As of 1 August

Switzerland, Paul Widmer leaves no doubt, is a special case, it is different from other states, it went through a special development – and has been perceived as such from its beginnings and until today, also from the outside.
  The author – historian, former ambassador and lecturer – shows this in a historically sound way from a broad knowledge of history and literature, but in a form that takes the reader on an entertaining walk through the centuries, so to speak. Anyone who puts the book aside after reading it will be glad that the author went ahead with his project, despite his scepticism about possible reactions to “yet another essay on Switzerland”. Of course, much has already been said about Switzerland – but Paul Widmer’s voice is special in its way, because once again, and perhaps more pointedly than usual, he combines a basic ethical stance on the question of power with his broad historical, political and philosophical background.
  There are six aspects that Paul Widmer takes up to explain Switzerland’s special development, its otherness: Switzerland as a model, with regard to its name, as a concept, nation, as a state and with regard to its neutrality.

The provocation
of the independent path

As a model, Switzerland is “an idiosyncratic witness to alternative possibilities of state existence” (p. 11), whose “independence provokes” (p. 12). It is fascinating how Paul Widmer rejects the derogatory statements about the alleged myth of Switzerland on the basis of the most diverse external perceptions: Since its creation and throughout the centuries of the Confederation’s existence, philosophers, politicians, historians, poets and thinkers have expressed their views on this entity, both proponents and opponents.
  What unites them, despite their opposing assessments, is the observation of the tenacity with which Switzerland has defended and held on to its independence, more freedom, less subservience. What unites them, despite their opposing assessments, is the observation of the tenacity with which Switzerland has defended and held on to its independence, more freedom, less subservience.
  Where some, such as Hegel, dismissed popular sovereignty as a “desolate notion”, others dubbed it an “anomaly” or did not think much of the Swiss because they were “by nature boisterous, hostile to princes, rebellious and have long been disobedient to their masters”, others were impressed by the democratic society and the freedoms it retained. The greats of the Enlightenment – Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rousseau – all paid tribute to her. They did so without rapturous exaggeration and not for pomp or external grandeur, but precisely for their otherness: for the more freedom, the more restriction of power structures. For the fact that it was precisely not a ruling state, but an alternative that grew from below, held together by the will for freedom. “Certainly,” Widmer writes, “anyone who idolises the great, the powerful and the elitist, must be disappointed by Switzerland.” (p. 14) Conversely, one could conclude: Those, however, who think more of the courage to be different, who prefer to serve the people, the common good – are unlikely to be impressed by derogatory stupidity and a lack of halo.

Names – not really
the most important thing

Switzerland also stands out from the crowd, so to speak, with its naming: No other country manifests such a lack of uniformity in its naming as Switzerland – although “the” Switzerland (with an article, please!) is a household name worldwide, its official name is the Swiss Confederation, Conféderation suisse, Confederazione Svizzera or Confederaziun svizra. “Of course, there is not enough room for so many letters everywhere. Therefore, in 1848, the Latin designation ‘Confoederatio Helvetica’ was created as a language-neutral compromise”. Helvetia, the historical name from Roman times derived from the name of the Helvetian tribe, was to be burdened by Napoleon‘s dictate, but is then nevertheless found as the country name for stamps that are not called Switzerland, Suisse, Svizzera, Svizra, but operate under the name of Helvetia.
  Democracy, federalism and the importance of multilingualism also asserted themselves here. The focus was not on a centralised demonstration of power and the enforcement of externalities, but on the preservation of what was common: “The main thing,” Widmer sums up, “is that the state provides what it was created for: Security and prosperity for its citizens.” (p. 38) Or even more pointedly: “Names are smoke and mirrors. Something for ossified beings, something for those who want to secure their flagging power with patent protection.” (p. 38)

Freedom requires personal responsibility

In his remarks on the concept of Switzerland – which “evokes certain ideas”, with which one associates a certain body of thought (p. 47) – Widmer looks a little more closely at the concept of the “Eidgenossenschaft” [cooperative based on oath, a term whose substance is not really captured by the word Confederation – the official translation]: He thus sets a counterpoint to deconstructionist historical accounts according to which the history of the founding of the “Eidgenossenschaft” is a myth. The history of the term shows that the concept of the “Eidgenossenschaft” – a collective singular, as Widmer explains – must have already existed around 1370. Such a collective singular does not arise in the short term, but only after the emergence of what is designated by it. And here, too, he refers to the particular that is also captured by the term. “What took place around 1300 in the original part of Switzerland was most astonishing. All over Europe, princes were expanding their sovereignty and forming dynastic states from above. In original Switzerland, however, just the opposite happened. Peasants got together to defend their freedoms. These were not individual freedoms, but collective privileges acquired as a community.” (p. 51) The community played a decisive role in this, because “with the oath, one did not pay homage to a noble ruler as elsewhere. It was for one’s own community.” (p. 52) A circumstance that, however, also meant the personal responsibility of each individual: Taking fate into one’s own hands also requires the self-responsible participation of each individual. Instead of subordination, “in the cooperative-communal state, the principle of integration, the general will to co-responsibility must necessarily come into play”, Widmer quotes Adolf Gasser at this point. (p. 53)
  If this will for self-responsibility and the willingness to actively participate diminishes, so Paul Widmer’s equally unequivocal warning, we will pay in another currency, because: “where the citizen abdicates, the bureaucrat spreads – and a piece of freedom is gone”. (p. 113)

Switzerland – the ‘Willensnation’
as a counterpoint

Switzerland is also a provocative alternative as a nation – Widmer defines it as a larger group of people who feel connected to each other through commonalities and distinguish themselves from others. Paul Widmer calls it a nation ‘avant la lettre’, it emerged as a nation before this term was introduced: “Long before the term ‘nation’ emerged as a link between state and people, it constituted itself as a nation through a strong sense of belonging. Avant la lettre. However their unifying element is not language, but the will to freedom” (p. 60) – the will to preserve the independent path, held together by the “desire to govern oneself in freedom” (p. 61). Switzerland therefore had to and must offer citizens more freedom and self-determination, which it was able to guarantee in comparison to surrounding monarchies, but also thanks to direct democratic rights and federalist structures. However, he adds the warning: “Should Switzerland one day lose this plus in freedom, its raison d‘être as a nation would probably be in bad shape.” (p. 61) Switzerland – he quotes Max Huber, “the great international lawyer and long-time president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)” – is a political nation, based neither on a common language nor ethnicity, “but on common experiences and the will to master the present and the future together”. (p. 62) Just a nation of will. Or, referring to the Frenchman Ernest Renan, “un plébiscite de tous les jours” – a daily popular decision. “The fact that Switzerland survived as a nation of the will” – Widmer also points this out with reference to older and more recent history – “is anything but self-evident.”
  Repeatedly threatened from within and without, its existence had hung by a thin thread several times. Widmer mentions various critical challenges on the way to today’s federal state. But one thing is clear to him: “Those jurists who explain modern Switzerland mainly in terms of the spirit of the French Revolution are wrong, nor are those historians who emphasise above all the discontinuity between the Federal Constitution of 1848 and the Old Confederation. Switzerland owes its national cohesion to a mixture of Enlightenment thought and an Old Federal understanding of freedom.” (p. 68)

State yes – but please not too much

Widmer’s comments on Switzerland as a state – one could also say on the relationship of Mr. and Mrs. Swiss to their state – are also very worthy of consideration: they “generally display a peculiar mixture of patriotism and sobriety in their attitude to the state. They love their country, but not necessarily the state.” (p. 79) The state in the sense of regulatory power is seen more as a “necessary evil” (p. 73). Since its emergence, any concentration of power has been observed with suspicion and scepticism and avoided whenever possible. Thus, on the one hand, power was divided vertically between the federal government, the cantons and the municipalities, always anxious to preserve as much leeway as possible at the lower level, which was more directly accessible to the citizen, and to delegate only to the higher-level canton or federal government what could not be resolved at the lower level. Moreover, with the emergence of the federal state, power at the political level was also divided horizontally into the familiar state powers of the legislative, the executive and the judicial. But that’s not all: at communal, cantonal and federal level, the governing bodies function as councils – not one individual alone who can decide, here power is also divided. The Swiss form of federalism is certainly a central aspect of this division of power, and Paul Widmer also refers here to the internal historical contexts: as a principle of order, federalism is relatively young. “On the other hand, communal autonomy, self-government in small communities, is old.
  It is the substrate on which federalist ideas grow.” (p. 78) And on it also grew what the Swiss “regard as the essence of their state: a maximum of freedom and independence. They are proud of this, of lived democracy.” The power of the state, on the other hand, tends to cause unease.
  However, this scepticism of the state must be thought together with the awareness of individual responsibility. Actually, we all are the state. Or were we? Paul Widmer sees a need for reflection and contemplation here as well. “The sceptical understanding of the state, which tries to curb state activism with self-responsibility, has been weakened, but not yet extinguished.” (p. 82)

Considerations on neutrality

Widmer also sees neutrality as an “endangered success story”. Its importance can be seen, among other things, in the mandate given by the ‘Tagsatzung’ [the Federal Diet of Switzerland, the legislative and executive council of the Old Swiss Confederacy of Switzerland] to the Swiss delegates for the Congress of Vienna in 1815: they were to secure Switzerland’s neutrality, the “basis of its political independence and its military security” (quoted on p. 86). As the passage through history since then shows, the concept of neutrality has repeatedly been called into question: by the great powers because it stands in their way, domestically by those who feel restricted in the exercise of their own power. Yes, neutrality “restricts the government’s room for manoeuvre in foreign policy” (p. 15).
  Despite all the difficulties, Widmer states that it is “obvious that neutrality has not reached its end as a means under international law to preserve national independence in conflicts between third countries. It is precisely the frequent failure of world organisations to resolve conflicts that legitimises neutrality time and again.” (p. 95) The only capital of neutrality is “credibility. This must be acquired in peace with a predictable policy in order to possess it in war”. (p. 99) However, neither accession to the Partnership for Peace nor more recent considerations as formulated in the supplementary report to the Federal Council’s report on security policy issues serve this purpose. Joint exercises with NATO or its right to check the interoperability of the Swiss Armed Forces are not confidence-building measures for Swiss neutrality. “In the end, all that would be left would be the name.”
  Paul Widmer counters the propagandists of an activist – barracked – “neutrality” policy by saying that Switzerland has not been entrusted by the other states with a judicial role in world politics. Rather, they should “come down from the high pedestal of moral superiority” (p. 99). And he recalls that Switzerland was and is well aware of its great privilege of having been spared from armed conflicts. It has always sought to compensate for this privilege through special efforts: in the area of international law by supporting the ICRC, politically through the Good Offices and at the humanitarian level through generous aid measures in disaster or war situations.
  Paul Widmer also sees a possibility today to “reconcile the legitimate interests of a small state with the strategic peace requirements in a reliable neutrality policy, even in the 21^st century”.
  The common interest, the population not only in one’s own country, would be best served in this way, because, as Widmer says elsewhere: “Since time immemorial, people have cherished the desire to secure peace with wise state precautions”. (p. 23)

Being different –
a perspective worth living for

Paul Widmer is not concerned with highlighting Switzerland – modesty is closer to his heart. A modesty, however, that is based on a healthy self-image. His writing reminds us that we ourselves must know what we have with our democracy, our federalism, our neutrality, our political culture.
  Recognition is nice – if it is based on respect for the independence of the other person. But those who only focus on being recognised by others lack inner stability and steadfastness at the first adversity of life.
  Widmer’s essay is an unequivocal plea for Switzerland, for its preservation, but also a clear reminder that we do not simply have what we have achieved, but must preserve it if we want to keep it. Switzerland doesn’t just exist: we have to want it, and we have to do something for it.
  More courage to be different, that is, to remain oneself, less striving for conformity and applause, more committed citizenship – that harms neither the individual nor the community. We don’t have to peddle what we have in our country in a missionary way.
  But in the awareness of what Switzerland has meant in the course of history simply by virtue of its existence – a union from below in which the principle of law has been able to assert itself before the principle of power – in the knowledge of why these inhospitable “boulders” (Voltaire) have acquired a place in world history, courage to be different is a perspective more than worth living for. Switzerland may lack the externalities of great powers based on violence, but it exists as an unmistakable message: an alternative is possible.  •