Swiss peace policy – another missed opportunity

The disturbingly unserious behaviour of the Western “elites” at the Bürgenstock has shown how far removed they have become from reality. Is Switzerland losing its long tradition of keeping an eye on the whole world?

In the aftermath of the glamorously staged event on the Bürgenstock, the Swiss standard media faithfully adopted the core sentences of the Swiss Federal Council’s media release of 16 June 2023, promptly and in unison delivering the corresponding headlines on the following Monday. The meeting was ‘a first step towards peace’, they said, misjudging the true facts.
  The reality is different. By providing almost unconditional support to a warring party, official Switzerland has decidedly taken only one side in this global conflict, once again seriously damaging its international credibility. By having willingly adopted the view of a de facto belligerent party (the USA) in word and deed since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it has taken a wrong turn in this highly dangerous conflict with its claim to mediate.
  However, the international situation is not dangerous because Putin wants to conquer the rest of the world after Ukraine, as the Western narrative hammers into our heads every day. The situation is dangerous because warmongering interest groups in the West want the hopeless war in Ukraine to continue for as long as possible, for motives that are not clearly communicated. Experts, including American ones, repeatedly point out that the USA has no legitimised claim to assert its current economic dominance, including illegal–sometimes armed–interventions, in principle anywhere in the world. This is particularly the case against its supposed main competitors in the global economic war, Russia and China.
  The situation is particularly dangerous because irresponsible leaders in the West are fuelling the escalation on a daily basis. Western-style long-range missiles fired from Ukraine have already attacked facilities of the Russian nuclear early warning system, in some cases far inside Russian territory. Fortunately for the Western world (or for the world at large!), Putin has so far reacted prudently.
  In view of the fact that the USA has withdrawn from all disarmament and nuclear mutual control agreements and has since derisively dismissed Moscow’s concern about this (which went hand in hand with the wordless expansion of NATO to the east) as a pipe dream, the international situation is more than dicey. The West is continuing its irresponsible provocations and, just a few days before the Bürgenstock Conference, gave its consent to supply Ukraine with strategically deployable weapons (cruise missiles and long-range combat aircraft), while NATO member states such as France have declared their willingness to provide troops in the future (American, French and German ‘advisors’ have long been on the ground). This increases the risk of a ‘pre-emptive’ nuclear strike provoked by the West or even one that could be triggered purely by ‘accident’. In either case, Europe would become a nuclear theatre of war.
  In this situation, countries such as Switzerland, including Austria, whose impartiality has repeatedly enabled useful conflict resolutions over decades, would have their hands full helping to bring about a return to more reflection. Instead, official Switzerland does everything that benefits the sabre-rattlers in the EU and NATO.

The world is on fire
‘and Congress is dancing’

Unfortunately, this is more than worrying. All the ingredients are there today that herald the beginning of the end, something that all sensible people have been warning about for decades, including the philosopher Karl Jaspers, who taught in Basel and left Germany early on because of its one-sided orientation towards the victorious power, the USA, after the Second World War and out of disappointment at its unopposed integration into the Cold War. In his book ‘The Atomic Bomb and the Future of Man’ (1958), he said everything that could have been thought and foreseen at the time.
  In view of these real problems, the self-praise and the factual paucity of the event on the Bürgenstock seems embarrassing. ‘The Congress dances’ became a catchphrase about the Congress of Vienna, which, however, reorganised the world between the festivities. On the Bürgenstock, the elegance of the ‘high-ranking’ society, as the Federal Council proudly emphasised in its press release, only poorly concealed the lamentable actual state of our still and repeatedly war-torn world. Western ‘elites’ continue to dance unperturbed on the volcano without properly assessing the eruptions.
  Who has a look at the map of Europe, will realise that its eastern border does not end east of Kiev. One day before the conference on the Bürgenstock, the president of a country that has always seen itself as European, and who is hated by official Europe, emphatically pointed out that Russia and Europe are condemned to be neighbours in purely geographical terms. Sooner or later, we would have to come to an agreement. What he did not say, but what numerous unprejudiced experts have repeatedly warned of since the beginning of the war: otherwise, we will continue to move towards the abyss. Since Hiroshima, we have known what it will look like.
  For Switzerland, there is no other way than immediate and decisive action in favour of a ceasefire and honest negotiations with all parties involved. Against this backdrop, Switzerland has once again missed an opportunity to work quietly and modestly for peace, preferably behind the scenes, but efficiently, with its short-sighted squinting at how it will be received by the ‘Western big boys’. The official sabotage of Switzerland’s ‘good offices’, which have been effective in various international conflicts in the past, by its own leadership is becoming more and more clearly targeted. Even if our mainstream media play along uncritically, we must keep our wits about us. In Switzerland, the voters themselves, not a constitutional court, must monitor and judge compliance with their constitution with an alert mind. This requires impartiality. This seems to be in short supply among those in positions of responsibility in our highest authorities.

Not far from the Bürgenstock
lies the Rütli – and worlds in between

The Bürgenstock, since a week known all over the world, has been a highlight of the Swiss tourist industry. The distant view from there is overwhelming, if you get to see it at all, dazzled by all the media flashes. In just a few kilometres distance, still in the heart of the Urschweiz (primeval Switzerland), lies the Rütliwiese – a mountain meadow by the Lake Lucerne, once familiar to every Swiss pupil. If you want to walk down to it from another viewing terrace on Lake Lucerne, from Seelisberg, you should wear good shoes and be a little fit. The historic site has been regarded as the cradle of the Swiss ‘Eidgenossenschaft’ since three Swiss valleys swore an oath of allegiance and loyalty against unjustified Habsburg claims in 1291. Schiller’s world-famous theatre play ‘Wilhelm Tell’ – a great historical work written shortly before his death – played a decisive role in this attribution. In it, the delegates of the three valleys swear eternal loyalty and brotherhood in arms against unjustified claims to power (at that time by the ruling House of Habsburg).
  In Schiller’s work, the claims to freedom of the original Swiss people, guaranteed by earlier legal documents, and their will to claim them are summarised in the immortal words solemnly spoken together by the choir: “We want to be free, as our fathers were, [...] and not to be afraid before the might of men.” According to the historical chronicles that have come down to us, the historian Schiller, who taught history in Jena, let the original oath of allegiance of the Swiss people taking place on this very Rütli.¹
  In later times, when, like today, creeping threats to Switzerland again appeared overpowering, when the whole of Europe around the still free Switzerland had to obey Hitler, Mussolini and their stooges, it was here on the Rütli mountain meadow, on 25 July 1940, where Henri Guisan, the General of the Swiss Army elected by Parliament at the outbreak of war, held his decisive ‘Rütli Report’; at a time when, following the collapse of France, there were increasing calls in Switzerland to align itself more closely with the ‘new era that had dawned’.
  Such views were also clearly expressed in the Swiss Federal Council. In a short oral address to all the senior officers of the Swiss militia army that he had commanded to this important location, Guisan committed them to an internal rejection of any kind of conformity to the National Socialist German government, to punish any such excesses in their area of command and to unconditional obedience to the main Swiss article in the constitution. It clearly states that the Swiss army must protect Switzerland’s independence. In this respect, adapting to a world power that has been waging illegal wars worldwide for decades is a poor compass.
  Although the Bürgenstock lies a few bends in altitude above the Rütli meadow and a few kilometres away from it as the crow flies, it is still in the same landscape. The air you breathe on this historic meadow down by Lake Uri is very similar to that on the Bürgenstock hotel terrace. Today, they are worlds apart.
  The successfully submitted popular initiative to enshrine Swiss neutrality in the constitution will provide an opportunity to conduct a fundamental debate on the reasons for this. It must shed light on the doctrine of annexation prevalent in the Swiss leadership and its real motives, as well as on what opposes it: that we do not want to join in with pure power thinking and want to see our civil democratic rights preserved and strengthened – certainly not further weakened by adapting to the demands of the EU and NATO. The fact that the sovereign in our country is not a president who can send his parliament home at his whim, but the citizen, has been fought for over centuries. Our popular sovereignty is therefore a national asset and heritage that characterises our country. That is something quite different from gut feelings that change according to fashion.  •

¹ The ‘scholarly dispute’ repeatedly raised by certain circles as to whether the ‘Rütli Oath’ took place on the Rütli meadow in 1291 as Schiller describes is pointless. The material existence of the Federal Charter of 1291 and the ethics of solidarity and the duty to provide assistance against external threats and presumed injustice formulated therein are beyond doubt. The fact that the valleys adhered to their duty of solidarity is also a central basis for the existence and development of the ‘Oath–Co-operative’ from these written, sworn beginnings. The original of the Federal Charter of 1291, five hundred years before the United States’ Declaration of Independence, can be found alongside other important historical documents in the Swiss Federal Charter Archives in Schwyz, where they are accessible to the public.