The Swiss debate their army's future:
Schalk, Adolph
THE SWISS DEBATE THEIR ARMY'S FUTURE COSTLY SYMBOL, MIGHTY MYTH ADOLPH SCHALK Late this year, for the first time in history, the voters of a European nation-Switzerland-will decide whether to...
...Hans A. Pesta-lozzi, a former battalion commander turned anti-army activist, asks: "Why should Hitler have invaded Switzerland...
...More than a billion dollars has been budgeted in 1989 for armaments alone-$196.8 million for twelve transport helicopters, for example...
...Tenants have been evicted...
...In this reading, attachment to the army is a way of compensating for Swiss self-perceptions...
...Our army wouldn't change anything...
...In 1982, some 100 men and women between eighteen and eighty-six established the "Group for Switzerland without an Army" (GSoA...
...system of direct democracy...
...tighter restrictions against arms exports...
...In 1986, the group, backed by environmentalists, pacifists, and others, collected 111 ,300 valid signatures and put the issue on the ballot...
...Admittedly, this is one Goliath that won't fall to a slingshot...
...Leaving aside such vest-pocket sovereignties as Monaco, Vatican City, and Andorra, only two smallish nations-Liechtenstein (pop...
...According to the report, the father and uncle of the current defense minister, Kaspar Villiger, made huge profits by buying several cigar factories from Jews fleeing the Nazis...
...Worse, CO status carries with it a prison-traitor stigma that functions like a blacklist for many jobs and promotions...
...But the GSoA is digging in for the long haul and thinking in terms that go beyond Swiss borders...
...It held that countries such as Norway, Denmark, and Austria were overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II because they were not adequately prepared militarily...
...Most politicians, most of the media, and nearly two-thirds of the population remain strongly opposed...
...At first, despite this success, practically no one but the organizers took the initiative seriously...
...It takes supersonic fighter jets only four-and-a-half minutes to fly across the entire country...
...after seventeen weeks of basic training, he will be called up for military refresher courses at regular intervals until age fifty, receiving only pocket money for pay...
...Nonetheless, on November 25 and 26, the Swiss will decide the future of its military establishment in a referendum officially known as the "Initiative for Switzerland without an Army...
...propos the anti-army initiative...
...The harsh, Prussian-like intonation of northern Germans comes across as arrogant and overbearing, whereas Swiss German dialects, with their penchant for diminutives, are homey, familiar, almost childlike...
...Because a biggish wing of the Social Democratic Party favors the initiative and the party as a whole is ambiguous about it, the same accusations hurled against the organizers of the initiative have been made against two party members who serve on the Bundestrat-the seven-member cabinet elected by parliament that exercises Swiss executive power...
...Other cherished myths are being punctured...
...Money and gold were safely hoarded in our banks...
...Initiative supporters point out that all the neighboring countries-France, West Germany, Italy, Austria-are friendly democratic nations with no inclination or foreseeable incentive to attack Switzerland...
...For the Swiss, "armed neutrality"-a policy in force for nearly two centuries-is the bottom line of a way of life, a political icon once thought to be the most sacred of cows...
...In a European war there will be only losers...
...Five flier groups had to be sent home because there were no aircraft...
...1. As elsewhere, the Greens have made sharp gains both regionally and nationally, and other priorities- pollution, crime, drugs, terrorism, AIDS-have emerged...
...and that the ignominious "J" (for Jew) stamp in German passports was invented by the Swiss, not the Nazis...
...Many Swiss agree with foreign observers that they suffer from a mass inferiority complex, arising partly out of a bias against Germans that is rooted in envy and fear...
...Much of this obsession is psychological...
...They argue that abolishing the army would create a vacuum of power that would leave the country wide open to vandalism, riots, vigilantism, police abuse, and- unlikely but possible-even anarchy...
...In mid-May, contrary to general expectations, the two dominant Christian confessions, Evangelical and Roman Catholic, issued a joint formal statement that might best be described as "neutral in favor" of the initiative...
...The GSoA's alternative-a civil guard somewhat like Costa Rica's, to handle disasters, riots, and emergencies-is widely seen as vague and unconvincing...
...On the domestic side, however, even some Swiss who agree that the army can no longer provide national security see a serious weakness in the GSoA's program...
...In this century only one country in the world, Costa Rica, has taken the radical step of demilitarizing itself (1949...
...The 1990 budget earmarks another $1.5 billion to buy thirty-four new combat aircraft to be added to the present force of 300 jets...
...Conscientious objectors (450 a year) can expect a three- to twelve-month prison term with no provision (as in other Western European countries) for alternative community service...
...Other precedents hold little significance...
...Even a purely defensive war, the statement says, must be judged immoral if it is likely to bring disproportionately destructive effects...
...And these are only the direct costs...
...They point out that the campaign for women's suffrage was carried on for years before it gained adoption in 1971...
...From the beginning proponents of the initiative have been harassed, ridiculed, faced with anonymous bomb threats, and otherwise mistreated...
...The mass-circulation boulevard daily, Blick, gives the initiative as much chance as the proverbial snowball in Satan's home quarters...
...Many are marksmanship freaks...
...30,000) and isolated, NATO-protected Iceland-make do (and thrive) without a military...
...One of Zurich's biggest annual events is the Knabenschiessen (Boys' Shooting Contest), conducted outdoors in a county fair atmosphere...
...Among them are such personalities as Paul Parin, Zurich psychoanalyst, sociologist Jean Ziegler, Theo Ginsburg, an instructor at the world-famous Technical College ETH (famous alumnus: Albert Einstein...
...that thousands of Jewish refugees in Switzerland were heartlessly returned to the border...
...302.5 for Stinger anti-aircraft weapons...
...The program woke up the populace while also alerting the EMD (Confederate Military Department) to the challenge...
...Aha, you want to abolish the army and then phone the Russians, 'You can come now!'" Backers have been accused of treason, of planning to break down the democratic system, of jeopardizing a pillar of Swiss society, even of endangering the foundations of the Western world...
...Swiss historian Edgar Bonjour has reprimanded the WWII army, "which was safely garrisoned in the bunkers of the Gotthard massif, while leaving the inadequately guarded population along Germany's borders completely exposed...
...In this case the idea was first propagated in 1926 by a Social Democratic cabinet minister, Max Weber, and a pastor of the Reformed church, Leonhard Ragaz...
...Then in 1988 the well-known Swiss writer Roman Brodmann, the initiative's "spiritual father," produced a documentary called "Slaughtering the Sacred Cow" that made a powerful case for the cause...
...And they hope the campaign will at least lead to incremental reforms: alternative civilian service for COs...
...The GSoA "Quoteline" carried this comment on the minister's observation: "We have nothing against a successor, some decades hence, using these very same words apropos the anti-army initiative...
...In contrast, to be in good standing in the army (and, preferably, to hold high rank) helps open the way to successful careers...
...The respected Zurich daily, Tages-Anzeiger, commented: "It's like trying to flatten out the Alps...
...History provides an easy debating point: The Swiss army has not been called into action against a foreign invader since the Treaty of Paris (1815), proving (say its defenders) that its existence in strength has deterred any attack...
...When a reporter asked why the screeching jets could not be replaced by smaller, quieter aircraft in peacetime, the answer was testy: "Form-1 racing drivers don't train in Volkswagens either...
...Yet the critics don't have it all their own way...
...The army plays to this mentality by staging air shows, parades, weapons exhibitions (often combined with carnivals), army-related sports events...
...But three-fourths of the population live in the heavily industrialized lowlands...
...It is a sandbox militia armed to the teeth against a phantom, a shadow-boxer whose opponent never enters the ring...
...to most Swiss, the initiative still seems a piece of insanity...
...any group capable of gathering more than 100,000 signatures from Swiss citizens on a given issue has the right to a national referendum...
...respond to Yankees...
...The report alleges that the new owners also signed an agreement not to hire Jews...
...The American journalist John McPhee summed all this up in a much-quoted sentence: "Switzerland doesn't have an army...
...Historian Werner Rings questions the government thesis in a heavily documented book, Die Schweiz im Krieg {Switzerland during the War), asserting that "the Swiss Army knew how little it could cope with the vastly superior German Air Force...
...On the merits, the GSoA makes a forceful argument to the effect that the Swiss army no longer makes a lot of sense, militarily or economically...
...Despite the heavy odds against passage of their referendum, members of GSoA don't feel they are wasting their time...
...It was vetoed by Swiss TV but a West German station whose signal easily reaches most of Switzerland put it on the air, and the issue came alive...
...The noise pollution at the air base near Zurich reaches intolerable levels...
...Recently a government minister hailed a nineteenth-century countryman, Henri Dunant, for conceiving a "crazy idea," the Red Cross...
...139.3 million for new combat clothing and other infantry equipment...
...Though the four-page document says that church members may vote either way in good conscience, its emphasis falls on arguments supporting passage...
...The army is notorious for flexing its muscles...
...Crops and fences are destroyed, choice farmland and nature sanctuaries are arbitrarily taken over for maneuvers or confiscated for shooting ranges and other permanent installations, causing altercations with the citizens affected and with the Greens (environmentalists...
...During recent border maneuvers the Swiss army accidentally caused a forest fire that destroyed a large area of Liechtenstein's nature preserve...
...Such factors weigh on the side of the initiative and may account for a rise in its popularity...
...because of Dunant, said the minister, "125 years ago Switzerland was the cradle of a movement that bound nations together...
...All this to defend a nation with a population of 6.5 million that could fit comfortably inside West Virginia...
...German-speaking Swiss especially are often uneasy in the company of Germans, a tendency reminiscent of the way southerners in the U.S...
...Switzerland is an army...
...favored by only 13 percent of the people in 1986, it registered an amazing 37 percent approval rating in a poll published in Tages-Anzweiger on April 21 of this year...
...The Swiss government report on the initiative asserted that pacifism is one of the causes of war...
...Neutral Switzerland spends nearly $1,000 annually per capita for defense, far more than any other West European nation...
...The Swiss Bank Corporation alone keeps a surplus of 406 male employees on the payroll to compensate for the time spent in military service...
...arms reductions...
...Each citizen-soldier keeps his uniform, repeating rifle, and ammunition at home to make possible the rapid mobilization of a 600,000-man force...
...We even yielded to his request for censorship...
...Leading politicians from the other (conservative) parties demand that they resign from the cabinet and join the opposition...
...Of twenty-one flier corps, only three were functional...
...Friedrich Diirrenmatt and Max Frisch, Switzerland's most famous writers support the initiative...
...It urges more international cooperation combatting the causes of war-hunger, destitution, chauvinism, racism, religious fanaticism, ideological intolerance, unresolved conflicts of interest...
...It was prepared by the Justice and Peace commission of the Swiss bishops' conference and the Institute of Social Ethics of the Swiss Evangelical Church Union...
...In peacetime, though, the army certainly does make a difference: It is both enormously expensive and omnipresent...
...THE SWISS DEBATE THEIR ARMY'S FUTURE COSTLY SYMBOL, MIGHTY MYTH ADOLPH SCHALK Late this year, for the first time in history, the voters of a European nation-Switzerland-will decide whether to abolish their own army...
...and yet its hold on the Swiss imagination is not to be broken...
...Even stronger than history is myth, and, in my judgment, for the Swiss the myth of the army ranks with the legendary feats of William Tell...
...Moreover, the statement praises the initiative for prompting sustained reflection and discussion on a topic not usually open to debate...
...Swiss media recently gave wide coverage to a report by a GSoA journalist that names names...
...We gave him everything he wanted: foodstuffs, weapons, munitions, transit rights...
...perhaps even a decline of militarism...
...That the vote will take place in Switzerland is even more surprising...
...The vote is made possible by the country's unique ADOLPH SCHALK is an American freelance writer, long resident in Switzerland...
...Though "the world's oldest democracy" can hardly be called a police state, one encounters the military everywhere...
...There are hundreds of outdoor rifle ranges all over the country, with ear-splitting rifle practice every weekend...
...The joint church statement declares that, in the absence of an "unyielding" search for peaceful solution of conflicts and of "convincing" efforts to overcome injustice and misery in the world, a "Yes" to defense would be "ethically untenable...
...People who don't know Switzerland tend to think that its Alpine terrain makes it easy to defend...
...It may be, moreover, that Swiss men, not having suffered the realities of war, are free to romanticize its trappings...
...The GSoA speaks glowingly of a "comprehensive peace policy" to replace militarism...
...For months volunteers stood shivering on street corners to collect signatures, stoically withstanding the daily barrage of insults: "Shame on you...
...Nevertheless, even GSoA members agree that their proposal is most unlikely to prevail...
...In so small a country, moreover, the army finds it difficult to operate without constantly colliding with somebody's interests...
...The initiative, they say, is a unique chance to stimulate re-thinking on an obsolete Swiss institution...
...Members of GSoA, in fact, are neither radicals nor kooks...
...Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost has persuaded a growing minority that the Soviet Union is no longer Public Enemy No...
...Though the odds are strong that the electorate will say "No," the very posing of the question is an astonishment...
...gets a short answer from the GSoA: "Nobody...
...Moving from past to current history, a question often put by non-Swiss observers, "Who would even want to conquer Switzerland...
...Moreover: "Defense in a modern war is a mortal illusion...
...Every able-bodied male Swiss is required to serve in Switzerland's unique Miliz (militia) system...
...The two paid fire-sale prices, and then operated the factories as subsidiaries to their own family-run Swiss-based cigar firm...
...Swiss industry literally donates more than 13 million lost working days annually to the army, at a cost of nearly $1.4 billion...
...Frequently, helicopters collide with funicular cables or high tension wires...
...You must be off your rocker...
...Moreover, 54 percent of respondents in the recent poll believe the army's budget should be cut drastically, and 80 percent do not believe the Swiss army could cope with a nuclear attack...
...It is an open secret that hundreds of Swiss firms made similar deals with the Nazis...
...Rental agreements for halls have been canceled on short notice...
...But proponents are clearly a minority...
Vol. 116 • June 1989 • No. 11
