2.Weltkriegs stammenden Verständnis der Willensnation als homogenem Nationalstaat, als Staat nach seinen, Blochers Vorestellungen, was die Schweiz sein muss, aus einem fundamentalistischen persönlichen Sendungsbewusstsein heraus, betreibt Christoph Blocher das, was in letzter Konsequenz zum Zerfall ebendieser Willensnation führen muss. Meinungsdiktat, Populismus, grenzenlose Polarisierung, Zerstörung aller Kräfte der Mitte sind die Instrumente, auf welchen Blocher und seine postfaschistische Gefolgschaft virtuos spielen.
"Die Schweiz, das kleine Stachelschwein, das holen wir auf dem Heinweg heim" hiess es einst im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Christoph Blocher möchte sich Basel als Dessert (die Läckerli hat er schon) gönnen, nachdem er mit dem Rest der Schweiz fertig geworden ist. Was er von den Welschen hält, hat er nach der EWR-Abstimmung deutlich genug gesagt: "Diese Franzosen...". Notfalls wird er sich mit einem deutschsprachigen geistigen Réduit zufrieden geben.

2010-10-31T15:24:00.008+01:00

Bald Volksgerichtshöfe Made in Switzerland?
Die bevorstehende Volksabstimmung über die sogenannte Ausschaffungsinitiative der Schweizerischen Volkspartei fügt sich nahtlos in die langfristige Gleichschaltungsstrategie dieser Partei. Unter dem Mantel der "Respektierung des Volkswillens" wird der Justiz ihre Unabhängigkeit entzogen, wird die Dritte Gewalt auf eine nationalistische Linie gebracht. Im Falle der Annahme der Initiative wird nicht mehr die individuelle Abwägung aller Argumente des Gerichts Priorität haben , sondern ein fester Katalog von Vorschriften, welche Delikte und welches Strafmass für ausländische Staatsbürger die automatische Ausweisung aus dem Lande zur Folge haben sollen.
Das eidgenössische Parlament hat nicht gewagt, diese Initiative wegen ihrer Unvereinbarkeit mit allgemeinen rechtsstaatlichen Grundsätzen für ungesetzlich zu erklären, sondern einen schwachen Gegenvorschlag eingebracht, der unverzüglich von der Propaganda-Maschinerie der SVP mit harten Bandagen angegriffen, so dass die Pro- Propaganda für die Initiative direkt schon harmlos wirkt, da sie auf dem bereits früher verwendete Motiv der weissen Schafe, welche ein schwarzes Schaf vertreiben, basiert.

Im schweizerischen Mittelland sind am Strassenrand nur noch Plakate für die Initiative und solche gegen den Gegenvorschlag zu sehen (im Bild unten links)

Die propagandistische Gleichschaltung des öffentlichen Raums ist hier bereits erfolgreich vollzogen.

Wie gekonnt die SVP ihre Propaganda für unkritische Bürgerinnen und Bürger aufzieht, zeigt die nachstehende Grafik mit dem Titel: "So stimmen Sie richtig"

Interessant ist, dass sich der Wirtsachaftsdachverband Economie Suisse um eine Unterstützung des Gegenvorschlags drückt, und dass die ideologisch imprägnierte Linke mit einem doppelten Nein gegen diesen anzutreten müssen glaubt, ein hoffnungsloses Unterfangen.

Osservatore Profano jedenfalls wird zähneknirschend ein Ja für den nur wenig besseren, mit der Menschenrechtskonvention halbwegs vereinbaren Gegenvorschlag votieren, um das schlimmste zu verhindern, das endgültige Abrutschen der Schweiz in eine von Zukunftsangst und Xenophobie gekennzeichnete nationalistische Psychose.

Die SVP wird mit Sicherheit in den nächsten Monaten und Jahren mit ähnlichen Kampagnen und Initiativen aufwarten, eine nächste Zielscheibe nach erfolgreicher Knebelung der Justiz unter dem Deckmantel eines falsch verstandenen nationalen Interesses und einer schon aufgrund des Föderalismus unmöglichen Homogenität des Nationalgefühls könnten die Medien sein.

2010-10-04T18:54:00.004+02:00

Moskaupilger

In der Zeit des kalten Krieges bezeichnete man Kommunisten und Sozialisten gerne als "Moskaupilger", manche bekamen auch den mehr oder weniger freundschaftlichen Rat, "nach Moskau abzuhauen". Derartige Aufforderungen sind seit 1989 nicht mehr nötig, die Pilgerfahrt ist salonfähig geworden, wenn auch unter veränderten Vorzeichen.
Die NZZ vom 4.Oktober 2010 berichtet in der Rubrik "Persönlich" und unter dem Titel "Der 'Russefrynd' von Andermatt" über den garantiert bürgerlich denkenden und gewiss auch patriotisch gesinnten Metzgermeister Ferdinand Muheim aus Andermatt, der das Erbe von General Suworow pflegt und deshalb mit dem Orden des Patriarchats von Moskau und mit dem vbon Vladimir Putin geschaffenen "Orden der Freundschaft" ausgezeichnet wurde.
Die private Verbundenheit eines wackeren Mannes aus dem Urserental mit Russland wäre an sich noch kein Anlass zur Kritik, wäre da nicht der gnadenlose Revisionismus der aktuellen russischen Geschichtschreibung,in der u.a. die Auffassung vertreten wird, Suworow habe die Franzosen aus der Schweiz vertrieben, obwohl das Gegenteil der Fall war.
Suworow, zweifellos ein hervorragender Heerführer, mit einer für sein fortgeschrittenes Alter überraschend guten körperlichen Verfassung, war gleichzeitig einer der rücksichtslosesten Menschenschinder der Militärsgeschichte, der seine Truppen extremen Risiken aussetzte, die ihre Kampfkraft so schwächten, dass sie von den zahlenmässig weitaus schwächeren, in einem weit über den Alpenraum auseinandergezogenen Dispositiv agierenden französischen Truppen von General Lecourbe (Claude-Jacques Lecourbe, 1759-1815) relativ leicht kanalisiert und im Schach gehalten werden konnten. Wer die Kriegführung der französischen Truppen im extrem anspruchsvollen alpinen Gelände etwas genauer studiert, ist überrascht, wie gut sie dieses zu nutzen wussten. Hervorragend war offenbar im Gegensatz zu den Koalitionstruppen auch der Nachrichtendienst. Ohne aktive Unterstützung von schweizerischer Seite wäre dies kaum möglich gewesen. Nach dem Ende der Helvetik, vor allem in der Restauration nach 1815, betrachtete man hierzulande lange jene Kräfte, welche die Franzosen unterstützt hatten, einfach als Landesverräter. Dass nicht wenige, wie etwa der Basler Peter Ochs, dies aus Überzeugung und aufgrund der unzweifelhaften Errungenschaften der französischen Revolution taten, wurde aus dem kollektiven Gedächtnis verbannt. Der unvergessene Markus Kutter hat in seinen Schriften versucht, diese Clichés zu hinterfragen.

Es ist merkwürdig und auch für die schweizerische Historiographie beschämend, dass der Suworow-Kult ein solches Ausmass angenommen hat. Die russische Elite hat offensichtlich die Lehren aus der plumpen Propaganda der stalinistischen Zeit gezogen und weiss die weitverbreitete Ignoranz über die Geschichte der Schweiz während der Helvetik und vor allem während der "Campagne d'Helvétie" von 1799 klug zu nutzen, um wackere Eidgenossen - und die NZZ gleich dazu - in die Verfolgung ihrer Grossmacht-Aspirationen einzuwickeln.
Traurig ist auch das absolute Desinteresse der Intelligentsia Frankreichs unter Nicolas Sarkozy am Rollback der europäischen Geschichte von Osten her.
Das Resultat für die Schweiz als Ganzes ist verheerend: Ignoranz und Desinteresse an historischer Wahrheit bedienen die über 200 Jahre alte Polarität zwischen der tendenziell russophilen Zentral- und Ostschweiz und der frankophilen Nordwest- und Westschweiz. Das ist Gift für den Zusammenhalt der Willensnation.

Save the Arts: A Poster by Jeremy Deller, Scott King and William ...

2010-10-04T13:53:00.000+02:00

Save the Arts: A Poster by Jeremy Deller, Scott King and William ...

2010-08-31T19:40:00.003+02:00

Freiheit und Anstand bedingen sich gegenseitig
Zum Einstand des neuen Chefredaktor der Basler Zeitung, Markus Somm

Der in einem Überraschungs-Coup eingewechselte Chefredaktor der Basler Zeitung (von Tito Tettamantis und dessen Famulus Wagners Gnaden) meldet sich gleich an seinem ersten Arbeitstag mit einem Tageskommentar zu Wort. Er wählt als Thema die Kontroverse um Thilo Sarrazins Äusserungen zur Immigration, lobt die Freiheit des Wortes und kommt zum Schluss:
"Nicht Redeverbote schützen die Demokratie, sondern das freie Wort für jeden - ganz gleich, wie höflich oder unanständig es vorgetragen wird."
Grundsätzlich ist an dieser Aussage nichts auszusetzen, und doch "steckt in ihr so viel verborgenes Gift", wie Mephisto in Faust I es in der Theologie vermutet.
Das verborgene Gift ist die Verknüpfung von Freiheit und Unanständigkeit.
Es kann der Freiheit nicht dienen, wenn Anstand als etwas Minderwertiges betrachtet wird. Die Medien haben gerade in dieser Hinsicht eine grosse Verantwortung, und wenn sie diese nicht wahrnehmen, kippen scheinbar liberale Kulturen rasch in postfaschistische, neofeudale Systeme um.

2010-02-20T15:03:00.002+01:00

Cristoforo Blocher, por Gracia de Dios Caudillo de Suiza ?
Christoph Blocher, von Gottes Gnaden Führer der Schweiz ?
Cristoforo Blocher, Unto del Signore, Presidente della Svizzera ?
Christophe Blocher, par la grace de Dieu Président de la Suisse ?

Christoph Blocher verfügt gewiss über eine überdurchschnittliche Intelligenz, eine solide Bildung, gute geschichtliche Kenntnisse und ein gerüttelt Mass an Machstreben.
Dies Alles wäre noch kein Grund, den Mann zu fürchten. Problematisch ist das Gottesgnadentum, aus dem der Sohn eines protestantischen Pfarrers seine politische Mission ableitet. Sein Wirken auf Erden steht unter dem Schutz des Höchsten, die Geistesgaben und die Gesundheit, die ihm von Gott verliehen wurden,befähigen ihn nicht nur dazu, ein erfolgreicher Unternehmer zu sein, sondern verpflichten ihn auch, (heils-)geschichtliche Grosstaten zu vollbringen und zu diesem Zweck mit allen Mitteln an die Hebel der Macht im Lande zu gelangen.
Die Titel seiner jüngsten öffentlichen Auftritte sprechen eine deutliche Sprache. In einem Inserat in der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung vom heutigen 20.Februar 2010 kündigt er ein Referat mit dem Titel "Warum stehen unsere Eliten mit dem Rücken zur Wand? - Eine Klarstellung" an.
Was soll das heissen? Wie soll der einfache Bürger diesen Satz verstehen?
Wozu diese pauschale Verunglimpfung der Eliten, welche in der komplexen Realität eines Kleinstaates, einen Weg zwischen den Polen eines wirtschaftlichen Global Players und eines komplizierten, auf Konsens angewiesenen direktdemokratischen politischen System suchen müssen?
Ist es eine versteckte Aufforderung, diejenigen Angehörigen der Eliten, welche nicht bereit sind, nach Blochers Pfeife zu tanzen, an die Wand zu stellen?

Ist sich Christoph Blocher, der Gesalbte des Herrn, der zerstörerischen Energie, die in seiner Rhetorik steckt bewusst? Ist er letztlich ein Bussprediger?
Als guter Protestant sollte er sich im Alten Testament gut auskennen. Kein Prophet Israels, der das Gottesvolk zur Umkehr aufrief, hatte Teil an der Macht, suchte die Macht. Aber auch die noch immer gültige politisch-religiöse Referenz der katholischen Schweiz, Niklaus von Flüe, war kein Machtmensch. Er beschränkte sich auf Ratschläge, die gehört und beachtet wurden. Das Gottesgnadentum des deutschen Kaiserreichs war einer der Schlüsselfaktoren für die Katastrophe des 1.Weltkriegs und selbst der rücksichtslose Francisco Franco, por gracia de Dios Caudillo de Espana, erkannte in seinen späten Jahren die Notwendigkeit, die Diktatur in eine konstutionelle Monarchie zu überführen. Die Schweiz eignet sich schon von ihrer Geschichte und von ihrer Grundstruktur her nicht für die Monarchie, aber ebenso wenig verdient unser Land eine Einparteienherrschaft. Wir sind zur Konsensfindung verdammt, was nicht heisst, dass wir faule Kompromisse schliessen sollen. Wir müssen miteinander ringen, aber wir müssen uns auch an Spielregeln für dieses Ringen halten. Dazu gehört Fairness und Verzicht auf Hetzreden und Schreckung der Bevölkerung. Auch wenn Einer sich wie Christoph Blocher berufen fühlt, auszuziehen, um das Land zu retten, muss er diese Spielregeln einhalten, andernfalls erreicht er das Gegenteil dessen, was er vorhat.

2010-02-03T06:09:00.008+01:00

Vor der Wiederkunft des "Volksstaats"

Als im Jahr 2005 Götz Aly seine Analyse der Finanzpolitik der Nationalsozialisten unter dem Titel "Hitlers Volksstaat" veröffentlichte, löste er damit eine heftige Diskussion darüber aus, ob seine klarsichtige Berichterstattung ein Versuch sei die "Kollektivschuld" des deutschen Volkes am Holokaust herabzustufen. Der unbestreitbare Sachverhalt, dass das Finanzgebahren Deutschland nach der Machtergreifung Hitlers darauf ausgerichtet war, die Staatsschuld zu reduzieren und den Zufluss von Cash sicherzustellen - nicht nur für die militärische Rüstung, sondern auch für das "tägliche Brot"des einfachen deutschen Bürgers (inklusive der Renten) - wurde als zu simplistische Erklärung für das möderische Tun des Regimes, inklusive des Holokausts betrachtet.

Nun hat dieser Tage die Frage, ob der Staat das Recht brechen darf, um in einer Situation der finanziellen und ökonomischen Krise die Wirtschaft wieder anzukurbeln, eine neue Virulenzu gewonnen, und Götz Alys Analyse könnte in diesem Lichte an Plausibilität gewinnen.

Die heutige deutsche Kanzlerin Angela Merkel mag eine gute Christin sein, aber die chronische marxistisch-leninistische Indoktrinierung, der sie in ihrer Schulzeit ausgesetzt war, dürfte doch Spuren in ihrem strategischen und taktischen Denken und Handeln hinterlassen haben.

Wir mögen zwar in einer postmarxistischen Aera leben, und traditionelle Werte sind wieder hoch im Kurs, aber das Gesetz des Dschungels in Finanz und Wirtschaft gilt noch immer.

Frau Merkel ist gewiss nicht die Einzige, die der Versuchung eines Handelns im Sinne von Götz Alys "Volksstaat" erliegt. Obama wie Sarkozy und viele andere dürften ihren Spuren folgen, und wenn Christoph Blocher lautstark verkündet, in der deutschen Regierung habe es "kriminelle Elemente", vergisst er wohl, dass er mit seiner Schweizerischen Volks-Partei den Weg zu einer schweizerischen Version des "Volksstaats" vorgespurt hat, wenn diese verspricht: "die kriminellen Ausländer auszuweisen, die Steuern zu senken und der Europäischen Union nicht beizutreten".

Unsern Lesern sei deshalb die Lektüre von Götz Alys Werk sehr empfohlen:

Götz Aly: Hitlers Volksstaat. Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus

Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5.
Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2006, ISBN 3-596-15863-X. - Mit einem Nachwort von Götz Aly
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2005, ISBN 3-89331-607-8

Revival of the "Volksstaat"

When in 2005, Götz Aly published his analysis of the finance politics of Nazi
Germany,"Hitlers Volksstaat",he provoked violent discussions on whether his lucid account was an attempt to reduce the "Kollektiv-Schuld" of the German people in the Holocaust. The undeniable facts that Germany's financial behaviour after Hitler's rise to power was directed at reducing the debt and ensuring the inflow of cash - not only for military buildup, but for the simple German citizen's daily bread - was considered as too simplistic an explanation for the murderous deeds the regime, including the Holocaust.
The discussion on whether the state should undertake illegal actions in order to achieve an economic relaunch in a situation of financial and economic crisis, has won new virulence these days, and Götz Aly's analysis might prove more adequate than before.
The actual German Federal Chancellor may be a good Christian, but the chronic exposure to Marxist-Leninist doctrine during her education in the former German Democratic Republic has certainly left some traces in her strategical and tactical behaviour.
We may live in a post-Marxist era, and traditional values are high on the agenda, but the laws of the jungle in finance and economics are still valid.
Angela Merkel quite certainly is not alone in her temptation, Obama, Sarkozy and many others might follow her path, and Switzerland's Christoph Blocher himself, while trumpetting that "there are criminal elements in the German government" has paved the way with his Swiss People's Party to as Swiss version of the "Volksstaat" with the promise to "expulse the criminal foreigners,reduce the taxes for everybody and not to enter the European Union".

We strongly recommend the lecture of Götz Aly's book to our readers.

An English version is available on AMAZON:
Götz Aly: Hitler's Beneficiaries

Original title:

Götz Aly: Hitlers Volksstaat. Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus

Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5.
Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2006, ISBN 3-596-15863-X. - Mit einem Nachwort von Götz Aly
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2005, ISBN 3-89331-607-8

2010-01-05T16:11:00.005+01:00

Sind alle Antifaschisten Kommunisten?
Lauro de Bosis (1901-1931) Olympiasieger (1929) für Dichtkunst und aristokratischer Antifaschist

Foto Copyright PEN Club Italia

Nachgerade ist es ein Gemeinplatz, dass Individuen, welche ihre Stimme gegen Faschismus und gegen faschistische Tendenzen erheben, als politisch links eingestuft werden. Meist werden Personen mit antifaschistischen Meinungsäusserungen als Kommunisten abgestempelt, die bevorzugte Wortwahl des gegenwärtigen italienischen Ministerpräsidenten Silvio Berlusconi, wenn er gegen seine zahlteichen Gegnerschaft antritt.
Bei näherer Betrachtung der politischen Geschichte des Faschismus können wir die grosse Bandbreite von Motiven Jener, welche den Totalitarismus, der mit Mussolinis Regime und der politischen Bewegung, die ihm als Machtbasis diente, verbunden war, ablehnten, besser differenzieren.
Lauro de Bosis, ein ausserordentlich talentierter und produktiver "homme de lettres", Gewinner der Goldmedaille in Dichtkunst für sein lyrisches Schauspiel "ICARO" an der Olympiade von 1929, war u.a. auch Präsident der Gesellschaft Italien-Amerika in New York.
Er starb am 3.Oktober 1931, nachdem er auf einem privat und geheim organisierten Flug von Südfrankreich aus antifaschistische Flugblätter über Rom abgeworfen hatte, beim Absturz seiner Maschine ins tyrrenische Meer.
Es konnte nie sicher geklärt werden, ob der Absturz das Resultat eines Beschusses durch die italienische Fliegerabwehr oder vielmehr eines Mangels an Treibstoff für eine sichere Landung in Korsika war.
Sein Tod war nicht nur ein Akt persönlicher Auflehnung gegen ein Regime das er tief verachtete, sondern kann gleichzeitig als ein Echo auf das Schicksal des antiken Helden Ikarus in seinem 1927 publizierten Werk.
Iris Origo, die berühmte anglo-italienische Biographin des Hl. Bernardino von Siena, und des Kaufmanns Francesco Datini, des "Kaufmanns von Prato", Verfasserin einer Kurbiographie von Papst Pius II (Aeneas Piccolomini), und Verfasserin eines persönlichen Tagebuchs während der Kämpfe zwischen allierten und deutschen Truppen in der Toskana (im englischen Original "War in Val d'Orcia", 1947, später ins Italienische und ins Deutsche übersetzt) liefert in ihrem Buch "A Need to Testify" (Harcourt Brave Jovanovich 1984, ISBN 0-15-164989-8) ein lebendsvolles Portrait Lauro de Bosis.
Sie zitiert darin aus seinen Flugblättern:
"...Nur dank unserer Untätigkeit kann dieses Regime existieren. Wehe Dir Italien, wenn wie den antifaschistischen Widerstand durch die Roten monopolisieren lassen!
Das Problem des Faschismus muss durch jene gelöst werden werden, welche für eine geordnete Regierungsform stehen..."

Zweifellos war de Bosis politischer Standpunkt ebenso stark durch die monarchistische Tradition der Familie seines Vaters geprägt wie durch die demokratische Tradition seiner aus Neuengland stammenden Mutter.

Wer mehr über das Leben Lauro de Bosis erfahren möchte und keine Möglichkeit hat, an Iris Origos biographische Skizze zu gelangen, sei hier das folgende Buch empfohlen:
MUDGE, Jean: The Poet and the Dictator: Lauro de Bosis Resists Fascism in Italy and America. Praeger, 2002. ISBN 10: 0275969649, ISBN 13: 978-02759696-46.

2010-01-04T15:05:00.005+01:00

Are all antifascists communists?
Lauro de Bosis (1901-1931) Olympic champion (1929)for poetry and aristocratic antifascist

It has become commonplace to classify individuals who stand up against fascism and fascist tendencies as belonging to the political left. Most often, persons who express antifascist opinions are labeled as communists, a wording preferred by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in his invectives against his multiple political adversaries.
A more closer look into the political history of fasciscm allows us to more clearly distinguish the wide arrange of motives of those who did not accept the totalitarianism connected with Mussolini's regime and the political movement on which it's power was based.

Lauro de Bosis, an extremely talented and prolific "homme de lettres", winner of an Olympic gold medal for poetry for his lyric play "ICARO" in the 1929 Olympic games, was also president of the Italy-America Society of New York.
He died on October 3, 1931, after having dropped antifascist pamphlets in a privately and secretely planned solitary mission over the city of Rome, when his plane crashed into the Tyrrenian sea. It has never been clear whether the plane crash was the result of Italian anti-aircraft fire or due to lack of fuel for a safe landing on Corsica. His death was not only an act of personal revolt against a regime he deeply resented, but can simultaneously be seen as an echo of the destiny of the antique hero "Icaro" of his play written in 1927.

Iris Origo, the famous Anglo-Italian biographer of San Bernardino di Siena and of Francesco Datini,author of a short biography of Pope Pius II (Enea Piccolomini) and of a personal journal of the hostilities between German an Allied troops in Tuscany(War in Val d'Orca)during World War II, has given a vivid portrait of Lauro de Bosis in her book "A Need to Testify" (Harcourt Brave Jovanovich 1984, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 83-48453, ISBN 0-15-164989-8).

She cites from his pamphlets: "...It is only our inertia that makes possible the existence of the present regime. Woe to Italy if we let anti-fascism oppisition be monopolized by the Red! The problem of fascism must be solved by those who stand for ordered government..."

There is no doubt that de Bosis" political position was strongly influenced both by the aristocratic and monarchistic tradition of the family of his father and the democratic tradition of the New England family of his mother.

For those interested in Lauro de Bosis' life and unable to get a copy of Iris Origo's biographical sketch of 1984, we recommend the following title:
MUDGE, Jean: The Poet and the Dictator: Lauro de Bosis Resists Fascism in Italy and America. Praeger, 2002. ISBN-10: 0275969649 ISBN-13: 978-0275969646

2009-11-29T13:47:00.003+01:00

Why Swiss People's Party (SVP) would be happy to see Switzerland becoming a target of hate campaigns

The popular initiative to ban minaret construction in Switzerland will most probably win the majority of Swiss voters on this Sunday, 29 November 2009, with the exception of liberal cantons like Basel and Geneva). By imposing a nation-wide ban for the construction of minarets, it is a logical step in the strategical objective of the party: to turn back Switzerland from a modern, liberal,multiethnic, tolerant country back into a extremely nationalist, reactionary, intolerant, xenophobic nation. To achieve this ultimate objective of the party, it is very important that Switzerland becomes the target of hate campaigns from outside. This would be helpful to create a climate of fear and intolerance and to unite the citizens under an authoritarian political regime.
Swiss People's Party greatest satisfaction would be a terror attack of the Nine Eleven type on our country, and if such an attack is not imminent, SVP politics are consciously designed to provoke just that. While SVP tries to convince our citizens that it is the only political group acting in the general interest of the country, and likes to accuse opponents of high treason, the question might be justified if the Swiss People's Party is not itself a major agent of hight treason against the general interest of our country.

2009-11-26T08:49:00.007+01:00

In memoriam Sergei Magnitski - and a hommage to Fyodor Dostoyevsky and to Leos Janacek

When back in 1862 Fyodor Dostoyevsky published "The House of the Dead" (Russian: Записки из Мёртвого дома, German: "Aufzeichnungen aus einem Totenhaus"), an account of his years as detainee in a Siberian prison camp, he probably did so hoping that some day in the future, the horrors he described would come to an end in Russia.
His description of the far worse conditions under which prisoners in custody are hold in comparison to those already convicted, are echoed, 147 years later, in the wording of a report by Markus Ackeret (Neue Zürcher Zeitung Nr.275, Thursday November 26, 2009, p.5) on the Case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitski: "Die Zustände in den Untersuchungsgefängnissen gelten als bedeutend schlimmer als in den Strafkolonien. Besonders berüchtigt ist das Butyrka Gefängnis in Moskau..."

The libretto of Leos Janacek's opera "Z mrtvého domu" ("Aus einem Totenhaus")written in 1927 is a collage of citations from Dostoyevsky's original text. Under the direction of Calixto Bieito on the opera program of Theater Basel 2009/2010, the opera is put into the context of the continuity of inhumane criminal punishment throughout the 19th and the 20th century to this day.
And, in a surprising way,Janacek, Calixto Bieito and the fantastic musical performers at Theater Basel can be seen as a bow before the latest victims of Russian criminal justice which seems to be unable so far to overcome a terrible tradition. President Medvedev, who, in an act of personal courage, has ordered an investigation on the case of Sergei Magnitski, should be graciously asked to invite Calixto Bieito and the Theater Basel to show Janacek's opera in Moscow.

Foto Copyright Hans-Jörg Michel and Theater Basel

2009-11-22T20:13:00.006+01:00

Swissness as the Swiss People's Party defines it

banning minarets, walling the country against immigration

The political megatrend in Switzerland, as demonstrated by the latest politician's rating published by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, shows a clear polarization towards the extreme poles on the left (social democrats SP and greens GP) and the extreme right (Swiss People's Party SVP/UDC). No wonder the climate is rapidly deteriorating, the political propaganda is becoming increasingly aggressive in style.
The popular initiative launched by SVP which aims at the country-wide prohibition of erecting minarets has unleashed an aggressivity unknown in Switzerland since the times of the Sonderbund war in 1847.(In Europe, the type of propaganda in use has been first seen in Germany during the Weimar Republic -1918 to 1933- with avantgarde artists like Heartfield and Grosz on the forefront, and was brought to perfection later by the propaganda machines of the Soviet Union and of Nazi Germany). This "Shock and Awe" propaganda style disappeared after World War II. It reemerged in the Sixties, and later has been used for commercial advertising (e.g. by BENETTON)
The latest victim of the SVP propaganda machine has been the Roman-Catholic bishop Kurt Koch who is accused of being a traitor after having declared his opposition to the initiative.
The term of "Landesverrat" (high treason) has become more and more fashionable lately inside of the SVP and is used every time a member of that party vocalizes the slightest dissension from the official party line.

One question arises from this political trend: is the SVP consciously trying to put this country on a path that could end in a either a reenactment of the German Democratic Republic which had to protect it's territorial integrity by a wall and an order to kill anybody willing to cross the border, or produce a copy of the wall the Israelis put up against the Palestinians?

The Swiss People's Party has given proof of exploiting xenophobic and racist tendencies since the arrival of Christoph Blocher at it's commands and continues to show a will to proceed to a political and ethnical homogenization of the country under the cover of protecting a liberal market economy, and it consciously takes the risk of triggering readiness for ethnical cleansing in the brains of modest citizens by it's propaganda methods.
The left has been surprisingly shy and has failed to come out massively against the minaret initiative, but on the other hand has tried to copy the SVP propaganda style by publishing a poster displaying a photography of Doris Leuthard, federal minister of the economy, with hand full of blood, as an illustration for the argument to ban export of weaponry from Switzerland, another popular initiative to be voted on november 27, 2009.
Meanwhile, the fact that posters of the minaret initiative have been banned from public advertising areas in some cantons has led to a well orchestrated outcry by the initiative committee over repression of free speech and censorship...

Poor Switzerland.

2009-09-30T07:29:00.003+02:00

Will Roman Polanski get a fair trial?

Evidence has been growing during the last 48 hours that the accusations on which Roman Polanski's prosecution are based on are more severe than what could be assumed earlier. While the mediatic fog over the quality of the crime he is indicted for is passing away, a lot of questions arise: was it sex with a minor or was it rape? Under what circumstances did it occur? what was the role of the girl's mother in the process? Was she conscious of the danger she put her child in? Was her risk management sufficient? Was the act premeditated? What was his mental state before and during the crime? It will be extremely difficult to reconstruct the facts after such a long time, and it will be even more difficult to get back to where everything started: with the traumatic childhood and adolescence of a Jewish child during and after World War II, which has to be seen in direct connection with Nazi Germany's aggression of Poland.
Read Jerzy Kosinsky's (1933-1991) book "The Painted Bird" (L'oiseau bariolé, der bemalte Vogel) and you will understand the horrors that must have haunted the survivors of the Holocaust and of the life in occupied Poland, a country full of
open antisemitism not only during the war but even afterwards, during the communist regime. Or go to see Polanski's film "Repulsion of 1965...
The central question is:
If Roman Polanski is extradited to the United States, how fair will the trial be?
Finally, his trial will be the trial of the United States Judicial system, and if it ends in bringing not only justice but peace of mind to a man who suffered probably more than anyone of us can imagine throughout his life while putting on a mask of clown, then and only then this trial will be a success...

2009-09-28T06:46:00.003+02:00

The Case Polanski: When a State of Law masturbates in public
The arrest of Roman Polanski on arriving at Zurich airport is an example of a perverted use of the law. If there had been a clear will to respect the law and to avoid an international scandal, the direction of the Zurich festival should have been warned beforehand that Mr. Polanski was persona non grata in Switzerland because of the still pending prosecution in the United States. The ambush organized to arrest Polanski was a full blow in the face of the Swiss federal culture authorities which depend of the Federal Department of the Interior during a period of transition between Mr. Couchepin and his successor Burkhalter.
From the purely theoretical point of view, the prosecution of child abuse independant of the standing of the person under suspicion might be the central point for our Justice minister, but the way Mrs. Widmer-Schlumpf's department handled the case Polanski merits only one remark:
"Pfui Teufel, Frau Bundesrätin..."

Post Scriptum:
Mr Polanski might have provoked legal action by trying to whitewash his past according to a report by The GUARDIAN on September 2009:

If it were so, my critique of Mrs. Widmer-Schlumpf's department would not be well founded and I should apologize to our Justice minister, but nevertheless, the handling of this affair by our federal authorities once again has not been at the level of quality requested in a country that is under constant attack from abroad.

2009-09-26T11:24:00.003+02:00

Le révisionisme historique et la campagne de Suisse en 1799
Le révisionisme historique en vogue dans la Russie postmoderne de Medvedev
et Poutine n'a pas épargné la Suisse. Dans sa version online, la Moscow Times confirme que le Maréchal Souvorov, par son intervention, aurait chassé les Français de la Suisse et contribué au rétablissement de la neutralité de notre pays. Cela est trop beau pour être vrai, et à celles et ceux qui aimeraient savoir mieux comment la campagne militaire de 1799 s'est déroulée, Osservatore Profano recommande la lecture du livre de Nicole GOTTERI: La campagne de Suisse en 1799 "Le choc des géants", paru chez Bernard Giovanangeli, Paris 2003 ISBN 2-909034-35-6.
En effet, il y a exactement 210 ans, le 26 septembre 1799, pendant que les troupes russes de Souvorov réussirent à franchir le Pont du Diable et d'avancer jusqu'à Altdorf, l'armée française commandée par le général Masséna prit d'assaut la ville de Zurich après le refus des forces austriaco-russes de convenir à une retraite en ordre.
Nicole Gotteri écrit, en page 124 de son livre:
"...pour essayer d'épargner à la Ville (de Zurich)les suites prévisible d'une prise d'assaut,Masséna crut devoir user de la voie des négotiations. Ce geste est tout à son honneur, contraitement à ce que Korsakov (commandant des forces alliées sur place), sans doute pour se justifier, insinua dans ses rapports au tsar et à Souvorov, lui-même ayant retenu le parlementaire français, le brigadier Ducheyron,
envoyé le 25 au soir au mépris des usages de guerre et ayant différé de donner une réponse..."
Il est très facile de comprendre que si aujourd'hui les historiens russes basent leur appréciation des évènements du 26 septembre 1799 exclusivement sur les archives
de l'empire du 18ème et 19ème siècle, ils arrivent facilement à une interprétation très diffèrente non seulement de la seconde bataille de Zurich et des raisons pour le carnage qui a sans doute eu lieu dans la ville lors de l'assaut des troupes françaises sur les troupes russes en complet désordre mais aussi de toute la campagne de Souvorov.
Souvorov lui-même, ce jour là, après avoir franchi le Saint-Gothard au coût de la vie de 2000 hommes, a en effet réussi a franchir la Schöllenen défendu ce jour la par des forces françaises en retraite tactique.
Nicole Gotteri:
"Le général en chef russe ignorait encore les résultats des batailles engagées sur le lac de Zurich. Il comptait toujours rejoindre Hotze (général autrichien d'origine suisse tué lors des combats dans la plaine de la Linth) à Schwytz et marcher sur Lucerne. Pour gagner Schwytz il renonça le sentier qui passait par Flüelen Sisikon et Brunner car il révélait son mouvement à Lecourbe (le général de division français à la tête des troupes dans la vallée de la Reuss, dans la haute vallée de l'Aare et dans le Haut Valais qui s'était replié à Seedorf sur la rive gauche de la Reuss).
Il préféra emprunter le Schächental, le col de Kinzig, le Wängital pour aboutir au hameau de Muotathal...."

Les suites sont connues. Souvorov sera refoulé du Muotothal, il devra passer dans le Linthtal d'où il essayera de passer vers le lac de Zurich, il sera repoussé vers Elm et franchira, dans la neige, avec ce qui reste de ses troupes durement éprouvées, ayant perdu pratiquement tous son matériel y inclus les vivres, le Panixerpass pour descendre dans la vallée du Rhin d'ou il retirera son armée du territoire suisse.
Nicole Gotteri:
D'après les estimations de l'historien russe Miliutin, les effectifs sous le commandement de Souvorov en date du 1er septembre avaient été 706 officiers et de 20579 hommes.... A l'arrivée à Coire, 8 octobre, 14000 hommes étaient encore présents; la perte totale se montait à environ 6000 hommes. En outre,Souvorov avait perdu toute son artillerie et tous ses bagages..."

Il y a lieu de mentionner à cette occasion la communication catastrophique entre les commandements suprèmes des troupes de coalition, notamment le tsar et l'empereur autrichien François, frère du commandant des troupes austro-russes en Suisse, le'archéduc Charles, et l'atmosphère glaciale, et en partie franchement hostile entre les commandants dans les terrain.
Le contrast avec l'habileté de conduite, l'usage des renseignements, l'esprit d'invention du génie militaire dans la préparation de passages fluviaux (Limmat, Linth) du côté français est frappant.

Finalement, il faut signaler que la campagne en Suisse de 1799 a été fratricide.
Du côté français, il y avait plusieurs bataillons helvétique, du côté de la coalition un régiment (Roverea) et des paysans en révolte contre les troupes d'occupation françaises.
Inutile de vouloir nier la rupture qui reignait dans notre pays en cette période sanglante, et dangereux de vouloir glorifier la coalition en dénigrant les troupes françaises. Une chose est sure: l'expérience des fureurs de la guerre sur notre territoire a permis aux Suisses de mieux réflêchir sur leur façon de gérer un pays
d'une extrème inhomogénéité culturelle, et a accepter l'acte de Médiation proposée par Napoléon en 1805. Les leçons de la campagne de 1799 étaient bien apprises en novembre 1847, lorsque sous la direction du général Dufour, le Sondrebond a été écrasé par une campagne militaire qui a été charactérisée par un historien américain, Joachim Remak, comme "une guerre très civile" (A Very Civil War) ou, dans le titre de la traduction allemande du livre: "Bruderzwist, nicht Bruderkrieg"

2009-09-21T18:53:00.005+02:00

Général Claude Jacques Lecourbe (1758-1815)

Un cordiale benvenuto al Presidente Medvedev dal Osservatore Profano

Non c'è dubbio che il generale maresciallo di campo (russo ed austriaco) Suvorov, nel 1799 aveva la missione di preparare una base avanzata per l'attacco degli alleati contro la Francia rivoluzionaria, è che per la sua volontà di ferro e la crudeltà colla quale ha trattato i suoi soldati, ha mancato solo di poco l'obiettivo.
La memoria storica nazionale della Svizzera non è mai uscito dall scissione profonda che divide gli amici della Francia (e della sua rivoluzione), i Svizzeri (protestanti, liberali) del settore occidentale del paese, e quelli amici della Russia, i Svizzeri (cattolici, conservatori) del settore centrale ed orientale del paese.
11 anni fa, nel 1998, Basilea, si ricordava con una festa repubblicana del direttore elvetico Peter Ochs, fondatore della Repubblica Elvetica (1798 a 1805) mentre che nei Grigioni, un magazzino storico-geografico-tusristico (Terra Grischuna) implorava l'incendio del monastero di Disentis come un reato tipico dei Francesi atei.

Se il presidente russo Dmitri Medvedev, primo capo di Stato della Russia mai venuto in Svizzera, apportera il suo tributo davanti al monumento Suvorov nella Schöllenen, sara ben avisato di ricordarsi non solo dei trionfi del stratega Suvorov e delle sofferenze dei suoi uomini, ma anche della qualità dell' avversario di quest'ultimo e della bravura delle truppe francesi sotto il Comando del generale Claude Jacques Lecourbe, e del fatto che il colpo mortale che la Russia e l'Austria volevano portare alla Francia in Svizzera non è riuscita.

Facit: anche oggi, la Svizzera rimane un terreno minato per quello che prova di usarla come base avanzata di interessi strategici, perche grazie alla libertà dei suoi cittadini, i dissensi e le lotte interne lasciarono sempre dello spazio d'azione per l'avversario e impedirono il successo finale...

Riferimenti:
GÜNTHER Reinhold: Le Alpi a Ferro e Fuoco
La campagna della divisione Lecourbe nella guerra del 1799
Armando Dadò Editore, Locarno 2002
ISBN 88-8281-109-3

A hearty welcome to President Medvedev

Beyond any doubt the general field marshal Suvorov had
the mission, in 1799, to establisch an advanced base for the final attack of the Allied forces against revolutionary France, and that thanks to his iron will and the cruelty with which he treated his soldiers, only narrowly missed this objective.

The historical memory of the Swiss has never overcome the deep divide between the
friends of France (ans the French Revolution), namely the inhabitants of the
Western part of the country (protestant, liberal) and the friends of Russia, the inhabitants of the Eastern and central parts of the country (catholic and conservative).

Eleven years ago, in 1998, in Basel a "fête républicaine" was held in honour of the founder of the Helvetic Republic, Peter Ochs, while in Grisons, a historical-geographical-touristic magazine (Terra Grischuna) still deplored the firestorm that had destroyed the monastery of Disentis as a crime that had been typical for the impious French.

When the President of Russia, the first head of state of Russia ever to visit Switzerland, will honour the memory of the general field marshal at the Suvorov memorial in the canyon of the Schöllenen, he will be well advised to consider not only the triumphs of the strategic leader and the suffering of his soldiers, but also the bravery of the adversary,the French troops under the command of Général Claude Jacques Lecourbe (1758-1815, and to the fact that the mortal blow that was intended against the French on Swiss soil did not succeed.

Facit:
Even today, Switzerland remains a terrain full of landmines for all those who tries to use her as a base for strategic interests, thanks to the liberty of her citizens who through their dissensions and infights will impede the final success.

Source:

GÜNTHER Reinhold: Le Alpi a Ferro e Fuoco
La campagna della divisione Lecourbe nella guerra del 1799
Armando Dadò Editore, Locarno 2002
ISBN 88-8281-109-3

2009-08-21T23:46:00.003+02:00

Hans Rudolf Merz in the footsteps of Neville Chamberlain

On September 29, 1938, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared, after having signed together with the French Prime Minister Daladier, an agreement with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich that legitimated the annexation of the Northwestern part of Czechoslovakia (Sudentenland) by Germany:

"Peace is at hand".

A year later, World War II had been started by Nazi Germany.

71 years later, on August 20, 2009, the President of the Swiss Confederation, Federal Councillor Hans Rudolf Merz, flew to Tripoli and signed a declaration of official excuse for the arrest of one of Muammar Ghadafi's sons, Hannibal, in Geneva, two years earlier, for charges brought against him of having beaten his servants.
The Swiss President, by this act of apeasement, was convinced to have restored the hounour and the dignity of the Ghadafi family and to have done no harm to the honour of his own country. Meanwhile it was unclear what had been the fate of the servants that had had the courage to protest against their treatment, and two Swiss citizens were still held as hostages by the regime of Tripoli, as President Merz was on his way home.
Mr Hannibal Ghadafi himself had declared, some days before the arrival of President Merz in Libya, his intent to destroy Switzerland, if only a nuclear bomb had been at hand, thereby opening the question whether his honour could be restored by less violent means than by bombing Switzerland.
The carpet for the Canossa journey of President Merz had been laid out by Swiss sociologist Jean Ziegler, a man to whom the late Cuban-Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara once had declared that he considered him as "the virus in the brain of the monster" (the monster, according to Che, being Ziegler's country, Switzerland).
In an interview with a Swiss newspaper, the day before the Tripoli agreement, Mr. Ziegler had praised Muammar Ghadafi as one of the most serious anti-imperialist political leaders in the world and expressed his gratitude of having been invited repeatedly by the Libyan leader for personal discussions.

By acting in this way, two prominent Swiss citizens, the President of the Confederation, and a fundamentalist professional critic of the same Confederation, have reproduced two stereotypes often attributed to the Swiss national character:

a) secret admiration for authoritarian and autocratic regimes
b) low self-esteem and an underdevelopped sense of honour

President Merz might take some comfort from the debate in the House of Commons on October 3, 1938, when Prime Minister Chamberlain declared:

"...Before giving a verdict upon this arrangement, we should do well to avoid describing it as a personal or a national triumph for anyone. The real triumph is that it has shown that representatives of four great Powers can find it possible to agree on a way of carrying out a difficult and delicate operation by discussion instead of by force of arms, and thereby they have averted a catastrophe which would have ended civilisation as we have known it. The relief that our escape from this great peril of war has, I think, everywhere been mingled in this country with a profound feeling of sympathy."

[Hon. Members: "Shame".]

"I have nothing to be ashamed of. Let those who have, hang their heads. We must feel profound sympathy for a small and gallant nation in the hour of their national grief and loss."

Mr. Bellenger: "It is an insult to say it."

The Prime Minister:
"I say in the name of this House and of the people of this country that Czechoslovakia has earned our admiration and respect for her restraint, for her dignity, for her magnificent discipline in face of such a trial as few nations have ever been called upon to meet."

Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Vol. 339 (October 3, 1938)

Source: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs36.htm

2009-07-24T17:13:00.002+02:00

Clonare Silvio Berlusconi - per rendere l'Italia felice

Gli ultimi capricci del Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri della Repubblica Italiana, Silvio Berlusconi, mostrono un uomo felice nei suoi comportamenti incompatibili colla dignità dello stato che dirige. Il "Cavaliere", "L'unto del Seniore",l'imprenditore senza scrupoli, il monopolista delle mass media del suo paese, il cantante, il grande amatore di figlie bionde e terapeuta sessuale secondo i nastri di una escort che ha passato una notte con lui...Silvio Berlusconi appare come l'uomo perfetto per il terzo millennio. "Il Principe" di Nicolò Macchiavelli era un personaggio che faceva paura, ma il dittatore moderno porta una maschera simpatica, sempre giocosa, e rende felice quelli che capiscono che basta ammirarlo e dargli l'applauso dovuto per approfitare della sua generosità. Forse il futuro politico ed economico dell'Italia sarebbe piu sereno se la popolazione consisteva esclusivamente da cloni del Cavaliere Berlusconi, tutti furbi,senza scrupoli,festeggianti,vivendo senza l'ombra dell'autocritica e del dubbio. Aldous Huxley ha dato un'impressione del mondo felice che potrebbe essere quello dei cloni berlusconiani, nel suo "Brave New World".

Would cloning of Silvio Berlusconi make Italy happier?

The latest revelations on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis publicized sexual life show a man happily behaving in a way that is incompatible with the dignity of his high political office. The "Cavaliere","The Anointed by the Lord", the tycoon free of remorse, the monopolist of the mass media of his country,the singer, the lover of blonde girls and now even sex therapy counsellor of an escort that passed a night with him... Silvio Berlusconi appears to be the ideal man for the third millenium. The historical "Principe" of Nicolo Macchiavelli was a frightening personality, but the modern dictator wears a sympathetic mask, always joyful, and is ready to make those happy who understand that it suffices to admire him and to spend the applause he deserves in order to take profit from his generosity. Maybe the political and economic future of Italy whould look a bit mor bright if her populations was composed exclusively of clones of the Cavaliere Berlusconi,everyone being clever, cute, joyous, living without the slightest shadow of autocritique or doubt. Aldous Huxley has given a description of a world populated by berlusconian clones in his famlous novel "Brave New World".

2009-03-01T20:39:00.002+01:00

Fulvio Pelli - l'ultimo vero liberale
In Svizzera, i partiti liberali e radicali che avevano sempre formato una famiglia politica nel senso sociologico (forti dissensioni al interno ma anche consenso sul fondo della libertà d'espressione, della tolleranza e della risponsabilità individuale) si sono finalmente riuniti per rinforzare la presenza liberale nel equilibrio politica fortemente polarizzato fra i popolarismi della destra (UDC) e della sinistra (PS) e per marcare una distanza chiara dalla formazione ameboide del PPD.
La nuova formazione si chiama in Svizzera tedesca "FDP.Die Liberalen" usurpando in un certo modo la denominazione protetta del partito liberale di Basilea-Città.
I liberali Ginevrini e Basilesi, federalisti e tradizionalmente opposti al centralismo del corrente radicale del "Freisinn", fino adesso non hanno avuto oglia di unirsi sotto la presidenza del Ticinese Fulvio Pelvi, ma potrebbero cambiare la loro opinione in seguito all'intervista che Fulvio Pelli ha dato alla radio DRS sabato, 28 febbraio 2009. Pelli, voce solitario in una clamorosa cacofonia politica e mediatica dopo i malfatti della UBS, ha detto chiaramente le cose che erano da dire:
1. La situazione presente e stata creata da elementi criminali al interno della UBS che sono perseguitati dall giudizia degli Stati Uniti. La Svizzera non è identica all'UBS malgradi il fatto che quest'ultima e la piu grande banca del paese.
2. La situazione e particolarmente grave grazie al antiamericanismo della nostra ministra del estero, Mme Calmy Rey, che ha fatto tutto per distruggere il Goodwill tradizionale che la Svizzera, "Sister Republic" degli Stati Uniti dall'indipendenza degli Americani del Nord, ha sempre avuto a Washington.
3. Il segreto bancario non esiste per proteggere atti criminali, ma per mantenere un minimo di libertà privata e per questa ragione non deve essere scrificato sul altare
dell' imagine della Svizzera al estero. L'evasione di tasse e un atto criminale, ma
il fatto che esiste non giustifica la libera circolazione di informazioni su ogni cittadino di una paese che mantiene un regime di tassazione contraprodottivo.

Attraverso la sua analisi, Fulvio Pelli si è rivelato un rappresentante degno del liberalismo classico in un'atmosfera di caccia di streghe, di collettivismo, di protezionismo e di ultranazionalismo.

2009-02-21T14:23:00.002+01:00

Breaking Swiss bank secrecy and The Opening of Pandora's Box
When Mephisto declared in Faust I: "...ich bin ein Teil der Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft..." his statement demonstrated a contrario the vanity of the human effort to do good and to be good when it comes to guaranteed success. Barak Obama's government and the present US administration are trying to do good and to be good. What they need in the first place, is cash. Where can you find cash if not on Swiss Bank accounts? Breaking the Swiss banking secrecy may be hailed from many honest people around the world, but the side effects of this effort are largely unknown. If 52,000 U.S. citizens are indicted and ultimately condemned for tax fraud, the damage on entrepreneurship in the US and elsewhere will exceed the effect of the subprime crisis, hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses will go bust within the next weeks and months, and the process might spark revolutionary upheaval throughout the industrialized world.
The grounding of Switzerland's Banking business and of the country's overall credibility might eventually be considered a footnote in an ensuing scenario that could best be compared to the French Revolution. The "Ancien Régime" in France crumbled after the costly military support of the French to the American Independence movement.
America's strength as the leading industrial nation has been lost as a consequence of costly military interventions and financial mismanagement. Barak Obama was elected President by those who suffered most of the errors of the Bush adminstration and it might become very difficult for President Obama to calm the spirits that supported him. To direct the fury of the "middle American" towards an external enemy will the most probably be chosen as the best tactic, and Switzerland - adorned with a new label as "financial rogue state" might provide the ideal target for diversive action. However, as stated before, a frontal attack against the "Smaller Sister Republic" by the US might prove as risky as stepping into a mine field of unknown dimensions. If the UBS goes bust thanks to the attacks from the US judiciary, and if the Swiss taxpayers have ultimately have to pay the bill, the witch hunt might continue within Switzerland, leading to a final implosion of Pandora's Box.

2009-02-19T19:07:00.011+01:00

Once again, Sardinia surrenders to soft fascism
Una volta di piu, la Sardegna si arrende al fascismo dolce

On September 29, 2007, I wrote on this blog a short comment on the life and work of Emilio Lussu, with special emphasis to the fierce resistance of his native Sardinia against the first wave of fascism and to the surrender of the Island's political elite to the seduction of the second wave which tried to hid the ugly face of Mussolini's movement behind a mask of gentle bourgeois style.
And in a later comment - on February 24, 2008 ("Uses and Misuses of the NAZI-KEULE")on the differences between Italian fascism and German Nazism I mentionned the fact that the judiciary's independence in Italy was protected even during the Mussolini years thanks to the constitutional monarchy.
In recent times, Berlusconi has continuously, and with a certain success, tried to
discredit the judiciary's independence and has even sought the support of the ultra-conservative and revisionist Pope Benedict XVI for his attacks on tribunals and judges.
Last Sunday, with the success of the party of the self-declared Cavaliere per la Grazia di Dio Berlusconi in Sardinia's regional elections, once again, proud Sardinia has surrendered to
soft fascism.

Il 29 settembre 2007, su questo blog, avevo scritto un breve commentario sulla vita e l'opera di Emilio Lussu, con attenzione speciale sulla resistenza della Sardegna
contro la prima ondata del fascismo, ed alla capitolazione dell'elite politica dell'isola alla seconda ondata che aveva nascosto la faccia bruta del movimento di Mussolini sotto una maschera di borghesia gentile.
In un altro commentario del 24 febbraio 2008(sulla "NAZI-KEULE") avevo menzionato che l'indipendenza del sistema giudiziario era rimasta protetta dalla monarchia costituzionale anche durante gli anni del fascismo.
In tempi recenti, Berlusconi continua di sconfessare sistematicamente giudici e tribunali, e senza srupulo cerca l'aiuto del Papa ultra-conservatore e revisionista
Benedetto XVI per arrivare al suo obiettivo.
Domenica passata, col successo del partito del auto-dichiarato Cavaliere per la Grazia di Dio Berlusconi nelle elezioni regionali, la Sardegna fiera, una volta di piu, si è arresa al fascismo dolce.

2009-01-29T08:25:00.003+01:00

February 8, 2009 - Switzerland's or Europe's Doomsday?
Fears are growing in Switzerland that the popular vote of February 8, 2009, concerning the bilateral accord on freedom of movement within the EU and Switzerland (which is not an EU member) will end in a NO.
When two weeks earlier, opinion polls showed a 55% YES majority, the margin is now down on 50% YES, 7% undecided and 43% NO.
What strikes the OSSERVATORE PROFANO most, is the complete blindness of the discussion within Switzerland for the effects of a NO on the EU itself. Isolationists
want to redraw the line between Switzerland and it's neighbours, they are convinced that the semi-permeability of the frontier between "Us" and "Them" will remain untouched by a NO and that all the options for negotiating whatever subject with the EU will even be greater than ever before, confounding the tolerance for negative votes of member states such as Ireland (whom the EU cannot afford to loose) or for the erratic behavior of some members in Eastern Europe with the situation of Switzerland, which is not a member and which is considered - not only in Europe - as a shameless profiteer.
What is most striking: the NZZ, in it's management of the "letters to the editor" page, appears to lean toward a NO, or at least unwilling to stem the tide.
What we must fear most, and much more than the reactions of EU towards Switzerland, is the stimulus for desintegration within the EU that is initiated by a Swiss NO on February 8, 2009. This country bears a heavy responsibility not only for it's own fate but for the fate of Europe too, and the price of a NO will be high for all of Europe.

2009-01-10T08:45:00.004+01:00

Switzerland in Search of an Identity - Shall we become the Center of Europe, try a remake of Albania under Enver Hoxha, or end in a hostile environment, comparable to that of Israel or of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip?

When casting their vote in the next federal referendum on February 8, 2009, the Swiss will take one further step in their never-ending search for a national identity. They can say YES to the extension of the convention on free circulation of persons throughout the European Union to the citizens of new member states of the UE, namely Bulgaria and Romania, or say NO, thereby putting at risk a series of bilateral conventions on subjects such as free trade, mutual recognition of professional qualifications, scientific and technical cooperation etc.etc. which define the "bilateral way" of step by step cooperation with the European Union onto which the country has been steered by Chrstoph Blocher and his Swiss People's Party.
A series of questions arise in this context.
Will Switzerland continue to be a "special zone" in the heart of the European Union, at best developping over the years into a "District of Switzerland" (in analogy to the "District of Columbia - D.C." of the United States of America) or will it become
a pariah country, a kind of remake of Enver Hoxha's Albania which isolated itself completely from the European continent and sought refuge and consolation as a special ally of Maoist China? Will Switzerland continue to consider itself as a kind of "Promised Land" unable to understand positive signals from it's neighbours and therefore driving itself into a more and more violent defensive behaviour, quite similar to Israel, or, even worse, will it be forced into isolation by a European Union which could become more and more unwilling to discuss special favours for an unreliable partner? Will this isolation eventually lead to more and more violent internal dispute and dissensions, to a civil war and to a chaos of the type we now can see in the Gaza Strip?
The outcome of the popular vote of February 8 is still uncertain, the latest polls indicating a narrow majority for YES with 55%.
Whatever the result, it will not end the continuous effort of a country that has an impressivee record of high quality direct democracy to make difficult choices on it's priorities, political, economical, cultural as well.
Another aspect, our voters should take into account: Switzerland's political choices do not pass unnoticed in European capitals, and a negative vote on February 8 is likely to unleash more internal dispute within the European Union where some partners have become particularly vulnerable to populist tendencies.

2008-10-28T08:18:00.002+01:00

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.

2008-10-22T17:26:00.002+02:00

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.

2008-07-13T13:48:00.001+02:00

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.

2008-06-23T20:25:00.006+02:00

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.

2008-05-12T22:10:00.003+02:00

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.

2008-02-24T09:49:00.003+01:00

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.

2007-12-16T13:48:00.000+01:00

Why Switzerland is still very special: Sovereignty of the people, Freedom of parliament, Gender Ratio in the Government and Rumantsch Grischun

The international echoes to the failed reelection of Swiss People's Party leader
Cristoph Bocher as a member of the Federal Council (the Swiss government) by the federal two chamber parliament show hwo difficult it is to understand the Swiss Federal Constitution for those who are not familiar with the rules of direct democracy.
In fact, the federal parliament is free to choose as members of the government any person that is considered fit to fulfill the difficult task of being a member of he executive and a representative of the major political movements present in the country. The Swiss government is in a certain way a technocratic government, and one of Christoph Blocher's is main objectives was to transform it into a political one.
If his party now is crying loudly about treason of the will of the electorate, it is neglecting the important fact that Switzerland is in the unique position to guarantee the sovereignty of the people in two ways: a) in electing a parliament and b) in correcting the acts of parliament and government by popular initiatives and popular referenda. By limiting the exertion of power by the people to these two channels, the Swiss Constitution guarantees a certain stability in the decission-making pocess by parliament and government. While in most parliamentary democracies,
the paricipation of the people in policy-making is limited to the parliamentary elections, the results of which determinate the acts of the government, the Swiss electorate can interfere throughout the electoral cycle with the decisions of both parliament and government. Christoph Blocher's claim to reinforce direct democracy
by asking for a majority government has not been accepte by the majority of the parliament, and, as a recent public poll published today by the Sunday press has shown,his non-election is being accepted by a majority of the public (which is not identical with the electorate in a population where one third is non Swiss and where only about 5 in ten citizens are actively participating in the political decision-making (popular votes, elections).

One important aspect of the non-election of Christoph Blocher risks to be neglected:
by electing Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the parliament has produced an important gender shift within the government: three out of seven ministers now are women, and if the Federal Chancellor, Ms. Casanova (the secretary general and speaker of the government) is included in the gender count during the ministerial rounds, the gender ratio is now 1:1.
Another special feature of the new government: Ms. Widmer-Schlumpf and Ms. Casanova are both natives of the Canton of Grisons and fluent in the fourth national language: Rumantsch Grischun.

2007-11-08T07:14:00.000+01:00

A secret baptism for king Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud?
When the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques met Pope Benedict in Rome, the two men might have discussed a text written by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini(Pope Pius II) back in 1461 to sultan Mehmet II. The "Epistula ad Mahometan" was published in 1483, 10 years after the death of Pius II and it remains unclear whether it had been sent to Mehmet II.
The most important element of the letter, however, was the offer of the crown of the Holy Roman Empire to Mehmet in exchange for his baptism.
The letter is rich in argumentations concerning the relationship between religion and political power and is an example of the modernity of Piccolomini, a man who had turned to celibacy only late in his life - at age 44 - and had widely travelled Europe before becoming Pope (as one of his works, "De Europa", a geographical, political and cultural account of his obervations, testifies).
If the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques was aware of this particular historical record of policy-making of the Holy See is not known, but it would be most interesting to know what the two men actually discussed: special conditions for the Vatican in terms of Dollars per barrel Saudi Arabian crude oil or permissions for catholic nuns to drive cars in Saudi Arabia on the condition that they they wear their veil in a correct way?
One thing is clear: according to Vaticanic tradition it will take at least two generations before the contents of the meeting will be published, and the Saudi side has little interest in a mediatic discussion of the vent. It could once again stir bad feelings against the king in fundamentalist circles.

One thing is clear so far: religion is back on the political agenda, as THE ECONOMIST correctly stated last week. Agnostics will face difficult times in the near future. Outspoken atheism might become the last safe haven for those who are not willing to kiss the ring of the Pope or to travel to Mecca for the Hadj.

2007-11-04T21:45:00.000+01:00

Iconographic Impressions from Switzerland - 90 years after the Russian Revolution

"Bolshevik" Boris Michailovich Kustodiev 1920
Museo dei Uffici Florence

Right Wing Bolshevism in Swiss Weekly "Weltwoche"

B.M. Kustodiev Selfs Portrait of the Artist 1912

El Redemptor on Corcovado Brazil

Blocher on the Uetliberg, 2007

Anne Applebaum Author of "Propaganda und Realität" Copyright Neue Zürcher Zeitung 2007

2007-09-29T08:25:00.000+02:00

What Emilio Lussu (1890-1975) may teach us

Emilio Lussu was born in Armungia near Cagliari (Sardinia) in 1890. After having finished his law studies, he fought as infantry officer in the Sassari Brigade during World War I, distinguishing himself both for his bravery and his humane leadership qualities.
After the war, together with comrades from his Army Brigade, he founded the federalist and autonomist party "Partito Sardo di Azione". Elected to the Italian Parliament in 1921, he was a keen observer and a fierce opponent of the rising fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini. He became famous for his account of the political developments in Italy from 1921 to 1929: "Marcia su Roma e Dintorni" (March to Rome and surroundings) first published in Paris in 1933 (reprints by Einaudi in 1945 and 2003).A German edition is also available: Marsch auf Rom und Umgebung, Verlag Folio, Bozen 2007..

After repeated attempts to his life by fascist groups, he had eventually been attacked in his Cagliari appartment and during this episode had shot one of the aggressors. After an imprisonment of a year and a process that ended in his acquitment for self-defense, he had been deported to the Aeolian Island of Lipari, from where he was able to flee to France. In 1936, while being treated for tuberculosis at the Sanatorium of Clavadel near Davos (Switzerland), he wrote a vivid account of his experiences during the war in the trenches of Northern Italy: "Un Anno sul Altipiano" (A Year on the High Plateau). In his forword, he wonders why nobody seems to be ready to remember what happened between 1914 and 1918.
After 1933, he lived in Paris with his wife, Joyce, where he became one of the antifascist movementGiustizia e Libertà.
In 1940, after the defeat of the French army by Nazi Germany, the couple fled to Toulouse, then to Marseille and eventually to Lisbon. From 1940 to July 1943 he developped important underground diplomatic activities, trying to coordinate the activities of the Italian emigration with the geopolitical and strategical interests of Britain and the U.S.A., from Lisbon, Malta, London and New York. We owe him an account of these adventurous years in "Diplomazia clandestina" (Quaderni Del Ponte, La Nuova Italia Editrice, Firenze 1956)

In postwar Italy, Emilio Lussu served as a minister in the first cabinet of De
Gasperi and was elected to the Senate during several legislation periods. He died in 1975.

Why should one read Emilio Lussu's account of the rise of fascism in Italy of 1933(Marcia su Roma e Dintorni)today?
His account on the political events in Italy is written in a straightforward but elegant prose, with a sarcastic, sometimes fatalistic tone.
It is full of vivid observations of the weakness of his contemporaries and their excuses for giving up their political principles and entering the fascist party for fear of messing their professional carreers and their social life.
The reader of Lussu's account will know that there are important differences between Hitler's Third Reich and Italy under Mussolini: while Germany's working classes in their majority where favorable to the regime as a result of generous salarial and rent policy and while the German opposition was systematically neutralized and physically liquidated by the regime,a fragile balance between the formally intact constitutional monarchy and the Duce developped in Italy, and civil society never vanished completely, the fascists being unable to win the unconditional support of the working class.
This fragile balance eventually became the main reason for Italy's narrow escape from the role of aggressor to victim at the end of the war.

Finally, the reader of Lussus text will be able to contemplate today's political scenery in Italy and to draw comparisons with political trends of recent years both in other European countries and in Switzerland.

2007-07-21T10:54:00.000+02:00

"Church" is a Trademark
Though I am a protestant both by tradition and by free choice (baptized evangelical-reformed), I can fully understand why the Roman Catholic Church is firm in the defense of it's status as "church". This is a question of trademark protection.
The most dangerous challenge that the Roman Catholic Church faces these days does not come from individualistic Lutherans, Calvinists or Zwinglians, but from Scientology with it's perfect financial management.
In a very clever move, the Vatican has enlarged it's trademark protection to the orthodox churches in Russia, Byelorus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and the Middle East.
This partial exception to the Roman monopoly is aimed at easing the renewed tensions between Eastern and Western Christianism that had been fuelled by the activities by Roman Catholicm missionaries in Russia after the fall of the Soviet System.
No wonder if Chinese who want to be baptized tend to turn to become Lutherans rather than Roman Catholics - they will be safe from institutional constraints and will face less problems of trademark protection.

2007-07-08T00:17:00.000+02:00

Fooling around with the Law

Image to the Left: Honoré Daumier
Image to the Right: Christoph Blocher Copyright Dan Cermak

Foolish things are happening these days in Switzerland. Only a few days after a popular inititiave launched by the Swiss People's Party demanding for the introduction of a detailed list into the Federal Constitution of criminal offenses that would automatically lead to expulsion of foreigners from the country, the Federal Supreme Court has decided that it is unlawful to demand tax deductions for funding political parties. The case that had been brought before the court was provoked by two tax payers in the Canton of Zurich that had formally asked a tax deduction for a donation to a political party which they never had made.
By intentionally making a false statement in their tax declaration, the two citizens were able to bring their cause to all levels of cantonal and federal judicial authorities. Their abuse of the law produced a paradoxical result: while the Canton of Zurich intends to increase the amount of tax-deducible donations to political parties, the Federal Court prohibits it, explaining that political parties are of no use for the common wealth. Without political parties, a democratic society cannot function properly, and Switzerland has been fortunate enough to avoid state funding of political parties so far...
It was the privilege of the Swiss People's Party to continuously undermine the confidence of the citizens in our political system and into the judiciary, but now it seems that our Supreme Court has caught the deconstruction virus, too...

2007-07-07T08:45:00.000+02:00

Fooling around with the Constitution

In it's never ending quest for the applause of citizens frustrated and estranged by the problems of migration, the Swiss People's Party has launched a popular initiative which demands an amendment to the constitution that explicitly describes the criteria for expulsion on unwanted foreigners. By doing so, the party contradicts it's own critera of reducing the inference of the state in "things in particular" and violates the principle of restricting issues to be treated in the Constitution. Fooling around with the Constitution: a bad omen for politics under a domination of the Swiss People's Party in the near future

2007-06-27T20:27:00.000+02:00

The discreet charm of latent fascism

When UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) chairman Marcel Ospel, in a discussion with economists in Basel last week declared that he considered the Swiss People's Party as the most competent and trustworthy political party in Switzerland in terms of economic policies, his remark earned mixed applause. One of the leading figures of that party, Christoph Blocher, now Minister of Justice of the Swiss Confederation, has been known for years for his inflammatory rhetoric style mixing talk of economic liberalism and xenophoby with the intention to bring elements of the extreme right onto his bandwagon. The recent success of Nicolas Sarcozy in the French presidential elections has been built on a similar rhetoric: praise of the nation's "grandeur", mixed with a more ot less subtle xenophobia and a call for economic reforms under a strong central government.
A heated discussion on Marcel Ospel's stance was launched on the Swiss Blog http://www.arlesheimreloaded.ch, and it came to an abrupt stop decided by the blog master when on some posts the term "national socialism" was used to define certain emerging trends in Swiss politics.
In recent years, there have been reciprocal accusations between the Swiss Social Democrativ Party (SP) and the SVP of "national socialist" behaviour, without arousing much interest by the electorate until recently.
But by the fact that radical nationalist and xenophobic movements are en vogue again in post-communist Eastern Europe and that the rhetoric of the Western European Right is getting tougher in terms of discimination against foreigners, the interest in the origins of national socialism (Germany) and fascism (Italy) has been awakened once again.
The National Socialist Movement, as ist existed in Germany between 1933 and 1945, used for it's image a specific blend of promises of economic growth, an exaggerated role for the nation (built on racial criteria) and social justice based on the exlusion and eventually extermination of those who did not comply with he rules or where considered as unworthy by racial criteria. The Soviet system, on the other hand, used social class as central criterion for the exclusion from economic and political life, and for eventual liquidation of persons of bourgeois origin.
After the downfall of the Third Reich, race was no longer a criterion for exclusion, liquidation, annihilation, but the struggle of the classes according to Marx and Engels continued to be considered as the single most important motor for progress of society on the road towards socialism.

After the downfall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was at first a period of complete desorientation. From the chaos that followed the collapse, a new class of entrepreneurs emerged in the Russian Federation, the so-called oligarchs, who took control of the economy and tried to do the same in politics.
President Boris Yeltsin, uncapable of controlling a systen that had rund wild, passed his power to a brilliant, healthy (and tough) young lawyer, Vladimit Putin, brought up within the Soviet System, and who had made his carreer in the KGB.
Since his arrival to power, Putin systematically has reverted the chaotic and unstructured political and economic freedom that Russia had known for less than ten years by what he called "the Dictatorship of the Law". The oligarchs were driven into exile or jailed and the central government succeeded brilliantly in bringing economic decision power back again under it's control.
To regain the confidence of the estranged population, the colours of Putin's rethoric have turned more and more nationalistic, culminating in the restoration of the national anthem of the former Soviet Union created in 1944.
The objectives of this nationalistic trend are evident: to strengthen the defenses of the population against globalisation, in the interest of economic elites that actively participate in the process of gobalization while instrumentalizing the xenophobic reflexes of the masses for their own interests. The "Dictatorship of the Law" is the mechanism by which the new ruling class finds it's legitimation in the confrontation with the classical left. By actively supporting the xenophobic tendencies within society, the ruling elite successfully reduces the risk of an active participation of "foreigners" in the national economy.
The result is a new form of National Socialism in the mask of what might be called "patriotic free market economy". No wonder that those who consider liberalism as a philosophical and political struggle for freedom in terms of market economy, but siumultaneously an attitude that does not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, religion of gender, are the natural enemies of the new "patriotic" movements that call themselves "liberal".
The leaders of the Swiss People's Party know exactly what they do when selling their perfect mixture of talk on free market economy and a monopoly over the most important national symbols: the flag, the folks sports such as "Schwingen" and "Hornussen" and last but not least Swiss country music.

2007-06-17T12:51:00.000+02:00

Eco-Socialist Conservatism - The Cultural Conundrum of Basel

The Basel City Music Hall as it looks today and will look for another 20 years

The City Music Hall Project by Zaha HADID that the voters of Basel rejected on June 17, 2007

The city of Basel is proud of it's international image as a strongpoint of art and it is home to an internationally reknowned Music Academy. At the same time, this city, where two of the most important global players of the pharmaceutical industry, ROCHE and NOVARTIS, have their headquarters, is victim of a permanent loss of permanent residents which are able and/or willing to influence it's political fortunes. More to this, the city is the capital of one of the most tiny Cantons of Switzerland, Basel-Stadt, with a population of under 200,000 and it's socio-demographic structures shows a continuous trend towards old age and migrants.
Less than half of the inhabitants are active citizen, and the have clearly shown their political orientation toward socialism and ecology by electing parliament and a government which is dominated by the left and the (left-leaning) greens.
It is no wonder therefore that a project to replace the city music hall by a new building conceived by Zara Hadid has lost popular support in a vote on state subsidies for the construction site, with a more than 60 percent majority.
The people of Basel are used to be well served by their industry's corporate taxes but are not ready to invest in projects of cultural infrastructure.
The most intriguing feature of the phenomenon is the counterproductive behaviour of the representatives of the arts: there is no such thing as solidarity between art,
theater and music. The fatal blow was dealt to the project from within the art scene from a famous sculptor: Bettina Eichin, the author of the sitting statue of Helvetia on the Mittlere Rheinbrücke

Eichin, a fervent environmental activist, stated in a letter to the editor of the local newspaper "Basler Zeitung" that HADID's Casino would contribute to the warming of 3° Centigrade of the city atmosphere because of it's aluminium façade.

Those Basel citizen who did not like the architectural aspect of the project were pleased: finally somebody had explained to them that city concert halls contribute to gobal warming.

2007-05-24T10:35:00.000+02:00

alpa gun - a German Rapper tells us how it is to be a Foreigner - or as the British would have said half a century ago - an Alien
A useful insight into the soul of all those who are in fact "Ausländer" wherever they may live, in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Britain, France or Italy...

An English translation will follow

Die meisten Mitbürger ohne Deutschen Pass arbeiten
seit Jahrzehnten in Deutschland viele sind hier
geboren und aufgewachsen
Das Jahr 1961 ist das Entscheidene Stich Jahr
Fast alle Ausländer die in diesem Jahrhundert nach
Deutschland kommen tun dies um Hier zu arbeiten

Ich bin hier geborn und werd hier draußen alt
ich bin ein Tuerke mit unbefristetem aufenthalt
du brauchst nicht so zu gucken homo weil ich schwarze
haare habe oder
es war nicht leicht hier das sind 26 harte jahre
und unsre eltern haben das geld gebraucht
sie haben hier geackert und ne neue welt gebaut
vater wurde schikaniert als wär er ein terrorist
deswegen leb ich heute da wo das härteste ghetto ist
da wo nur kurden, russen, araber und Tuerken wohnen
da wo die menschen kämpfen müssen für ein bisschen
lohn
euch geht es gut da oben
doch wir habens hier unten schwer
für euch sind wir kanacks und wir müssen trotzdem in
die bundeswehr
ich bin kein faschist ich bin hier nur so aufgewachsen
wenn ich drüben in osten bin kenn ich auch ein paar
glatzen
wir sind hier zu hause es wird zeit dass ihr es heute
rafft
fast jeder von uns auf der straße hat 'n deutschen
pass

ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch ich bin hier geboren oder
zu viele sind heute im knast nur aus manchen ist was
geworden
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
wir habens hier nicht leicht gehabt
die straße im ghetto hat noch niemanden reich gemacht
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch berlin ist mein zu hause, meine heimat, meine
stadt
hier kriegst du auch mal auf die schnauze
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch für euch bin ich kanacke
trotzdem bin ich hier und leb unter der deutschen
flagge

rechtlich gesehen sind sie deutsche, aber sie bleiben
fremde denn von ihren kumpels unterscheiden sie sich
durch ihre sprache und ihren glauben

jahh..hier gibt es viele banden und zu viele drauf
gänger
ja es stimmt die meisten von denen sind AUSLÄNDER
jahh..guck jeder zweite von uns und viertel ist
vorbestraft
du machst auf gangsta doch keiner an deinem dorf ist
hart
früher war alles anders ich hab auch abgezogen
und so manche gute freunde von mir wurden abgeschoben
oder
ich weiß man hat kein grund und nicht das recht
jemanden anzugreifen
doch sie finden immer wieder ein grund dich anzuzeigen
und heute ist es so dass wir uns gegenseitig schlagen
es hat sich viel geändert es ist nicht mehr wie vor 30
jahren
damals hielten wir noch mehr zusammen und waren gegen
nazis
jetzt hast du beef mit leuten die du hier jeden tag
siehst
doch in mein bezirk sind wir wie eine familie
ich wohne gerne schöneberg weil ich hier alle liebe
ich kann nicht weg hier weil ich die gegend brauche
guck berlin ist meine heimat berlin ist unser zuhause

ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch ich bin hier geboren
zu viele sind heute im knast nur aus manchen ist was
geworden
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
wir habens hier nicht leicht gehabt
die straße im ghetto hat noch niemanden reich gemacht
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch berlin ist mein zu hause, meine heimat, meine
stadt
hier kriegst du auch mal auf die schnauze
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch für euch bin ich kanacke
canim trotzdem bin ich hier und leb unter der
deutschen flagge

ihr müsst mir glauben der umgang mit euch ist gar
nicht leicht
ihr schmeißt uns auf ein haufen und sagt wir sind alle
gleich
ich hab mich oft geschlagen doch mein bruder wollte
nicht so sein
trotzdem kommt er wegen sein aussehen in keine disco
rein
Tuerken töten für ehre und drehen auch krumme dinger
und manche deutsche machen lieber sex mit kleinen
kindern
nicht jeder von uns würde mit koks oder hero dealen
ich sag doch auch nicht jeder deutsche ist gestört und
Pädophil
es ist wie eine rebe mit großen und kleinen trauben
wenn eine schlecht ist heißt es nicht das gleich alle
verfault sind
wir mussten kämpfen und haben nie was von euch gewollt
nder
ihr sollt nur wissen wir sind auch ein teil vom
deutschen volk

ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch ich bin hier geboren zu viele sind heute im knast

nur aus manchen ist was geworden
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
wir habens hier nicht leicht gehabt
die straße im ghetto hat noch niemanden reich gemacht
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch berlin ist mein zu hause, meine heimat, meine
stadt
hier kriegst du auch mal auf die schnauze
ich bin ein AUSLÄNDER
doch für euch bin ich kanacke
trotzdem bin ich hier und leb unter der deutschen
flagge
ICH BIN EIN AUSLÄNDER

für alle AUSLÄNDER und für alle DEUTSCHEN..

alpa gun

2007-05-06T22:47:00.000+02:00

SARKOZY élu président de la République Française - va-t-il pouvoir tenir ses promesses?
Le nouveau président de la République Française a héritéd'un pays dans un profond désarroi. S'il peut se féliciter de la majorité claire qu'il a obtenu dans le second tour de l'élection face à une Ségolène Royal de plus en plus émotive, aggressive et en même temps chancellante dans la phase terminale, il va être hanté par le spectre des expectations qu'il a nourri dans les rangs de l'extrème droite. Va-t-il pouvoir se libérer de l'hypothèque que ses déclarations plus encourageante vis-à-vis des exigences l'extrème droite représenten pour lui. A gauche, il n'y a pour l'instant peu de risque pour le nouveau patron de l'Elysée, L'envie de faire la grève se trouve fortement amoindrie, et il faudra beaucoup d'effort pour guérir les blessures des déchirements intérieurs dans les rangs des socialistes.
De toute façon, il ne faut pas perdre des yeux le candidat qui a fini troisième au premier tour des élections présidentielle, François Bayrou, et qui très probablement va faire un effort considérable pour se retrouver avec un groupe parlamentaire UDF fort à l'Assemblée après les élections législatives de l'été.
La chance pour les centristes de modifier non seulement la ligne de tir de l'UMP, mais aussi bien celle de la gauche dans la bonne direction, c.à.d. l'ouverture d'abord sur l'Union Européennes puis sur le marché nord-américain et mondial.

2007-04-28T20:00:00.000+02:00

Poland reinvents the witch hunt
La Pologne réinvente la chasse aux sorcières

Once upon a time witch hunts and immolation of witches were a strong tradition in continental Europe.
In Switzerland, the last criminal process process for alleged sorcery took place in the Canton of Glaris in 1782 against Anna Göldi (born 1734). Despite the efforts of a qualified defense lawyer and nation-wide support by members of the scientific and political elite, Anna Göldi was found guilty and executed by the sword.

The witch hunt that the Kaczynski brothers have engaged in will most probably not lead to capital punishment, but it will destroy the carreer and the professional outlook for thousands of members of the academe of a country that is a full member of the European Union, for the simple reason that all civil servants are asked to declare that they have never had had any kind of coperation with the communist regime. Tadeusz Masowiecki is among them and he had the courage not to sign that declaration.
In addition to my congratulations on the occasion of his 80th birthday, I add my best wishes to him for his civil courage and civil desobedience. Hopefully his example will be followed by many.

Il y avait, en Europe, dans un lointain passé, une tradition très forte de chasser et d'immoler des sorcières.
En Suisse, le dernier procès pour sorcellerie a été ouvert en 1782 dans le Canton de Glaris, contre Anna Göldi. Malgré une défense compétente et des interventions en faveur de l'accusée par des membres de l'élite scientifique et politique du pays, Anna Göldi a été trouvée coupable de sorcellerie sur la fille de son employeur , condamnée et exécutée à l'épée.

Il est fort improbable que la chasse aux sorcières dans laquelle se sont engagés récemment les jumeaux Kaczynski va se solder par une peine capitale, mais elle pourrait détruire la carrière et les chances de réusssite professionelle de bon nombre de membres de la communauté académique de la Pologne, donc dans un pays qui membre à part entière de l'Union Européenne, pour la simple raison que toutes les personnes employées dans le service public sont obligé de déclarer, par écrit et sous sermon, de ne jamais avoir été en contact avec les services secret de l'ancien régime communiste, sous peine de perdre leur poste.
Mr. Masowiecki et parmi eux et il a osé refuser de signer.

En plus des cordiaux voeux que j'avais formulé lors de son quatre-vingtième annversaire tout récemment,j'aimerais lui présenter mes sincères félications pour son courage et sa désobéissance civique, tout en espérant que son example soit suivi par un grand nombre de personnes.

2007-04-22T21:34:00.000+02:00

L'avenir du mouvement libéral dans les mains de François Bayrou

Tout l'avenir de la survie d'une formation libérale dans le sens propre du terme en France dépend maintenant des capacités intellectuelles et de la force morale de François Bayrou. Va-t-il vendre sa peau à Sarkozy pour un siège au gouvernement, va-t-il tomber sous le charme de Ségolène Royal, le risque et gigantesque. Il pourra perdre ses électeurs en se déclarant en faveur d'un des deux candidats victorieux au premier tour, mais aussi bien en rejetant d'emblée un soutien d'un des deux candidats. La question cruciale, c'est l'ordre de grandeur des pertes de l'UDF pertes lors des élections législatives. Sie le parti et son chef résistent à la temptation de joindre l'un des deux camps du bipôle, il gardent une chance considérable de former un groupe UDF fort au parlement qui pourra s'imposer de façon significative dans l'hémicycle et faire bousculer certaines législations dans la bonne direction. Tout dépendra de la force morale des électeurs UDF et de leur chef, François Bayroud, face à la guillotine (ou des chants de sirènes) du bipolarisme.
En ce qui concerne les libéraux en Suisse le résultat de l'UDF aux législatives en France sera de bonne ou de mauvaise augure pour eux. Mutatis mutandis ils se trouvent dans le même dilemme. Si on veut être optimiste, on peut considérer qu'il y a un réservoir d'électeurs à esprit libéral (qu'il faudra convaincre qu'ils ont raison de l'être et de voter en conséquence) proche de 20 % en France, et pourquoi pas en Suisse?

2007-04-17T21:18:00.000+02:00

Happy Birthday Mr Mazowiecki

Portrait Photography 2001 by Maciej Plewinski, Krakow, Poland
http://www.plewinski.com/

Dear Mr Mazowiecki
You are one of the most distinguished political thinkers and political leaders of our times, and it cannot be stressed enough that not only you have been, as Rudolf Stamm notes on page 7 of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of April 17, 2007: "The Spiritus Rector of Solidarnosc" but that you have lent your intellectual and moral power, after your successful term as Poland's first post-communist prime minister in 1989 and 1990, to one of the most difficult humanitarian mandates of the last decade of the 20th century:
as envoy of the United Nations from 1991 to 1995 in Bosnia torn apart by a cruel fratricidal war. More to that: you had the courage to step back and to declare that you did this not so much because you were tired but in order to protest against the political class of Western Europe that did systematically scotomize these disastrous events which have left deep wounds in the Balkans that will last for decades to come.
Your recent engagement against growing ultra-nationalist extremism in your own country at an age where others would sit back to contemplate the world with contempt but without telling their fellow citizens about their thoughts and their feelings, merits our full admiration.

With my best wishes for many years to come, for fine health and good spirits

Osservatore Profano

2007-04-15T09:34:00.000+02:00

EURO 08 and UEFA - from m***y-l********g to political power play
Will the VAT revenue gradient between Austria and Switzerland ring the final bell to Swiss federal income taxation?

Football (soccer) organizations such as FIFA and UEFA are well known for their m***y-l*******ng capacities and m***a-like behaviour, but the latest knews concerning the VAT(value added tax, MwSt / Mehrwertsteuer) revenues of both Austria and Switzerland, the two organizing nations of the EURO 08, show the potential of the football organizations to come out in the open of political power play. According to a report of the Sunday edition of the Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ am Sonntag), UEFA will sell tickets for the same price in both Austria and Switzerland despite the fact that the Austrian State imposes a 20% VAT whch will generate an estimated revenue of about 10 millions Euros, while the Swiss Confederation -on the basis of a VAT of only 2,4%, will earn only about 0.8 million Euros. Switzerland will have to spend more than 55 million Euros in taxpayer's money for the EURO 08 contest.
Three questions arise:
a) How stupid have the Swiss authorities been in their negotiations with the UEFA
to accept costs of more than 50 millions Euro to be covered by income taxes,
without looking at their partners in Austria
a) Why have EURO 08 visitors in Switzerland to pay the same price per ticket
as their Austrian neighbours without an effect on the burden of the EURO 08
infrastructure and service costs on their state budget?
c) What will be the effect of this incredible mess on the image Swiss
income tax payers will have of he wisdom of their government and parliament?

It may well be that football will become - more than ever before - an important element of the political powerplay and that the UEFA's ball tricks may make understand the Swiss that it would be proof of their collective intelligence to liquidate the overdue federal income tax in favor of a reasonable VAT.
Maybe finance minister Merz, a clever man who does his tricks behind the backs of his media-hungry colleagues such as Blocher, Couchepin and Calmy-Rey, will be pleased to read the NZZ am Sonntag report.

Two images representing violent behaviour on the football field published in the first version of this post have been eliminated
after warnings by a fellow (professional) blogger that they might provoke legal action by the football associations mentionned above.
The Editor

2007-03-22T20:27:00.001+01:00

Darfur - Jihad perverted
From a strictly religious standpoint, the killing of the Christian and or animist population of Southern Sudan could be interpreted as part of the obligation of pious Muslims to fight the infidels. But there is now enough evidence that religious zeal is not the principal motive for the activities of the milices supported by the government in Khartum in Darfur.The fossile fuel and mineral resources below the surface are the most important one, and no one knows who will finally take profit from the dirty work of the milices. All this might be trivial if there was not the silence with which religious authorities and intellectuals in the islamic world ahve reacted to the Darfur tragedy so far.
It would greatly enhance the credibility of the religious and intellectual elite of the muslim community if it's most prominent exponents could decide to take action against the Khartum government, beyond the closed circles of the United Nations. No doubt, the victims of the United States war against Iraq and the sufferings of the Chechen population on the hand of Russia both contribute greatly to a desire for revenge throughout the Muslim community, but this is a different story, this is Africa, a continent that has already suffered too much from foreign domination, be it
slavery, colonial or postcolonial oppression, a continent without defense.
A strong word from Muslim leaders on Darfur is overdue.

2007-03-08T19:52:00.000+01:00

"Monarchie bananière" et "Cheval noir"

Aujourd'hui, la Neue Zürcher Zeitung décrit François Bayrou comme "cheval noir" qui aurait échappé au propriétaire de son écurie, l'UDF (seul mouvement libéral de la France) et plus particulièrement à l'ancien Président de la République, Giscard d'Estaing. Il y a deux raisons pour Giscard de se fâcher contre le "cheval noir":
a) Etant ENArque lui-même,il y lui-même toujours été un membre proéminent de la "monarchie bananière" apostrophiée hier sur France Culture par la Verte Corinne Lepage (dont ont peu admirer le courage du soutenir un libéral et d'afficher sa conviction qu'écologiee et économie de marché ne sont pas en contradiction irréparable)
b) Bayrou propose un projet simplifié pour la Constitution Européenne dont Giscard a été le père spirituel...
Vous trouverez les sites web de Bayrou et de Corinne Lepage dans la liste des liens.

"Banana Monarchy" and "Black Horse"

Yesterday, on French radio station "France Culture", a refreshing interview with one of the less known dozens of candidates for the French presidential election, Corinne Lepage. This outspoken lady has already made public her preference for the liberal François Bayrou who at present is classified third in the presidential race behind the official big party candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal.
While openly addressing ecological subjects, she refuses to accept the wide-spread view that market economy and ecological objectives are incompatible. Why does she take sides at this early stage of the campaign`with a liberal outsider? She explains that France has become a "banana monarchy" which means that the power centers of the state are in the hands of an extremely restricted and inbred elite of men and women who have started their carreer as students at the ENA (Ecole Nationale d'Administration), the so-called "Enarchs", with little or no contact with the economic and societal reality of the population.
Her programme is worth reading even for those who do not share her views on nuclear power plants. You will find it along with the one of François Bayrou on the link list.
Today, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung describes François Bayrou as "Black Horse" escaping control by his owner (former French President Giscard d'Estaing and the "Union pour la Démocratie Française UDF", the only serious liberal movement in France). It is clear that Giscard d'Estaing ist angry about the "black horse" for two simple reasons:
a) Giscard has always been a prominent "ENArque" and member of the "banana monarchy" nomenclatura, and
b) Bayrou is suggesting a new, simplified project for the European Constitution the core programme of which had been masterminded by Giscard himself...

2007-03-07T18:21:00.000+01:00

Fortune-Building in Switzerland and the reinvention of dynasties of the Habsburg type

My post on Swiss Federal minister of justice Christoph Blocher and his critique of NOVARTIS CEO and chairman of the board Daniel Vasella has provoked interesting comments. An anonymous commentator whose text I will not publish in extenso for reasons of privacy protection writes to me:
"What astounds me about HBM (i.e. Henri B.Meier, former finance chief of ROCHE and HBM Partner AG, Zurich, respectively, see http://www.moneyhouse.ch/u/pub/hbm_partners_ag_CH-020.3.024.334-3.htm - the editor ), Ebner & Blocher: No one in this country is interested in the real origin of Blocher's fortune (it can quite obviously not be from EMS) and no one in this country seems to be interested in the origin of HBMs astronomical financial profits @ Roche back in the early nineties either, nor in the financial shambles he left, earlier this decade. ... Despite the vast amount of socialist oriented journalists, writing here. An omertà that reminds one of the Craxi Italy and of the former PM there, don't you think?"

2007-02-26T12:31:00.000+01:00

Blocher's U-turn from nationalism to stockholder (or national?) socialism

Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher is a fine strategist with a complete amnesia for his own entrepreneurial carreer. By attacking NOVARTIS CEO Daniel Vasella - in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, February 25, 2007 - and presenting himself as an advocate for stockholder rights, he forgets how he himself did his tricks as a young poor farmer and son of a protestant clergyman to become first CEO of EMS Chemie, a fine-chemicals enterprise domciliated at Domat-Ems in the Canton of Grisons and then get complete control of what is now EMS-Chemie Holding and a vast financial empire which he handed over to his children when he was elected to the Swiss Federal Council. A fierce patriot with a perfect sensorium and rhetoric to allure the electorate from the extreme right , he uses his power as minister of justice to remodel the judicial system of Switzerland according to his own ideas, which always come as a surprise to those who do not know him. His newest U-turn, presented as an indirect critique of NOVARTIS boss Vasella, has been well designed to please the notoriously socalist electorate of the Canton of Basel-Stadt and to help his own Swiss People's Party (SVP) that has had a difficult stand in that tiny city-republic and headquarter of ROCHE and NOVARTIS so far.
It is far from certain if the notoriously minoritarian liberals will be able to stem the tide and prevent Blocher's party from sucking them up in the national parliamentary elections due in autumn 2007.
The fusion of nationalism and socialism, Blocher style, is well under way in Switzerland.

2007-02-25T17:44:00.000+01:00

Muammar Al Gadhafi's Best Friends
are the Swiss. 50% of their importation of crude oil is from Libya. While the Swiss are bickering at each other over the question whether they will need nuclear power plants from 2020 on, they heat their homes and they drive their cars with fuel from a dictatorship of exemplary cruelty (see my post of december 12, 2006 on "le jugement de Tripoli")
A question: would a boycot of Libyan oil and the demand for oil from countries where the most basic human rights are respected fall into the category of racist, antiislamic ideologies?

Les meilleurs amis de Mouammar El Gaddafi
ce sont les Suisses. 50% de leurs importantions de pétrole brut proviennet de la Libye. Pendant qu'ils s'engueulent entre eux pour savoir s'ils auront besoin de centrales nucléaires à partir de l'an 2020, ils chauffent leurs maisons et ils conduisent leurs bagnoles avec du fuel qui provient d'une dictature d'une cruauté exemplaire (voir mon texte du 12 décembre 2006 "Le jugement de Tripoli...")
Une question: Un boycot du pétrole libyen et la demande d'importer du fuel de pays où les droits fondamentaux sont respectés tomberaient-il sous la catégorie d'une idéologie raciste ou antiislamique?

Die besten Freunde Muammar Al Gadhafis
sind die Schweizer. 50% ihrer Rohölimporte stammen aus Libyen. Während sie heftig darüber streiten, ob sie ab 2020 Kernkraftwerke benötigen werden, heizen sie
ihre Häuser und fahren sie ihre Wagen mit Sprit der aus einer Diktatur von exemplarischer Grausamkeit stammt (man vergleiche mit meinem Post vom 12.Dezember 2006 über den Prozess von Tripoli).
Eine Frage: müsste ein Boykott libyschen Erdöls und die Forderung, Öl aus Ländern zu importieten, in denen die fundamentalen Menschenrechte respektiert werden, alsAusdruck einer rassistischen oder antiislamischen Ideologie gewertet werden?

I migliori amici di Muammar El Gaddafi
sono i Svizzeri. Il 50 percento delle loro importazioni di petroglio crudo vengono dalla Libia. Mentre che litigano con grande intensità sul problema se avranno bisogno di centrali nucleari nel 2020, riscaldano i loro appartamenti e guidano le loro vetture con gasoglio o benzina che proviene da una dittarura di crudeltà straordinaria (cf. il mio post del 12 dicembre 2006 "le jugement de Tripoli...")
Una domanda: il fatto di domandare un boicotto dell'importazione di petroglio dalla Libia dovrebbe essere qualificato come l'espressione di un'ideologia razzista o antiislamica?

2007-02-22T07:09:00.000+01:00

Quo usque tandem, Bertinotti, abutere patientia nostra?
The Italian Senate has failed to approve the foreign policy program of the government Prodi by 2 votes (158 instead of the 160 necessary for the qualified majority) and one again the responsible force behind this defeat is Bertinotti's Rifondazione Communista. Much as in the final crisis of the German Weimar Republic, a communist party that plays into the hands of the fascists. In Weimar, the communists - on order from Moscow - treated the social democrats as "Sozialfaschisten" and opened the way for Hitler's takeover. The most outrageous element this time is the fact that Romano Prodi's foreign policy has tried hard to redress the the mess initiated by Berlusconi's whole-hearted approval of the G.W.Bush's Iraq adventure, and to guarantee a say of Italy in the chorus of international concertation on security policies.
Italy's new Catilina is a man with a classical educational background, Fausto Bertinotti, and he should well understand the quotation above...

2007-02-15T07:51:00.000+01:00

More answers than questions this time?I am grateful to Epicure and Rossi for their answers.
Now here is my own position:
1. Q: Is spirituality compatible with modern scientific research?
A: Yes, as long as the person's spiritual disposition does not interfere with
his/her rational thinking, his/her honesty in methodological and technical
procedures and documentation of results, and his/her interpretation of
results. Spirituality in this case will have an influence on the motivation
of the researcher for a particular discipline or a specific research theme,
but the risk that it will interfere with the quality of the reserach is
comparable to the risk presented by financial support of research from private
enterprises or from state.
2. Q: Does spirituality interfere with the capacity to critical rational thinking?
A: No, if the conditions formulated in #1. are respected, i.e. the capacity
and readiness of the individal with a spiritual disposition to separate this
disposition and rational thinking
3. Q: Is spirituality necessary for religious orientation?
A: No. Religious orientation may be chosen on a purely rational basis or as a
means to reduce social and/or ethical conflicts in every-day life
4. Q: Is religion a technical substitute for lacking natural spirituality?
A: As a logical consequence of my answer to #3.: Yes, I am convinced that religion
may have this function, and that religious leaders consciously use and abuse
this element.
5. Q: Is spirituality compatible with atheism?
A: Yes, once again under the conditions described in #1. and #2. The conscious
self might decide to opt for atheism as an alternative to opting for a
religious orientation, and the spiritual disposition might be the
motivator to decide that way.

Now for Rossi's question on the importance of religion for liberal democracy:

My answer is clear: the history of modern democracies (e.g. the U.S.A.) have shown that religious orientations - and in particular multiple religious orientations, even those of sectarian character - might be helpful for the development of liberal democratic decision processes, for the simple reason that they can help people understand the impossibility to change and/or to homogenize personal religious feelings on a societal level, thus facilitating a dialogue "over the fences". In contrast to societies with heterogeneous religious communities, religious monopolies (e.g. Roman Catholicism or Islam) tend to heavily interfere with the development of liberal democratic structures.

This time, the answers seem to prevail over the questions raised. Hopefully to read more answers, and why not, more questions...

Osservatore Profano

2007-02-11T11:30:00.000+01:00

Monotheism, Atheism and Spirituality

In the Sunday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ am Sonntag) two scientists,ther immunologist Beda M. Stadler, from the University of Berne, and the geneticist Dean Hamer, from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, explain their relationship to religion and spirituality.
Stadler asks for a "Coming Out" of atheists for the Swiss federal elections due in autumn 2007, in order to assure the liberty of scientific research that is constantly challenged by religious fundamentalists.
Hamer, author of a series of publications on genetic determination of behaviour
(e.g. "Rethinking Behaviour Genetics", Science vol. 298,5591:71-72/4 October 2002)
concentrates on the question of the interactions between religion and spirituality.
From the results of his research on the influence of gene VMAT2 on spirituality and the capability of "self transcendence" in individuals, Hamer concludes that spirituality might be a genetic trait useful for survival of the species, but he does not identify a direct link between religion and spirituality.
The central questions that emerges from the positions of both Stadler and Hamer is the following:
1. Is spirituality compatible with modern scientific research?
2. Does spirituality interfere with the capacity to critical rational thinking?
3. Is spirituality necessary for religious orientation?
4. Is religion a technical substitute for those lacking natural spirituality?
5. Is spirituality compatible with atheism?

Osservatore Profano cordially invites the blogger community to answer his questions

2007-01-28T13:30:00.000+01:00

Roger Federer - the exception to the rule
Neither do I play tennis nor am I a tennis fan, but the phenomenon Roger Federer is worth a comment on this blog. This young man appears to be not only a fine technician and a complete athlete, he brings to the world of sports a rare blend of concentration, calm and fairness that demands admiration.
On the occasion of Roger Federer's victory in the Australian Open, Osservatore Profano makes an exception to his rule of continuous questioning and criticizing and extends his congratulations to this extraordinary sportsman.

2007-01-25T23:01:00.000+01:00

televison and postmodern fascism
When Swiss radio journalist Cornelia Cazis went on air on January 24, 2007 (DRS2) she asked about explanations for growing juvenile violence in Europe. She advanced verbal violence against young people as one important factor and, as an example, she quoted a remark of German Music Star juror Dieter Bohlen the night before on RTL2, as a nervous young contestant had completely failed her performance: "you not only look like shit, you also sing as if the sounds would come from another body opening.."
No wonder, Cornelia Cazis concluded, that young people, especially those who not particularly gifted, react to verbal injury with physical violence...
Remember Nancy Sinatra? "These boots are made for walking... and that's just what they'll do... one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you..."

2007-01-21T12:52:00.000+01:00

Religion and Collective Suicide
There seems to be a strange relationship between religion and the phenomenon of collective suicide. A singular illustration of this phenomenon is the growing trend to identify and to classify the major political forces in Mid Eastern conflicts in religious terms: "Shiites" and "Sunnites" and the growing acceptance of this extreme oversimplification by the media worldwide. The tragic civil war in Iraq, one of the countries most open to modern technology and science in the Sixties and Seventies of the 20th centuries in the area, ruined by a ruthless dictator and two wars (both with a geostrategical background) is now classified exclusively in religious terms, despite the fact that multiple political, sociological and demographical factors are involved that cannot be exlained by the religious background alone.
The class struggle of the 19th century, replaced by the "race struggle" in Nazi Germany has now turned into a "faith struggle" with the same release of (self-)destructive energy. Marxists would say that political use of racist and religious justifications for discrimination are "masquerades" of the class struggle, but this again is an over-simplification. Whatever the reasons for the changing of "masks"
from generation to generation, the most important feature of these phenomena is the fact that they are used to implant unrestrained hatred into the psyche of those who believe towards non-believers (or towards those who believe in a slightly different way)...

2007-01-09T11:56:00.000+01:00

Investigating the responsibility of late Pope John Pope II in the strange carreer of Stanislaw Wielgus

Copyright Maurizio Cattelan (1999) La Nona Ora

This hyperrealistic sculpture of the late Karol Woytila (Pope John Paul II) was created the same year Stanislaw Wielgus was named bishop of Plock (Plotzk)* by Pope John Paul II (a position Wielgus has held until his recent nomination as archbishop of Warsaw

The case of Stanislaw Wielgus shows the importance of a thorough workup of the political and theological reasons for his sudden downfall. There is little doubt that this man has been a loyal servant of both the late Karol Woytila (and his predecessor Jozef Glemp), in no way comparable to the sleeping mole Günther Guillaume that led to the downfall of German chancellor Willi Brandt. An ultraconservative throughout his carreer, Wielgus was probably the ideal go-between the communist regime and the growing power base of Karol Woytila and historical research will show if he has been a double-agent for both sides. The fact of the abrupt end of the carreer of an ultra-onservative cleric in Poland might be a signal of psychological hygiene in a country where transparency in power relationships has become possible nearly 20 years after the downfall of the socialist system in Eastern Europe - a historical evolution desired and actively supported by the catholic church of Poland - thanks to the integration of Poland into modern European relationships between church, state, media and science.
For the people of Poland it will be important to allow themselves a thorough scientific investigation of the mechanisms that a) have enabled the carreer of Stanislaw Wielgus and b) have led to the actual personal disaster.

Cf. Links:
a) Plock Official City Website (English Version)
b) Plotzk - An Ancient Jewish Community in Poland
On the history of the Jewish community of Plock which had existed from 1237 to 1941 when it was annihilated on March 1 (last vague of deportation during the Holocaust).

2007-01-08T20:13:00.000+01:00

Le combat des reines - Calmy-Rey contre Royal

La présidente de la Confédération Suisse pour 2007 s'appelle Mme Micheline Calmy née Rey (en Espagnol, synonyme de "roi") et malgré le fait qu'elle soit socialiste, elle s'en est violemment prise à M. Montebourg, conseiller personnel de Mme Ségolène Royal, candidate socialiste à la présidence de la République Française, pour ses critiques du système fiscal suisse. Rey contre Royal, c'est un match qu'un peut considérer comme "un combat des reines". Ce terme a une signification toute particulière dans le Canton d'origine de Mme Calmy-Rey, le Valais, pays lourd de traditions paysannes et païennes. On dit qu'une partie de ce peuple montagnard, connu pour son esprit combattif et ses têtes dures, est issue de tribus berbères qui se seraient retirées dans les hautes vallées lors de la reconquête de l'Europe méridionale et des Alpes maritimes par les Chrétiens. Une des traditions importantes du Valais, à part la viticulture, c'est le "combat des reines", c.à.d. une série de concours entre vaches de la race d'Hérens (en Allemand "Eringer Vieh")qui sert à la sélection des cheffes de troupeau, avec une finale entre les plus fortes (les "reines") qui a lieu chaque année au moi d'avril.
Si on considère la controverse entre la reine socialiste helvétique et la reine socialiste française, les chances pour une victoire de la Valaisanne sont donc tout à fait réelles. Il y a pour ça non seulement une raison folklorique ou ethnopsychologique, mais une raison politique toute simple:
la France souffre depuis toujours de son centralisme à outrance, et l'appétit de l'Etat français de confisquer les biens des ces citoyens pour les redistribuer et pour décourager l'investissement privé n'est un secret our personne. On n'a pas oublié le cri de réprobation lorsque l'idole de la jeunessse des années soixante,
Johnny Halliday, a annoncé qu'il avait choisi la Suisse pour domicile pour des raisons fiscales. La France vivrait beaucoup plus heureuse et aurait beaucoup moins de difficultés d'investissements au niveau de l'infrastructure locale et de la ghettoisation de villes entières si elle se décidait de passer du centralisme bureaucratique à des solutions fédérales avec une compétition fiscale saine.
Il ne s'agit pas de glorifier le système ultrafédéraliste helvétique mais il faut admettre que la concurrence fiscale entre communes et Cantons a un effet très important sur la pensée économique des pouvoirs publics qui sont contraint à faire face à la perte de contribuables si elles n'arrivent pas à trouver un équilibre entre les besoins objectifs de la population et la charge fiscale. Le parti
socialiste suisse a fait, das le passé, et continue de le faire, des efforts considérables pour homogénéiser le régime fiscal, mais il risque d'être surpassé par des initiatives de la droite libérale qui tentent d'introduire une "flat tax" ou au moins und "flat rate tax" avec des taux d'imposition variant entre Communes et Cantons. Si la "reine" Micheline défend le fédéralisme helvétique, elle a une autre raison, plus simple. Elle aura, pour la présidence, besoin du Goodwill sait très des Cantons germanophones de Suisse occidentale (Zurich, Schaffhouse, Saint-Gall, Zoug, Grisons etc.) qui ont cultivés une aversion collective contre l'impéralisme et l'arrogance de la Grande Nation vis-à-vis des petits Suisses, depuis les temps de l'occupation française en 1798. On dirait qu'il persiste, en Suisse occidentale, une sorte d'esprit Vendéen de vengeance vis-à-vis du grand voisin.
Et une fois de plus, c'est une chance pour la petit nation de volonté à l'esprit "astérixien" au milieu de l'Europe de être habité non seulement par des germanophones, mais des francophones qui savent défendre leurs intérêts à la mode des vaches d'Hérens.

2006-12-22T20:16:00.000+01:00

Piergiorgio Welby
Piergiorgio Welby is dead. He died because his physicians honoured his clear will to end his life that had become intolerable for him in the natural course of degenerative disease of the neuromuscular system for which there is no cure so far. They cut off the artificial ventilation that had maintained his failing respiration.
Conventional medical ethics demand the maintenance of life support as long as a patient ist not brain-dead, on the basis of the assumption that a cure for the disease responsible for the failure of physiological functions might be available in a foreseeable future. In the conscious patient with a chronic condition which steadily continues to deteriorate, the situation is different. Even if there is non cure in sight, some, but not all patients with similar conditions are able to adapt to their situation (tetraplegics, but also some persons with degenerative neuromuscular disease, such as famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking). What if a patient is uncapable in the long run to cope mentally with her/his condition? Is it correct to view the decision to commit suicide per se as the result of a pathological process that could be treated successfully, e.g. depression?
Where are the limits of coercion that can be used in order to maintain life when a fully conscious person, capable of reasoning, clearly declares that she/he is no longer willing to undergo the treatment imposed by the failure of her/his physiological functions? Where is the line between a treatement that is lived as torture by the patient and the obligation of the health care provider to respect
codified ethics and legal rules?
These questions are now raised in Italy and will produce a useful debate on the responsibility of legislators in medical and bio-ethics, as well as the responsibility of the individual health care provider and the freedom of choice of the conscious patient. The outcome of the debate will show us if respect for the individual person is strong enough to block attempts by fundamentalist religious authorities and political movements to enforce therapies that eventually become equivalents of torture.

2006-12-20T22:18:00.000+01:00

Le jugement de Tripoli - Une "affaire Calas" en Libye?
Le jugement de Tripoli (cinq infirmières bulgares et un médecin palestinien condammnés à la mort pour le présumé crime d'avoir infecté des enfants d'un hôpital de Bengasi avec le HIV) évoque la mémoire de l'accusation lancée par Voltaire auf 18e siècle au sujet de l'affaire Calas à Toulouse. On espère pour ces condamnés mais aussi pour la Libye toute entière l'entrée en scène d'un Voltaire autochthone qui aurait le courage de défier les perversion du système judiciare en place et de faire corriger ce jugement catastrophique.

2006-12-20T20:37:00.000+01:00

Claudio Magris and the "Lumpenbürgertum"

Claudio Magris, in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (december 20, 2006), has an interesting definition for the followers of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi:
"Lumpenbürgertum". The term is apparently derived from "Lumpenproletariat" (Russian:
Люмпенпролетариата), which in classical Marxist terminology describes the dispossessed masses "without class consciousness", which are therefore considered as useless for the systematic buildup of a revolutionary movement. The terminology suggested by Claudio Magris deserves some reflexion: first, the perception of the "Lumpenbürgertum" as a mass without "class consciousness" may be biased. The followers of Silvio Berlusconi are proud to consider themselves as the elite of postmodern liberalism, even if their conception of liberalism may be closer to mafiose ethics than to classical liberal thinking.
On the other hand, from a post-communist and post-fascist point of view, the masses may very well serve a revolutionary cause, but in a quite different way than Marx thought.
The "Lumpenproletariat" and the "Lumpenbürgertum" or "Lumpenbourgeoisie"
(Russian: ЛюмпенБуржуазии ) has been useful on various occasions during the 20th century for the orchestration of "coups d'état" (German: Staatsstreich, Spanish: golpe, Italian: colpo di stato). A colleague of Claudio Magris, Curzio Malaparte,
described the technique of the coup d'état in his famous book "tecnica del colpo di stato" back in 1931. The author describes the power struggle within the Russian revolution that led to Stalin's dictatorial regime, the methods used by Mussolini to get into control of Italy, and predicts the success of Hitler in Germany. At that time Malaparte is convinced that Hitler is a "particularly intelligent communist". The book has been published first in France, and then in Vienna, to be immediately forbidden in fascist Italy and in Nazi Germany. It is still recommended for those who like to look at history from different angles.
A modern edition of "tecnica del colpo di stato" has been published under the direction of the actual chief of the historical service of the Foreign Office (servizio storico del ministero degli esteri) of the Repubblica Italiana, Francesco Perfetti, at Mondadori, in 2003.
If we combine the terminology of Claudio Magris with the Malaparte's observations, the conclusion that Silvio Berlusconi has been (or still is) an admirer of Malaparte's tecnica del colpo di stato and that his most important personal success may be to have awakened the consciousness of his fellow citizens of the possibility of a colpo di stato within the framework of a democracy...

2006-12-16T16:38:00.000+01:00

Will Swiss physicians opt for the health care kolkhoz?
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ reports today that the Swiss Medical Federation FMH has decided not to take sides in the vote on the socialist health insurance initiative due next spring.
By leaving the decision to the members, the FMH abandons definitely the defense of the liberal traditions of the medical profession. It is evident that one of the central motives for doctors to opt for a centralized federal health insurance scheme is their growing anger about the unreliable, inconstant and mostly aggressive politics of the various social insurance companies active in Switzerland under the umbrella of heavy federal and cantonal legislation.
Another probable motive is a change of paradigm in the autostereotype of the medical profession. Many young physicians no longer can imagine to engage in an independent and entrepreneurial professional activity.
Once they leave the hospital environment where they have become accustomed to be employees - mostly at an age where they are married with children and anxiously avoid professional reiks, they are often seduced by the possibility of entering into a so-called "tiers payant" relationship with the social insurance companies, under a contract where there is no need to ask payment from their patients, an where they can relay on payment by the insurance company. The tradition of the "tiers garant" system that had strengthened the relationship between primary care (and specialized) physicians and their patients by allowing direct comparison between price and performance, with payback by the insurance company to the patent has become shaky. It was the "tiers garant" method that allowed direct control of price and quality by the client, but since this system no longer exists in hospital treatment, young physicians are no longer prepared to enforce it.
As an economic editorial in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung a year ago said: "Before WTO, the Federal Constution had to guarantee the health of the farming profession, after WTO the Constitution might have to guarantee the health of the medical profession..."
Back in the Soviet Union, independent farmers, the so-called kulaks, were forced into the kolkhoz system of collective farming. It is one of the paradoxes of our era, that twenty years after the downfall of the Soviet system, Swiss farmers seriously prepare temselves to find their economic niche under the conditions of globalisation, and Swiss physicians increasingly lean toward collectivistic solutions of the healthcare system.
The crucial question is whether a majority of physicians will be tempted to seek shelter under an umbrella that would be a late imitation of the NHS in Britain, at a time when even in countries with a longstanding socialist tradition, there is a continuous shift away from state-controlled financing of the health care system.

2006-12-03T16:50:00.000+01:00

Minarets in Switzerland - Grey Wolves and Grey Bears

The debate on whether minarets are good or bad in Switzerland should
not be left to the extreme right of both Turkey and Switzerland

A legal row over the permission to build a minaret between a
Turkish Cultural Association which is said to be related to the
extreme right nationalist group "Grey Wolves" and the local political
authorities of the municipality of Wangen near Olten in the Swiss-
German Canton Solothurn has now evolved into a major subject for a
group of political activists within the Swiss People's Party, to be used in the federal parliamentary election year 2007.
The major arguments brought forward against minarets in Switzerland are the
following:

a) Minarets could transform traditional architectural
structures, often protected historical monuments, among them, and
particularly prominent, churches, some of them built even more than
1200 years ago. Minarets would present a menace to the cultural
tradition of the country. This argument is most strongly present in
the Italian-speaking Canton of Ticino with it's impressive
"Campanile" with their characteristic stone roofs, often standing
alone beside a rather modest basilica or chapel. Resistance against the constructions of minarets is strong here on the aforementionned grounds

b) Minarets should not be permitted because they represent the
religious fundamentalism, aggressivity and intolerance that has been associated lately with the Muslim world in general, as a consequence of the rhetoric of fundamentalist groups within Islam. This argument is probably the one most often brought forward

c) the minaret of Wangen is considered to be a religious pretext for implanting
extremist, probably terrorism-prone political organization. This is the argument used by the local opponents to the project.

d) A mosque is a Mosque even without a minaret (in fact there are historical mosques without the characteristic stiletto type minaret, e.g. in Africa, as the picture of a Sankore mosque in Timbuktu shows)

Source: Road to Timbuktu
http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi5/5_wondr6.htm

The real problem lies in the nature of the exponents of both sides.
The Turkish nationalist extreme right (the Grey Wolves) has been
known for decades for it's violence-prone rhetoric and behavior.
On the opposite side, in Switzerland, Ulrich Schlüer, member of the group most active in the fight against minarets (the "Egerkinger Gruppe") - let us call them
"Grey Bears" - has been known for years for his inflammatory
nationalist rhetoric. This type of rhetoric rhetoric easily creates an
atmosphere of confrontation where words facilitate the use of fists by frustrated citizens, and eventually of knives, guns and/or explosives, which in turn would justify heavy police intervention.
In the long term, an authoritarian regime , e.g. of the type of Mr
Putin's ideal: "Dictatorship of the Law", might be the consequence.
It is not known if Mr Schlüer has ever been to the Middle East or
to Northern Ireland, where there is overwhelming evidence for the
devastating consequences of a systematic build-up of violence through
violent rhetoric. It is difficult to imagine that Mr Schlüer really
desires this type of political climate in Switzerland, but the public still
waits for a formal dementi.

During the wars in Former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo) systematic mutual destruction of cultural heritage was
an important method of "cultural genocide", as the images below of two destroyed churches in Vukovar (Croatia),of two mosques in Stolac (Bosnia) and of the title page of a book on "Spiritual Genocide" testify:

These destructions are the concrete results of a longterm, unrestrained, uninterrupted and systematic mutual discriminatory discourse

A reminder: In Zurich-Balgrist,a mosque with a minaret that had been built 43 years ago lies peacefully next to the evangelic-reformed (protestant) church.

2006-11-30T22:47:00.000+01:00

Swiss Think Tanks Speak Out
In a Thursday, 30 November 2006 "Ideas Fair" at Technopark Zurich, the Swiss political think tanks Avenir Suisse (i.e. "Swiss Future", group headed by Thomas HELD) and Liberales Institut(Robert NEF), together with a dozen groups with similar activities, presented their concepts for initiating political and economical reform in Switzerland. Among the central subjects discussed was the question why Switzerland is so much behind schedule - in contrast to many countries in Europe with a heavy socialist tradition - when it comes to break down state monopolies.
It was found that the multi-layer federalist system demands extremely fine-tuned long-term campaigning in order to win the confidence of voters. Political analyst Claude Longchamps pointed to example of the popular vote in 2004 on stem cell legislation - the most liberal in Europe - for the sometimes excellent results of a more technically than politically inspired campaigning. Martine Brunschwig-Graf, a liberal Congresswoman from Geneva, called for a serious effort to define liberalism as a "state of the mind" and for more encouragement for individual citizen to take risks, to succeed or to fail without beeing punished by rigid regulations.
There were calls for serene optimism for the national elections of 2007 among warnings of a slow but inexorable decline of the welfare state into general depression. It was a meeting that clearly showed the enormous difficulties to implement change in a system full of perfectly interconnected stakeholders on every possible level of political decisionmaking.
One participant privately talked of "Leibeigenschaft im Sozialstaat" ("wellfare state slavery")...

2006-11-30T08:05:00.000+01:00

Ποντίφικα επίσκεψη στην Κωνσταντινούπολη - Papa İstanbul trafiğini kilitledi
The following text has been found on the Turkish TV Channel ATV

Papa 16. Benedict'in İstanbul'u ziyareti sırasında yolların güvenlik nedeniyle kapatılması vatandaşa zor anlar yaşattı Tam anlamıyla arapsaçına dönen trafikte araçlarında uzun süre mahsur kalan İstanbullular saatler sonra yollarına devam edebildi

Simultaneously, Greek National TV reports as follows:

Είκοσι εφτά χρόνια μετά την τελευταία Ποντίφικα επίσκεψη στην Κωνσταντινούπολη, ο Πάπας Βενέδικτος ΙΣΤ έγινε θερμά δεκτός στο Φανάρι από τον Οικουμενικό Πατριάρχη Βαρθολομαίο. Σε μια ιστορική στιγμή για την πολυπόθητη ενότητα των εκκλησιών, οι κορυφαίοι πνευματικοί ηγέτες εκατομμυρίων πιστών συναντήθηκαν στην έδρα του Οικουμενικού Θρόνου. Προηγουμένως οι δυο θρησκευτικοί ηγέτες παρακολούθησαν μαζί τη δοξολογία στον Πατριαρχικό Ναό του Αγίου Γεωργίου, προσκύνησαν από κοινού τα λείψανα των Αγίων Γρηγορίου του Θεολόγου και Ιωάννου του Χρυσοστόμου, και αντάλλαξαν θερμούς λόγους με την ευκαιρία του ιστορικού γεγονότος

Some 27 years after the last time a Pontiff had visited Istanbul, once known as Constantinople, Pope Benedict XVI was warmly welcomed Wednesday evening in Phanar by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew-"first among equals" of the leaders of the Orthodox Christian churches. In a landmark moment for the much-anticipated reconciliation of the two Churches, the spiritual leaders of millions of Christians held talks at the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Earlier, they had attended a mass at the Patriarchal Church of St. George, bowed to the holy relics of Saints John Chrysostom and Gregory and exchanged warm greetings on the occasion of such a momentous event.

It is comforting to see that for Turkey, the papal visit caused more problems on a practical (traffic) level than on religious grounds, whereas the relationship between
East and West Rome appeared to be more complex. The english translation of the Greek text contains a description of the Orthodox Patriarch which is not mentionned in the original: "first among equals". Has the english translation been manipulated for the use of those who do not understand Greek, in order to mark the difference of hierarchical status of the two church leaders?

Whatever the reasons for these linguistic contorsions, the most impressing phenomenon during the formal meeting, as shown on Greek TV, was the contrast between the impressive and wellarticulated, musical voice of Patriarch Batholomew and the thin voice and heavy German accent in the response (in English) of the Pope.

2006-11-27T23:04:00.000+01:00

A fabulous blog with a great name for our french speaking visitors: espace holbein
pour nos visiteurs francophones: un blog fabuleux portant un grand nom qui vaut la visite: espace holbein

2006-11-26T10:21:00.003+01:00

"Ausgebürgert" - Eine kulturelle Massenblutung"
Deutscher Text des Post von 2006, auf ausdrücklichen Wunsch aus den Reihen der Blogger-Gemeinde übersetzt von Osservatore Profano

In Nazi-Deutschland war rassische Reinheit das Kriterium für die Ausgrenzung, die Verfolgung und schliesslich die Vernichtung der Juden. Nach dem 2.Weltkrieg, wurde rassische Reinheit durch ideologische Reinheit ersetzt. Ethnische Reinheit erschien als Kriterium auf dem Balkan nach 1989. Religion ist das dominierende Ausgrenzungs-Kriterium geworden nach dem 11.September 2000. Die verzweifelte Suche nach "objektiven" Kriterien für die Ausgrenzung von Individuen und Gruppen scheint ein charakteristisches Phänomen in politischen Systemen zu sein, die in Auflösung begriffen sind. Hinter einer Nebelwand wechselnder Ideologien stehen häufig wirtschaftliche Motive. Das einfache Konzept des Klassenkampfes nach Karl Marx ist in 150 Jahren praktischer Experimente mit den Massen verfeinert und restrukturiert worden und erscheint dann zum Erstaunen jeder neuen Generation in einer neuen Maske.
Um die kulturelle Massenblutung, welche die Ausgrenzung aufgrund ideologischer Kriterien in der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, der DDR, ausgelöst hat, zu illustriere, zeige ich im Folgenden eine Liste von Künstlern, denen ihre Staatsbürgerschaft durch die DDR-Regierung in der Zeit zwischen 1949 und 1989, also bis zum Fall der Berliner Mauer, aberkannt wurde.
Sie stammt aus dem Katalog einer am Albertinum Dresden und 1991 in der Kleinen Deichtorhalle Hamburg veranstalteten Ausstellung, herausgegeben von Werner Schmidt bei Aragon, ISBN 3-87024-160-8.
Die Illustrationen dieses Blogs sind Werke von Klaus Staeck, einem der prominentesten Ausgebürgerten der untenstehenden Liste (http://www.klaus.staeck.de).
Klaus Staeck hat seine ätzende Kritik adn sozialer und politischer Heuchelei und Ungerechtigkeit nie aufgegeben und ist auch nach dem Verlassen der DDR in Westdeutschland ein unabhängiger "agent provocateur" geblieben. Sein Fall zeigt dass ausgebürgerte Künstler nicht automatisch in ihrer neuen Umgebung willkommen geheissen werden, aber selbst deren unwillkommenste Provokation ist ein wichtiger Beitrag zur kulturellen Entwicklung einer freien Gesellschaft.

"Ausgebürgert" - A Cultural Hemorrhage

In Nazi Germany, racial purity was the criterion for exclusion, prosecution and finally annihilation of the Jews. After World War II, racial purity was replaced by ideological purity. Ethnic purity appeared as a criterion in the Balkans after 1989. Religion has become the dominant discrimination criterion after September 11. The desperate search for "objective" criteria for the exclusion of individuals and groups appears to be characteristic phenomenon in disintegrating political systems. Behind the curtain of changing ideologies, economical reasons are most often present. The simplistic concept of class struggle defined by Karl Marx has been refined and restructured in 150 years of practical mass experiments and continues to reappear to the astonishment of the next generation under a new mask.
To illustrate the cultural hemorrhage that exclusion on ideological criteria caused to the former German Democratic Republic, here is a list of artists stripped of their citizenship by the GDR government between 1949 to 1989, i.e. until the downfall of the Berlin Wall.

It has been drawn from the catalogue of an exposition organized at the Albertinum Dresden and in 1991 at the Kleine Deichtorhalle Hamburg, edited by Werner Schmidt and published at Argon, ISBN 3-87024-160-8.

The Illustrations of this blog post are works of Klaus Staeck, one of the most prominent expatriates listed below ( http://www.klaus.staeck.de ). Klaus Staeck has never abandoned his acid criticism of social and political hypocrisy and injustice and has continued to be an independent "agent provocateur" in West Germany, after having abandoned the GDR in 1956. His case shows that expatriate artists are not automatically wellcome in their new environment, but even their most unwellcome provocation are an important contribution to cultural development of a free society.

Katherina Albert, Gerhardt Andrées, Helmut Apmann, Tina Apmann, Kerstin Arnold, Adline Assmann, Dorothe Aurich, Hermann Bachmann, Frank Badur, Ulrich Baehr, Meinhard Bärmich, Elfriede Bätz, Gerhard Bätz, Jan Bammes, Petra Bammes, Tina Bara, Ulrich Barnickel, Margarete Bartens, Friedrich Bartel, Dorte Bartky, Kurt Bartsch, Georg Baselitz, Martin Bauss, Gabriele Bechtle, Herbert Beck, Olaf Beck, Jan Bontjes van Beek, Norbert Behnk, Bernd Benedix, Karl-Heinz Benndorf, Peter Berndt, Dieter Otto Berschinski, Gert H.E. Beyer, Barbara Berthold-Metselaar, Bernd Bieder, Karlheinz Biederbick, Bärbel Biskop,
Christine Blei, Andreas Bliemel, Christine Bliemel, Michael Blumhagen, Hans-Joachim Bober, Andreas Boeckh, Hildegard Böhm, Rudolf Böhm, Maritta Böhme, Michael Böhme, Hanns Bönnighausen, Bernhard Bos, Bernhard Boeske, Peter Böttcher, Rainer Bonar (Lietzke), Thomas Gerd Bonfert, Hartmut Bonk, Harro Boos, Reinhard Boos, Jürgen Bordanowicz, Christian Brachwitz, Gottfried Bräunling, Hans-Otto Brambach, Heidi Brambach, Werner Brand, Andreas Brandt, Lutz Werner Brandt, Petra-Brandt-Herrmann,
Hans Breker a.k.a. Hans van Breek (his brother Arno Breker was a sciulptor cherished by the Nazis), Annette Brömsel, Hans Brosch, Dietrich Brüning, Astrid Büttner, Bernd Büttner, Dietmar Büttner, Kurt Bunge, Ernst Bursche, Barbara Cain, Detlef Carsten,
Rolf Christiansen, Vera Marie van Claer-Crodel, Matthias Creuziger, Carl Crodel, Christine Damerau, Lutz Dammbeck, Jonas Dangschat,Andreas Deckhardt, Michael Dehnert, Dagmar Denning, Klaus Dennhardt, Hans Holger Dettmann, Christina Diapari, Reinhard Dickel, Gunna Diehl, Helmut Diehl, Rolf Diess, Paul-Uwe Dietzsch, Dagmar Dimitroff,
Heinz Dinter, Susanne Doberschütz, Volker Döring, Martin Domke, Dottore (Wolfgang H. Lehmann), Dieter Dressler, Karl-Heinz Droste, Harald Eberlein, Rainer Tobias Ebert, Siegfried Eck, Albrecht Ecke, Andreas Eckardt,Friedrich Einhoff, Ulrich Eisenfeld, Klaus Elle, Margit Emmrich, Monika Engelhardt, Claudia Esch-Kenkel, Irina Esser,
Ulrich Ewald, Dorothea Eymess, Dirk Gerald Fabrian, Thomas Feldmann, Sabine-Feldtner-Horwarth, Conrad Felixmüller (1897-1974, member of the "Dresdner Sezession 1919", 40 of his works had been shown at the exposition "Entartete Kunst" in 1933), Henryk Fiedler, Karin Fiedler, Lutz Fiedler, Günter Firit, Birgit Fischer,
Heribert Fischer-Geising, Michael Flade, Marlis Flaig, Thomas Florschuetz, Christel Föllmer, Günter Föllmer, Ulrich Follmer, Sabine Franek-Koch, Thomas Franke, Antje Freiheit, Wolfgang Freitag, Fridolin Frenzel, Sofie Frenzel, Achim Freyer, Ilona Freyer, Lutz Friedel, Hartmut Friedrich, Jürgen Friedrich, Michael Friedrich, Georg Frietzsche, Norbert Fritsch, Horst Frörich, Elke Frühauf, Rainer Funck, Jürgen Gäbler, Harald Gallasch, Ginas Gass, Thomas Gatzemeier, Johannes Gebhardt, Eva Maria Geisler, Irino Georgio, Joseph Gerats, Siegfried Gerhardt, Joachim Gessner, Helmut Ginevra Weidenbach, Art Glöckner, Reinhard Glöde, Werner Goehle, Johann Görke, Erwin Görlach, Gerhard Görner, Christian Goetze, Ekkeland (Ekkehard) Götze, Eberhard Geier,
Hubertus von der Goltz, Ludwig Gosewitz, Detlef Gosselck, Jörg Gottschalk, Jürgen Gottschalk, Dietrich Grabas, Peter Grämer, Jürgen Grafe, Gotthard Graubner, Herbert Greif, Jürgen Grenzemann, Matthias Grimm, Raimund Gross, Helene Brigitte Grossmann,Hans Hendrik Grimmling, Reinhard Grütz,Traute Gruner, Andreas Grunert, Waldemar Grzimek, Otto Günther, Werner Günther, Hannelore Gutt, Ingo Haas, Jürgen Gustav Haase, Heinz Hadelich, Christina Hänsel, Claus Hänsel, Ingrid Hagedorn, Heidemarie Hagen, Reiner Hahn, Monika Hamann, Dieter Hanisch, Gudrun Hanisch, Monika Hanske, Natalie Harder, Ulrich Hartenstein, Claus Hartmann, Gertrud Hartmann, Horst Hartmann, Linde Hartmann, Manfred Hartmann, Ulrich Hartung, Reinhard Harz, Sigrid Haun, Florian Havemann (son of physicist Robert Havemann), Joachi Hawlik, Markus Hawlik, Bernhard Heiliger,Wolf Heinecke, Barbara Heinisch, Holm Heinke, Claudia Heinrich, Sabine Heinrich, Gerhard Helwig, Andreas Hentshel, Sibille Hentschel, Otto Herbig, Peter Hermann, Georg Herold, Marita Herold, Jürgen Herrmann, Peter Herrmann, Rolf Heym, Christine Hielscher, Elke Hildebrandt, Gero Hilliger, Hasso Hinke, Matthias Hintz, Barbara Hinz,Gabriele Hirsch, Gerhard Hoehme, Claus Hösselbarth, Anne Hoffmann, Bernd Hoffmann, Frank Hoffmann, Irene Hoffmann, Jörg Hoffmann, Hans Hoffmann-Lederer, Brunhild Hoffmann-Monnerjahn, Otto Hofmann, Rudolf Hofmann, Jean-Paul Hogère, Iris Hohlbein, Rüdiger Hohlbein, Matthias-Hohl-Stein, Ute Hoinkis,
Matthias Hollefreund, Georg Honerla, Barbara Honigmann, Georg Hornung, Ebergard Hückstädt, Regina Hückstädt, Ute Hünninger, Uta Hunninger, Harry Huster, Inge Jaeger-Linthoff, Wilhelm Jaeger, Jutta Jaehngen, Helmut Jagusch, Roland Jahn, Helga Jahnke, Kari Jarusch, Michael Jastram, Jürgen Jentzsch, Thomas Joachim, Peter Junghanss, Rudolf Kämmer, Sabine Kahane-Noll, Susanne Kahl, Dietrich Kahnert, Matthias Kaiser, Thomas Kaminksy, Ludwiga Kammerer, Detlev Karsten, Lilo Karsten, Thomas Karsten, Sabine Kauker, Stefan Kayser, Hans Kazzer, Andreas Kehler, Claudia Kenkel, Wolfgang Kenkel, Ralf Kerbach, Ina Kerkhoff, Georg Kern a.k.a. Georg Baselitz, Jürgen Kessler, Matthias Kessler, Lutz Ketscher, Stefanie Ketzscher, Jens Kilian, Hermann Kirchberger (1905-1983), Herbert Kitzel, Mareile Kitzel, Dieter Klass, Christa Klatt, Hans J.Kleinhammes, Peter Klube, Gustav Kluge, Hans-Dieter Kluge, Ulrich Knispel, Hans-Joachim Knobloch, Wolfgang Knorr, Ruth Koban, Peter Kober, Rolf König, Hans Körnig, Lisbeth Körnig, Wolfgang Koethe, Lutz Kommalein, Thomas Koppenhagen, Andreas Kopylowski-White, Dieter Koswig, Peter Kothe, k Passant (Stefan Kayser), Wera Krafft, Günter Kraska, Klaus-Dieter Krause, Rainer Krienke, Rainer Kriester, Peter Krüger, Eckehard Krummel,Ulrich Kubiak, Brigitte Kühlewind, Kattrin Kühn, Renate Kühn, Henning Kürschner, Manfred Küster, Ursula Küster, Volker Küster, Gebhard Kütbach, Fridun Kuhle, Wolfgang Kuhle, Joachim Kuhlmann, Alois Kuhn, Hans-Jürgen Kummer, Steffen Kunert, Susanne Kunjappu-Jellinek, Dieter Kunz, Ludwig Kunze, Helmut Lander, Fred Lang, Wilfried Lange, Johannes Lebek,Gottfried Legler, Wolfgang G.Lehmann (a.k.a. Dottore), Helge Leiberg, Lutz Leibner, Udo Lenkisch,
Rudolf Leonhard (Born 1910, exiled in 1955. Had been been denounced by a colleague after a professional dispute with Conrad Felixmüller), Sabine Lessig, Andreas Leupold, Matthias Leupold, Via Lewnadowsky, Werner Lichtner-Aix, André Liebscher,
Frank Rainer Liebscher, Hans-Jürgen Linge, Sabine Linge, Hans-Michael Linke, Karin Lobedann, Jutta Löffler, Christian Löser, Christian Löwenstein, Roger Loewig, Manfred Lohse, Peter Lohse, Rainer Luck, Thomas Ludwig, Wolfgang Ludwig, Lusici (Dietrich Schade), Renate Maak-Voigt, Jutta de Maizière, Wilfried Manthei, Georg Manthey, Horst de Marées (1896-1988), Ruth Markmann, Bernd Markowsky, Gerhard Markwald, Klaus-Reinhardt Marx, Willi Mathay, Friederike May, Claudia May Barthel, Günter Meck, Wilfried Meder, Gert Meier, Thomas Meinicke, Walther Meinig (1902-1987), Annemone Meisel, Eckardt Meisel, Jürgen Mesik, Christian Mewes, Fritz Meyer, Winfried Mikolajczyk, Dietmar Milke, Karl-Heinz Moeller, Steffi Mönich, Gerhard Moll, Sabine Molter, Gisela Moritz, Klaus Moritz, Astrid Mosch, Christiana Mucha, Andreas J.Müller,Frank Müller, Frithjof Müller, Knut Müller, Marion Müller, Thomas Müller, Ursula Müller, Brigitte Narasimhan-Bundtzen, Carla Naumann, Dieter Naumann, Dieter Nentwig, Jutta Nentwig, Karin Nenz, Hans Neubert, Martin Neufert, Sabine Neumann,
Thomas Neumann, Werner Neumeister, Emilia Nikolowa-Beier, Wolfgang Nieblich, Dieter Noack, Hans Noll, Barbara Nonnenbruch, Jörg Olberg, Karl Oppermann, Gerd Otto, Günter Otto, Helmut Otto, Ulrich Otto, Joachim Palm, Gottfried Pank, Ullrich Pannendorf, Thomas Pantke, Karl Papesch, Eva Paul, Thorsten Paul, Siegfried Paulhardt, A.R.Penck (Ealf Winkler), Gerhard Petri, Werner Petzold, Hans-Christian Pfeiler, Ulrich Pietzsch, Karin Plessing, Heinz Plier, Ruth Plier, PLON (Jürgen Jentzsch), Klaus Poche, Sieghard Pohl, Dieter Pohlers, Nora (Doris) Pollatschek-Jeitner, Walter Pomikalko, Maria Sibylla Ponizil, Christine Prinz (Christine Hänsel), Friedrike Prusky, Günther Prusky, Wolf Raimann, Sigrid Reeckmann, Thea Reichardt, WernerReifarth, Andreas Reinhardt, Wolfgang Reinke, Günter Reinz, Peter Rensch, Annegret Richter, Gerd Richter, Gerhard Richter, Jürgen Richter, Rolf Richter, Roswitha Richter, Bernd Ringel, Hildegard Risch, Horst Ritzert, Christian Roeckenschuss, Frank Rödel, Karl Rödel (1907-1982), Karl-Hermann Roehricht, Leoni Roehricht, Harald Röhrig, Martina Röhrig, Ralf-Peter Rösner, Gerhard Rohn, Cornelia Rohne, Joh.-Christian Rost, Gudrun Roth, Valentin Rothmaler, Rotraut, Reinhard Roy, Eve Rub, Frank Rub, Frank Ruckhäberle, Siegfried Rudolf, Fritz Rübbert, Angelika Rübesamen, Gisela Rüger, Thomas Rug, Ekkehard Ruthenberg, Ellen Sachtleben, Barbara Sander, Ernemann F.Sander, Eberhard Sasse, Gertraud Schaar, Dietrich Schade, Karlheinz Schäfer, Emanuel Scharfenberg, Bernd Schaudinnus, Udo Scheel, Wolfram Adalbert Scheffler, Hans-Jürgen Scheib, Ursula Scheib, Lothar Schelhorn, Linde Scheller-Freudenberg, Bernd Scheubert, Einar Schleef, Christine Schlegel, Cornelia Schleime, Gil Schlesinger, Bernd Schlothauer, Alfred Schmidt, Inge Schmidt, Peter-Michael Schmidt,Peter Schmiedel, Torsten Schneider, Gisela Schnelle, Helmut Schobbert, Doris Schober, Hans Georg Schöne, Eugen Schönbeck, Jörg Schötzau, Petra Schötzau, Wolfgang Scholz, Ute Schreiber, Ernst Schroeder, Annette Schröter, Erasmus Schröter, Jochen Schröter, Peter Schubert, Werner Schubert-Deister, Jens Schubring,
Ernst Schütte (1890-1951), Frank Schult, Hans-Joachim Schulze, Joachim-Fritz Schultze, Brigitte Schuster, Rolf Schuster, Eckardt Schwandt, Petra Schwandt, Oliver Schwarz, Vera Schwelgin, Eberhard Schwenk, Eva Schwimmer, Karl-Henning Seemann, Hans-Joachim Seidel, Jan Seifert, Gustav Seitz (1906-1969), Elisabeth Selle, Gertraud Senf, Roger David Servais, Waltraud Servais, Hans-Martin Sewez, Eva Sickert, Doris Sidor, Henryk Sidor, Georg Siebert, Gerdt Marian Siewert, Frank Silberbach, Klaus Simon, Gerald Sippel, Tatjana Sitte-Schaarschmidt, Sibylle Sommer, Kristina Sonnenberg, Hans Speidel, Hans Sperschneider, Ragna Sperschneider, Klaus Staeck,

Rolf Staeck, Brigitte Stamm, Annette Stams, Reinhard Stangl, Katja-Regina Staps, Klaus Staps, Wolfgang Stark, Fritz Stehwien, Hans Stein, Volker Stelzmann, Holle Stentzel, Hildegund Stibenz, Otto Stich, Falk-Ullrich Stiller, Gabriele Stirl, Max Jürgen Stock, Dagmar Stoev, Elmar Stolinski, Rainer Stoltz, Stefan Stolze, Horst Strempel,
Else Sturm-Lindner, Darja Süssbier, Wolfgang Sulek, Peter Sykora, Rolf Szymanski, TERK, Sabine Teucher, Wolfgang Teucher, Ines-Thate Keler, Christiane Theise, Norbert Thiel, Gudrun Thiele, Susanne Tischewski, Bärbel Töpfer, Peter Töpfer, Enzo Toffolutti, Hans Tombrock, Petra Trautwein, Carl Friedrich Treber, Max Treizschke,
Gero Troike, Günther Uecker, Conrad Ufer (Joachim, geb. Conrad), Gerhard Ullmann,
Günter Ullmann, Peter Umlauf, Detlef Uttikal, René Vinke, Karl-Heinz Viol, Nora Vocke, Klaus Völker, Klaus Vogelsang, Herbert Volwahsen, Thomas Wachweger, Michael Wackwitz, Katharina Wagner, Kurt Wallstab, Pan Walther, Annette Wandrer, Gerd Wandrer, Rainer Weber, Peter Wegner, Dieter Weidenbach, Gustav Weiss, Ute Weiss-Leder, Erich Wellhöfer, Ekhard Werner, Gerd Werner, Herd Hermann Werner, Thomas Wetzel, Margot Wiener-Wendschuh (born 1927, father Holocaust victim, herself target of antisemitic agitation in RDA from 1951 on), Monika Wilimzig (born Hanske),
Brigitte Willbarth, Ralf Winkler (a.ka. A.R.Penck), Dieter Winzer, Kurt Woelke, Manfred Woitischek, Christina Wolfgramm, Franziska Wosnitza, Klaus von Woyski, Luise Monika Wünsche, Ralph Wünsche, Andreas Zausch, Heidemarie Zehmisch (born Garde) Beate Zeiss, Dieter Zöllner, Heiko Zolchow, Sabine Zotter, Michael Zschocher.

2006-11-25T19:32:00.000+01:00

"Ausbürgern" (stripping of citizenship): Stalinist and Nazi methods of social control reinvented by Swiss right-wing populists

Osservatore Profano, in a recent blog (From gender discrimination to gender war), reported on a gang rape of a 13 year old school girl in Switzerland, as an example for aggressive behaviour in male adolescents. Now, as media reports on the sociological background of the involved gang have shown, a majority of them are Swiss citizen of East European origin and appear to be poorly integrated. The Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei SVP) of the Canton of Zurich, in an newspaper ad published today, demands the stripping of the Swiss citizenship forcitizen of foreign origin who show criminal behaviour, as one of several political measures to stop adolescent violence. According to SVP, "adolescent violence has a name - it is synonymous to criminality by foreigners".
Criminal behaviour by poorly integrated foreigners from countries with atavistic moral codes left over from pre-industrial, pre-modern times is a real problem of growing importance, not only in Switzerland. Improving methods for integration of foreigners has been a central subject recently, in political discussions throughout our country, on the local level as well as on the level of federal legislation and authorities.
But while naming the problem, analyzing the underlying mechanisms and preparing and implementing measures (prevention, criminal investigation, prosecution, regular trials and execution of penalties) are desirable and necessary, the idea to strip individuals with aberrant and/or criminal behaviour of their citizenship is a totalitarian method used e.g. by the staunchly stalinist authorities of the German Democratic Republic(RDA). During nearly 40 years, it was current practice in the RDA to strip artists who did not comply to the rules imposed by the regime of their citizenship. One of the most prominent victims of the RDA's tradition of dumping unruly citizens was German singer and poet Wolf Biermann.
Far from being an invention of the post-war communist regime in Berlin-East, stripping of citizenship had been used as a method of systematic reprisal by both the Soviets and the Nazis regime during the Thirties To strip a person of her citizenship was part of the preparatory scheme of the Holocaust.
Among the expatriates from Nazi Germany stripped of their citizenship: author Bertolt Brecht, theater director Erwin Piscator and Thomas Mann's children Erika and Klaus.

Dumping unwanted citizens may be an economic way to get rid of social problems, according to the old proverb that says: "Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn" - "Out of sight, out of mind". This may be useful for a demented single person in serious difficulty, but it is an inappropriate method for a modern state. Dumping citizens is comparable to dumping toxic waste on African shores (see earlier blog post by Osservatore Profano).

2006-11-25T14:04:00.000+01:00

Royalism and Socialism - A Contradiction?
To the astonishment of many profesional observers, Ségolène Royal has emerged as the queen of the socialist camp in France. The conservative views on family values expressed by this unmarried mother of four and compagnon of party chief François Hollande have won the confidence of an impressing majority of 61% of the party electorate. If she had been married in a traditional way to François Hollande, she
might have been considered an alien because of her husband's unfamiliar family name, but "Royal" appears to be an excellent trademark these days in socialist circles. Why is there no contradiction between socialism and royalism? History teaches us that monarchs have always tended to suppress individual initiatives and preferred to venture into what is called "Les grands projets". François Mitterand was the perfect incarnation of this monarcho-socialist approach to political power, and his "grands projets", from the "Grand Arche de la Défense" to the "Bibliothèque Nationale" are proof of the quest for "grandeur de la nation", for representation.

Socialists easily succomb to the seductive charm of "grand projets", to the phenotypical equality that monarchism seems to provide. In tiny Switzerland, the turbulent history of the Canton of Neuchâtel, a one-time Prussian duchy that became a full member of the Swiss Confederation as late as 1857, after several attempts to maintain monarchist rule between 1814 and 1856, the affinity between socialists and royalists
was evident throughout the conflict. Even in the late 20th century, modern socialist "Neuchâtelois" were proud to evoke their royalist traditions in private conversations.
Intelligent socialist leaders never touch monarchist privileges, and the "grand projets" are their "opium for the people".
This socialist support for "grandeur" is one of the fundamental problems of classical liberalism. Once socialist majorities are established, it is extremely difficult to fight them because of the visibility of big public spending for "grand projets". Liberals who are brave enough to oppose the most extravagant "grand projets" easily become victims of media critique for lacking the sense for representation by the state that appears to be "good for everyone",
Ségolène Royal's chances to be elected are therefore linked to her capacity to give a sense of "grandeur" to the nation's ego much more than to her political concepts or to her gender. Senior right-wing condottiere Le Pen, still a possible presidential candidate for the extreme right, used to make Jeanne d'Arc

his point of reference in France's glorious history, but Mme Ségolène clad in shimmering Royal Armour could easily overshadow "La Pucelle".
If she wins, public spending on "grand projets" certainly will not suffer...
On the other hand, if the winner is Nicolas Sarkozy, chances for abandoning the quest for "grandeur de la nation" are minimal.To be elected, Sarkozy needs the support of the entire Gaullist establishment, and who would be fool enough to deny to the late General Charles de Gaulle the honour of being a "republican monarch".

2006-11-23T22:25:00.000+01:00

The condom question - is the Vatican ready to kick the habit of adoration of a rubber fetish?
According to recent media leaks from the Vatican, the Pope is considering to lift the ban on the use of condoms for those married heterosexual couples where one partner is HIV-positive, as a means to reduce the danger of infection for the healthy partner. Who would benefit from such a gracefully offered minimal exception from the general rule? The answer is as simple as it is cruel:
wealthy people living in developped countries with excellent public health systems which garantee the availability of clinical pathology resources, testing for HIV-status plus determination of HIV viral load at regular intervals, support financing of antiviral drugs, provide professional counselling and therapeutic outcome measurements etc.etc.
For the rest of the world, nil.
To the profane observer, the fact that the Vatican considers the absence of sexual activities not directly linked to procreation as the only irrefutable proof of human purity produces a depressive effect, to say the least. Ironically, the obstinate prosecution of the condom as material representation of evil by theological dignitaries of male sex is nothing short of fetishism. It might be helpful for the credibility of the Catholic Church and the Christian Oecumene as a whole, if the CEO of the most successful global player in the faith industry could persuade his subordinates (or vice versa) to kick the habit of paradoxical adoration of the rubber fetish...

2006-11-19T11:51:00.000+01:00

Downgrading the Male - from Gender Discrimination to Gender War?
Filelefteros has never made a secret of his gender: male. But reading the Sunday, November 19, 2006 edition of the "NZZ am Sonntag", the author of this blog has become aware of a conflict that may become one of the most virulent subjects of disussion soon.
To cite only a selection olf subjects treated in the Swiss sunday newspaper:

1. The question why a male leopard killed his longtime female partner in a surprise
attack at the "Dählhölzli" zoo of Swiss federal capital Berne

2. a discussion on the role of a surplus of men in a population in violent behaviour (e.g. in the Palestinian territories)

3. An analysis of the recent case of repeated gang rape of a 13 year old school girl by a group of at least 12 school boys aged 15 to 18 in Zurich, videotaped by one of the presumed aggressants on a cellular phone. One of the key elements brought forward in the analysis: at high school level, male youths tend to be outperformed by girls who are better motivated to sit down, to learn and to comply with educational demands and objectives, while their male classmates see their perspective for the future dwindling and tend to recur to violent behaviour which is enhanced by peer group pressure

4. The proposal of a parliamentary committee for a fundamental change in Swiss federal legislation on family names which would permit the choice of a child's name exclusively to the mother if no agreement was reached by both parents

5. The fact that in the person of Ségolène Royal, a female candidate for the presidency was nominated for the first time in the history of the "République Française", amidst acid remarks by defeated male contenders like former ministers Jack Lang, Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and to the apparent irritation of Royal's partner and father of her 4 children, Socialist party chief François Hollande.

But even more symptomatic perhaps is the fact that this nomination earned the immediate cordial applause of Swiss socialist party chief Hans Jürg Fehr and harsh critique by the (male) chief of Swiss socialist youth organization.

The central questions that arises from such subjects are the following: is the gender balance of our society, instead of following it's course of elimination of gender discrimination, shifting from authoritarian male dominated structures to towards another, female domination? Are policy makers and legislators aware of the impact of a fundamental swing in gender relations? Will males be able to adapt to this swing? Will males become more violence-prone in such a process? What will be the role of religious communities in the process?

One thing is clear: the election of a female president in France would represent a major step away from the institutional discrimination against women that had started with the French Revolution, as documented by the suppression of the movement of Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793)- cf. Textes fondateurs des droits humains - and ended a period of relative freedom of (upper class) women during the age of enlightenment les Femmes de l'Ancien Régime>
and never ended throughout the 19th century despite pictorial documents telling another story

Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863): La liberté guidant le peuple, 1830. Paris, Musée du Louvre

There is a fine line between gender discrimination and equal rights.The challenge which our society faces is to be aware of that line.

2006-11-12T13:59:00.000+01:00

Mutual Extinction?

The never-ending violence between the state of Israel and it's neighbours, the Palestinians, carries the risk of mutual extinction of two nations that could contibute to economic prosperity and cultural enrichment of the Middle East and of the entire Mediterranean. Looking at contributing factors to the continuing inability of both the government of Israel and the Palestinian authority to reach durable bilateral agreements, financial support by third parties emerges as first line elements. The motives for this support for one or the other side are multiple: friendship, religious attachment, fundamentalism, geopolitical power play etc. etc... How much time would it take for the Israelis and the Palestinians to reach agreements on the most important issues for their respective populations if there were no financial support from the United States, the oil-producing Arab countries, from religious communities or the United Nations? Osservatore Profano's guess: One year.

2006-11-05T21:29:00.000+01:00

Circumstantial Evidence - What History Can Learn from Art
From an article published in Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, November 5, 2006*

Piero della Francesca 1453 Galleria Nazionale Urbino

Bernd Roeck is professor of history at Zurich University.
His research focus is on visual arts as testimonials of historical events and on the methodology of extracting historical data from works of art. In a new book:
Mörder, Maler und Mäzene - Piero della Francescas "Geisselung" (Murderers, Painters and Maecenes - "The Flagellation" by Piero della Francesca. A criminal story from the history of art) Eine kunsthistorische Kriminalgeschichte, München 2006, he presents his analysis of the parallel stories told by Piero della Francesca on his famous painting.
Roeck has been able to identify the three persons in the right foreground of the painting. The bare-foot person clad in red (young duke Oddantonio di Montefeltro) as the victim of a brutal murder committed about ten years before the creation of the painting, and the two other persons being the masterminds behind that crime, commissioned by Oddantonio's successor and half-brother, Federico.
There have been numerous interpretations of this painting before, but the painstaking analysis of Roeck offers the most convincing interpretation so far.

A wonderful example of modern iconographical analysis. Are we ready to read the visual evidence that is brought before us from day to day b the media with the same devotion to careful scrutiny for hidden messages?

* P.S. A more detailed description of Bernd Roeck's analysis has been published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung FAZ on October 4, 2006:

2006-11-05T20:12:00.000+01:00

Quod licet bovi non licet Iovi - What politicians can learn from Borat a.k.a Sacha Baron Cohen

Sacha Baron Cohen is a comedian by profession and he seems to be able to earn his life by exercising it, at least one could guess so according to the reactions to his film "Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".
As a global yard fool, he shows no respect for any religious or national sensitivities and apparently is spraying his sarcasm in a quite even way over the Jewish, the Christian and the Muslim communities.
Politicians must be able to play roles, sometimes even comic roles, in order to be elected, but in general, they cannot use the method of Sacha Baron because they would offend their own constituency doing so. The problem with politicians fooling around is that they are taken quite seriously by their own folks when they occasionally insult other parties or their front personnel, and that their adversaries react accordingly. The result is a buildup of verbal injuries that can easily turn violent, with the consequences that history has shown us in abundance.
An ancient latin proverb said: "Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi" (what is licit for
Jupiter (God) is inadmissible for an ox).
The recent row in Switzerland over Justice Minister Christoph Blocher's remarks in Turkey concerning Federal legislation against racism is a good illustration for the inadequacy of the latin proverb for our times. Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedian, the jester, is in the position of the ox and it is probably absolutely okay to let him
fool around. If racist and/or nationalist phrases are uttered at pubs by uneducated people who do not know better, this may be considered a variant of normal behaviour under the influence of alcohol.
But if the same type of rhetoric is used by politicians, it's effect will be what
German Law after World War II has defined as "Volksverhetzung" (incitement to hatred)in the Criminal Law Code (Strafgesetzbuch or StGB) § 130, a criminal offense prosecuted by law.
In Switzerland, this type of legislation was introduced only lately, in 1995,
in Art. 261bis 1 of the Criminal Law Code

An interesting detail for the slow pace of Swiss legislation on such subjects is the date of the ratification of the convention on the prevention of genocide of 1948

this convention was ratified by Switzerland in the year 2000.
If the Swiss are reluctant to restrict the freedom of thought and of speech through international conventions of little practical value (even Sudan, with it's notorious repression and genocidal activities against parts of it's population, has ratified the convention on the repression of genocide), it would be wise for our politicians to avoid fooling around and be aware that nowadays "quod licet bovi non licet Iovi", i.e. that political leaders should avoid to behave like brawlers in the pub.

2006-11-01T14:33:00.000+01:00

Switzerland at War with Herself
It is interesting to observe - as Osservatore Profano does - the war (so far of words) which has erupted in Switzerland about the role of our country in international relations. While Switzerland appears to be a point of reference for many smaller countries even in the third world, our country has yet to find out a) if our active contributions to world politics are really significant and b) which fields of activity we choose. Justice minister Blocher's adventurous remarks on visit to Turkey have been followed by a visit of foreign minister Calmy-Rey to China, with the intention to sign an accord of understanding, the success of which had been questioned by her colleagues even before she departed and again at her return. Now, a group of mainly left-wing politicians from Basel has come to the conclusion that it is capable of bringing the conflict between Turks and Kurds to an end. At the same time, an ecological activist, Martin Vosseler, tries to cross the Atlantic on a solar-powered Catamaran, firmly convinced that he is the one and only person capable of teaching ecological ethics to the United States.
If the Swiss pharmaceutical industry has proved to be good at manufacturing and selling drugs worldwide, a new form of global business is being launched by Swiss citizens who feel the urgent need to preach the gospel of righteousness worldwide. The conflict between these two types of global players is then projected on the local level of politics, resulting in bizarre "ready made" coalitions and fissures within the political spectrum.

2006-11-01T08:22:00.000+01:00

Sigmund Freud e l'Osservatore Profano

Gli atti sintomatici, di una incredibile varietà sia negli individui sani che nei nevrotici, meritano il nostro interessamento per più di un motivo. Essi forniscono al medico delle preziose indicazioni che gli permettono d'orientarsi nel cumulo di circostanze nuove o ancora poco note e rivelano all'osservatore profano tutto ciò che desidera sapere e qualche volta anche di più di quel che vorrebbe. Chi sa servirsi di queste indicazioni deve, all'occorrenza, procedere come faceva il re Salomone che, secondo la leggenda, comprendeva il linguaggio degli animali.

della pagina web: aforismi e pensieri di Freud(a cura di Diego Fusaro)

The German original text and an English translation will follow

2006-10-30T21:00:00.000+01:00

Mas Acà del Màs Allà - A Music Lesson from Oaxaca
While riot police are occupying the Southern Mexican state capital Oaxaca after months of unrest and violence over teachers walkouts and protests, a small group of adolescent musicians from the tiny Mixe community
Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec in the Western part of that same state is currently marching the streets of the city of Basel, together with a brass band from the Basel region, U Brass, thus forming a "Pompes funèbres" Orchestra in a unique festival called DIESSEITS VOM JENSEITS(on this side from beyond) which combines contemporary music and folk music from both rural Mexico and from Switzerland, on the subject of death in their respective cultural traditions.
The whole enterprise started three years ago when by actress/singer Désirée Meiser and her team of the "railway station for new music" or GARE DU NORD in Basel, Switzerland, had the idea to launch a composer workshop for contemporary musicians from both Mexico and Switzerland. It turned out to become a major binational cultural event. With the participation of artits such as composer Gualtiero Dazzi and writer Francisco Serrano , high quality musical and operatic productions are presented. The subject of the festival is further treated in depth by an exhibition of antique folk art from Mexico and contributions to the "Dia de la Muerte" celebrations by contemporary Mexican sculptors.

But the most surprising phenomenon of the festival is the earnest and professionalism of the youthful Banda de Filarmonia CECAM of Tlahuitoltepec These young musicians have no problem to switch from their local tunes with their intricate rhythms to a Gloria by Schubert.
It is a lesson in education and culture of the highest possible level from one of the most remote and poorest regions of Central America

2006-10-29T16:27:00.000+01:00

Switzerland's trouble with political bipolarism
Switzerland is confronted with growing dissatisfaction over it's political structures and processes. Traditional decisionmaking by popular referendum on legislation passed through the federal parliament and/or popular vote on initiatives has proved to bring on efficient and sustainable results with respect to economic wisdom, but legislation on important subjects such as reform of the health care system or social security has lagged behind recent political, economic and demographic changes.
The cause for this slowdown of the political process lies principally in the interferences between the range of action and of responsibilities of local (cantonal) and federal legislation which systematically dilute the responsibility on both levels of government. The so-called concordance government formed by the four major parties which has become polarized by the presence of very outspoken representatives of the left (foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey from the Social Democrats)and the right(minister of justice Christoph Blocher of the Swiss People's Party) within the seven member federal government. There is no formal coalition contract between the parties which participate in the government, but a shaky consensus on major subjects which allows the key players to criticize their colleagues in an increasingly rude way. The Pan-European trend towards a bipolar politial landscape has not helped most European countries because of the narrrow majorities that can be won under the specific conditions which differ from the American modal of bipolarism which is centered on the person of the president. As a result, coalition governments of the type of Germany's actual "Grosse Koalition" become major roadblocks to political action and legislatory reform. The Swiss system has worked well as long as the members of the government refrained from political activism and concentrated their effort on the task of managing their ministries without interfering with others (in Swiss terminology "departments") of extremely divers dimensions: e.g. the relatively small and lean department of Justice and the enormous department of the Interior which has to deal with social security, health care and culture).
With growing mediocracy, the visibility of government members has dramatically increased over the last few years, and their narcissistic performance has stirred up a public debate over which one of the government members is the weakest - i.e. the one with the lowest number of public statements and appearances.
Justice minister Christoph Blocher, an entrepreneur turned politician with an extremely nationalist credo seasoned with talk of market economy and liberalism,
would like to lead the political right toward bipolarism but his poisonous and vulgar rhetoric is not suited for audiences that adhere to more open concepts of state and nation, on the other hand. The political left, on the other hand, tries to monopolize
social subjects as well as an open-minded foreign policy and to lure the liberal electorate into it's centralist, interventionist camp.
The "Freie Demokratische Partei" FDP, heirs of the founding fathers of the modern federal state in mid 19th century, are desperately seeking to get away from a chronically low profile and dwindling electorate.
Since the members of the government are not eo ipso the formal or informal leaders of their respective parties (exception: People's Party Christoph Blocher), and are
elected by the two chambers of parliament according to a formula which respects proportions of relative strength of their parties- the so-called "Zauberformel" or magician's formula), the results of the 2007 elections will probably see a great debate about bipolarism and a new form of concordance and/or coalition, with an uncertain issue.
Most probably, voters will force parliament to make tough decisions on the composition of the government in terms of party representation and of human resources. One of the consequences will be that Switzerland, despite the nationalistic rhetoric of the People's Party, will resemble more to other European democracies than to itself.

2006-10-28T11:58:00.000+02:00

The Bastard of Istanbul
Osservatore Profano's latest post was centered on the question of reliable partners for Europe in the near future. The saturday, October 28, 2006 issue of Neue Zürcher Zeitung has an interesting answer to part of that question. It reports on Elif Shafak's novel "The Bastard of Istanbul" and the fact that the author has explicitly addressed some of the most controversial subjects in Turkey's political orientation, i.e. language policy and the historical workup of the Armenian question.
Elif Shafak, who lives in Istanbul and Tucson, Arizona, where she teaches gender studies an interculturality, was asked about the reactions to her new novel in an outside Turkey. According to the report in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the reactions throughout Turkey have been positive in general, most "hate mails" to the authors are from Turks living abroad. Thus, the reaction to Shafak's book reflect both the apparent capacity for introspection within Turkey and the identity problems of migrants.
Instead of a question, Osservatore Profano should like to extend an invitation to fellow bloggers today to read Elif Shafak's "Bastard of Istanbul"

2006-10-22T21:15:00.000+02:00

Tough Choices for a Europe desperately looking for reliable partners

Europe faces tough choices these days. The Economist asks: "Will Europe loose Turkey?", and recent top level talks on energy policy with Russia have produced fears of being one day held hostage through dependence on Russian energy deliveries. There is no particular affection in Western Europe neither for Turkey nor for Russia, but the emotional uproar caused by the discussion whether Turkey should recognize the genocide on the Armenians has been much more important than the one caused by the slow and systematic erosion of the legal prerequisites for a functional market economy and a Western style democracy in Russia.
Therefore, Europeans should ask themselves which one of their most important neighbours is more trustworthy: Turkey or Russia? If European strategies are based on religious
paradigms, the answer would be: Russia, because it is a country with a Christian tradition. If European strategies are based on geographical and geo-strategical assumptions, then the accent should be on a strong and sustainable cooperation between the countries around the Mediterranean, the "mare nostrum" as the Romans used to call it. To achieve political stability and sustainable economic growth in this
region, full cooperation of Turkey is needed. Turkey is the only country in the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean with a functional relationship to Israel despite it's Islamic background and Turkey is one of the most important motors of political innovation and transformation in the islamic world. The most important argument for a stable and trustful relationship between Europe and Turkey is the simple fact that Turkey is not and will never be a superpower and therefore does not represent a threat to Europe.
Furthermore, a Turkey oriented toward Western Europe without regret could come to the conclusion that it should reach out in a friendly gesture to it's neighbours in the East, Georgia and Armenia, both in need of the development of stable and fruitful relationships on the Southern slopes of the Caucasus.

What is your opininion on Europe's tough choices?

2006-10-17T23:51:00.000+02:00

Georgia On My Mind - Back in the USSR?
The word POGROM existed before the Russian Revolution, disappeared during the Soviet Era and appears to make a brillant comeback under Vladmir Putin. In the 19th century,
POGROMS were targeted mainly at Jews, in post-modern, post-communist neo-tzarist Russia new ethnic entities have replaced the Jews. The Chechens, still a very fashionable target because of their islamic identity, are now conceding the top place to fellow Non-Russians from the Western slope of Caucasus, the Georgians.
Osservatore Profano's question:
Was the real (prophetic) meaning of the Beatle's song: "Georgia On My Mind - Back TO the USSR" instead of "IN the USSR"?

2006-10-15T22:16:00.000+02:00

Mediocracy and the pandemic of authoritarianism

These days, tiny Switzerland offers "fish bowl" experience for the observation of the passage of power from classical political authority to the media, the emergence of a "mediocracy".
On a popular Late Night show on State TV called ARENA, the discussion about Justice minister Christoph Blocher's critical remarks on Swiss federal antiracism legislation during a visit to Turkey (see "Kemal Atatürk and Switzerland") had taken place without the participation of representatives of the "Grand Old Party" of Switzerland, the Free Democratic Party,FDP. The president of FDP, Fulvio Pelli, later fustigated the media for echoing premeditated provocations by the far right Justice minister. The consequence of his remarks has now become a full scale fox hunt for his head and for the party itself. It appears that even in a traditionally stable political system like Switzerland, political parties no longer are free to follow a coherent strategical line without risking to be undone by the media, and that political raiders like Christoph Blocher can blow up subjects of minor importance on the scale of political and economic priorities at will, with full support of the media.
In ancient Greece, this degenerated form of direct democracy was called "ostrakismòs" (ostracism) and it lead a) to mediocrity and b) to tyranny.

It might be interesting for the reader who is not fully familiar with present time Swiss politics that Christoph Blocher in 1981 (then a member of the Federal House of Representatives - Nationalrat) declared that the military dictatorship in Turkey was the only possible solution in the fight against terrorism...
These remarks are fully compatible with Blocher's later political record, and they strongly support Osservatore Profano's impression that we live in an emerging pandemia of highly infective authoritarianism, the origins of which can be found in Beijing, with a route of spread to Russia and some Republics of the former Soviet Empire. More recently smaller pockets of infection have been identified in various parts of Europe, e.g. Poland. Contrary to the emerging pandemia of Avian Flu where there is a strategic plan developped and imolemented by the World Health Organization and it's national partner organizations, no internationally acknowledged center of competence is at hand for controlling the pandemia of authoritarianism.

What will be the role of the blogosphere in this context?
Will it contribute to the trend to mediocrity and ostracism in a mediocratic system?

2006-10-13T10:51:00.000+02:00

Pope, Orwell and NEWSPEAK - a supplement

Osservatore Profano apologizes for having omitted in the blog on Pope Benedict XVI and George Orwell a key element that is necessary to understand the relation between present day communication concepts and George Orwell's "1984":

One of the most remarkable accomplishments of the regime described in "1984" was the fact that sources of information such as newspapers were reedited and republished regularly in order to avoid any contradiction between historical events and judgements on those events and present-day interests of the authorities.
Osservatore Profano wanted to stress the similarity between the reediting of declarations made by the present Pope and the techniques of disinformation used by the regime of "1984".

For an in depth discussion of these questions, it may be useful to quote the English historian Lord Acton, a Catholic and a Liberal,fierce opponent to the principle of infallibility of the Pope adopted at the first Vatican Council: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely..." (in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887)

2006-10-12T21:42:00.000+02:00

Pope Benedict XVI and George Orwell
48 years ago, in 1948, George Orwell published his famous novel "1984".
Few people have read the book but almost everybody nowadays is familiar with the title of a popular reality TV programme: "BIG BROTHER" - in "1984" the term was used for the dictator in control of the totalitarian society of the future depicted by Orwell.
Still fewer people are aware of the term "NEWSPEAK", the official language of the Orwellian society which was designed to invert the content and meaning of words into their contrary. In 1947 - one year before the publication of "1984" - philologist Viktor Klemperer had published his analysis of "LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii" (The language of the Third Reich). The same author later undertook a similar effort for "LQI - Lingua Quarti Imperii" (the language of the "Fourth Reich",i.e. the socialist German Democratic Republic) but these texts as well as Klemperers diaries during and after the war were never published until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The Vatican has published a new version of Pope Benedict's Regensburg conference (see my blog on "Ownership of Reason, Faith - and of God?" September 14, 2006), adding short remarks signalling a certain distance of the speaker from his citation of Manuel Palaeologus concerning the prophet Muhammad.

Osservatore Profano, asks:
1) Has Pope Benedict XVI never had the opportunity to read "1984"?
2) If Yes, Osservatore Profano should like to beg His Holyness pardon for having
suspected the Vatican of using "NEWSPEAK" as part of it's communication concept
3) If No, then WHY must the Vatican's communication concept use "NEWSPEAK"

2006-10-03T09:59:00.000+02:00

State of the Art - Art of State

To Polish philosopher Wladislaw Tatarkiewicz, we owe a 3 volume history of aesthetics, and a three-part disjunctive definition of art as "A construction of forms or a reproduction of things or an expression of experiences capable of producing delinght or emotions or shock"
A recent initiative by young Swis artists, http://www.kunstfreiheit.ch, adresses the question of whether copyright legislation and freedom of art are compatible.
In fact, modern copyright legislation tends to be more prohibitive than permissive when it comes to commercial aspects of art production. Besides the fact that (post)modern art is in perpetual conflict with cultural traditions and therefore tends to confirm Tatarkiewicz's definition, another aspect of aesthetics in the tradition of Baumgarten (philosophy of perception) merits to be studied: the question whether politics are a form of art. George W.Bush's grotesque scenario of political organization of the world under American leadership, Pope Benedict's "Stubengelehrten" approach to interreligious dialogue, the destruction of the Buddha statues by the Talibans of Afghanistan, and last but not least Al Qaeda's activities from 09/11 to Madrid and London, present time political activties seem to correspond more and more to the Tatarkiewicz definition of art than to the serious search of solutions for practical problems that are the traditional basis of politics.
In this perspective, copyright legislation will some day help politicians declare their activities as works of art, on the ground that they have been able to provoke delight, emotion and shock...

http://filelefteros.blogspot.com

2006-10-02T15:17:00.000+02:00

Kemal Atatürk and Switzerland
80 years ago, Turkey adopted the Swiss Code of Civil Law (a.k.a Zivilgesetzbuch, ZGB).
After a serious diplomatic row last year between Turkey and Switzerland over the responsability of the emerging Turkish Republic in the expulsion and death of several hundred thousand native Armenians, Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher will now visit Ankara to take part in the commemoration of the adoption of Swiss ZGB by Turkey. Kemal Atatürk was known as a autocratic ruler who not only ordered the creation of modern Turkisch language by academic linguistic specialists, but, and this may be more significant for the actual situation, forbade the use of the veil (chador)in parliament, universities and colleges. Swiss justice minister Blocher is himself well known for his autocratic tendencies. The fact that he has outmanoeuvered his female colleague, the social democratic minister of foreign affairs, Micheline Calmy-Rey on this journey, may add to his gratification that he will be able to pay tribute to another great autocrat. The only problem for him might be the fact that on the board of the joint Swiss Turkish Foundation for the study of the relations between the two countries, some of the fiercest oponents of his own policy are active. For details on the activities of the Foundation and it's board, see our link to "Stiftung Forschungsstelle Schweiz-Türkei"
Switzerland, in addition to the commemoration of the successful export of her civil law 80 years ago, will be able to expose her intern contradictions at the Ankara commemoration.
Will this later help Switzerland to develop more moderation when it comes to discussions on intercultural relations, migration, integration etc.?
And could this help the Turks themeselves to overcome their own internal conflicts?

http://filelefteros.blogspot.com

2006-09-23T11:21:00.000+02:00

Why do we love Shostakovich?

Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was born on September 25,1906 in St.Petersburg.
The centenary of his birth represents an opportunity to rediscover his complete work, but also an invitation to learn about the extremely difficult conditions under which it has been created. On January 28, 1936, the PRAVDA published a critical comment on the successful composer, then 29 years old, under the title "chaos instead of music". Stalin had decided that Soviet culture had to serve the regime and had to be produced according to the principles of "socialist realism". Thousands of artists where confronted not only with a fundamental critique of their work, but with the concrete risk of physical liquidation. Thousands died in Sibirian labour camps or were executed, on the ground of the suspicion that they were part of a Trotzkyist counterrevolution (e.g. actor/director Vsevolod Meyerhold or film critic Aleksander Arosev, author of "Le Cinéma en URSS" , VOKS 1935)
Foreigners, such as the "brigade May", a group of German and Swiss avantgarde architects that had come to the Soviet Union to help build the "Socialist City", had to leave the country (among them Margarethe Schütte-Lihotsky of Vienna and Hans Schmidt of Basel).
Shostakovich survived by adapting his work to the demands of Stalin, but he had to live, from 1936 on, under the continuous threat to become the target of prosecutionn like so many of his friends.
Now, as the late Swiss composer Jacques Wildberger is cited in an article written by
Marco Frei in todays "Neue Zeitung Zeitung" Nr.221:65 under the title "tragikomische Maskenspiele eines Gottesnarren", Shostakovich changed his composition style into an "absurd too much". Some specialists of Shostakovich describe a hidden (ironizing) message between the lines of Shostakovich compositions befor, during and after World War II.
Paradoxically, it seems that the most appreciated and most frequently interpreted works of Shostakovich to this day are the works created after 1937, according to the
rules imposed by the dictator Stalin.
Why is this so? Are we becoming Stalinists again without knowing it? Are we too naïve to understand the irony in the bombastic sound blasts that end his symphonies?
Or are we sensitive enough to discover the hidden message of a composer whose life was filled with fear...?

http://filelefteros.blogspot.com

2006-09-15T09:41:00.000+02:00

Recommended Reading for insights into "pre-hellenistic" (or "pre-European") philosophical traditions:

Indus Churning: Indian and Islamic philosophy

http://filelefteros.blogspot.com

2006-09-14T22:37:00.000+02:00

On the Ownership of Reason, Faith - and of God?

During his recent journey to Bavaria, Pope Benedict XVI held a lecture at the University of Regensburg,the text of which is on display at the Vatican's website.
It's content can be summarized as follows:

a. (Christian) theology is a scientific discipline equal in it's quality to the natural sciences
b. (Christian) theological reasoning is anchored in Greek philosophy, and thus a European achievement, whereas modern scientific reasoning, starting with the Reformation, has been "dehellenized", and therefore has lost it's roots
c. (Christian) theology postulates that God acts always according to "logos" (reason, meaning, ger. Vernunft, fr. raison)
d. In contrast to Christian Faith, Islam considers God as being completely transcendental, above and free of the realm of reason
e. The (European) concept of reason as outlined above does not permit conversion to faith by force

These are fascinating thought, and they have been presented in elegant rhetorical
phrasing.

But there remain some burning questions:

The Pope explicitly criticized the right (or the obligation) to convert non-believers to faith by force according to the Q'ran, on the ground of reason.
Now, history teaches us that during the reconquista, the Muslim and Jewish population of Spain has been converted to (catholic) Christianism by crude force and the same occurred to the indigenous populations of South America, by troups of Christian faith, accompanied and tutored by catholic priests. Critical voices within the Church were (e.g. Bartolomeo de las Casas)existed, but it took several hundred years before
the critique of colonial mission was seriously addressed.
The central question remains how reasoning, anchored in an uninterrupted theological tradition for more than two thousand years, explain this attitude? The answer: it is the reason (and the arrogance) of power.
What is the role of the Catholic Church in the balance of power? According to Pope Benedict XVI, the Church is the only legitimate guardian of reason, has the capacity to appopriate itself the idea of God by subjecting it to reason (as defined above) and through this connection, the Church has acquired the exclusive "ownership" of the only possible reasonable concept of God...
To become a shareholder of the reasonable concept of God, you have to behave reasonably within the framework of the Church and to obey to it's teachings.

Pope Benedict XVI once more demonstrates the incredible perfection and the internal logic of his global enterprise called Catholic Church. In the logic of the CEO and Chairman of God's Enterprise, non-Catholic Christian believers, can at best trade derivatives of reason and of faith...

http://filelefteros.blogspot.com

More questions than answers

Marsch auf Bern und Umgebung

Parsi-Bâle

Save the Arts: A Poster by Jeremy Deller, Scott King and William ...