Word: swiss
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...other countries have learned - not least my own, which in June elected two far-right members to the European Parliament - pride and exceptionalism can easily morph into isolationism and xenophobia. The country's most popular political group is the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP). It won nearly 29% of the vote in the 2007 election with anti-immigration posters showing white sheep kicking black sheep off a flag-clad outline of Switzerland. The SVP is also driving a Nov. 29 referendum to ban the construction of new minarets. Listen to its leaders, and you would assume that...
...despite how central to the economy they have been and - with a falling birth rate and aging population - are still. Postwar Switzerland was built by Italian "guest workers," many of whom eventually won the right to settle, and today perhaps a quarter of the nation's workforce are non-Swiss...
...This has not gone entirely unrecognized. On Aug. 1 - Switzerland's 718th birthday - the Swiss National Museum in Zurich opened a new permanent exhibition to chart a history of immigration since the Bronze Age. In a section called "No One Has Been Here All the Time," visitors to the museum are reminded that many famous Swiss have foreign blood. Take tennis superstar Roger Federer: his dad was born South African. Exceptionalism is out of fashion these days. (Well, unless you're Chinese.) Global recession is a great leveler, its seismic shocks felt in big and small nations alike. Even Switzerland...
...very different Switzerland. One day, he will vote in its elections and do national service in its army. But he will always be half English and - since he was conceived and born in Bangkok - "Made in Thailand," too. Fake watches might be for fake people. But authentic Swiss are harder to define than ever, and that's something Switzerland should probably celebrate...
...Read: "The Swiss Question Their Once Proud Banks...