Sunday 8 February 2009

The Swiss Role

Give the Swiss six months, probably three.

After giving priority to their own citizens, they should operate a points system, with points for different levels of competence in each of German (spoken German in Switzerland is very different, but written German is the same), French and Italian. A native speaker of one with a very high level of competence in the other two would breeze in, assuming that there were no Swiss suitable for the job. Someone who barely spoke one and who could not speak the other two at all would stand no chance.

Thus would Switzerland remain Switzerland.

Christoph Blocher himself is a problematic figure. Ostensibly, he champions agriculture, small business, domestic manufacturing, ordinary workers, family and community values, and national sovereignty and identity. Yet he himself is a billionaire globalist with factories as far afield as China.

But his party is tellingly called both (in German) the Swiss People’s Party and (in French) the Democratic Union of the Centre. Tellingly, and in many ways rightly. For this is the mainstream, moderate, sensible centre ground. The voice of the people.

It takes possibly the last truly independent country in Europe to show that to the rest of us.

2 comments:

  1. Perhaps they should also insist that they were only letting in Catholics and Calvinists, in equal numbers.

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