Word: swiss
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...Seven hundred years, that's enough." So went the slogan of some 300 left- leaning intellectuals protesting ceremonies for a nation they consider too rich, too smug and too hypocritical to rate any respect for its age. Even the voters of the central Swiss cantons -- loosely the equivalent of America's 13 original states -- opted against any spectacular celebrations. They judged it an environmentally harmful and needless extravagance...
...place this month in the Rutli meadow overlooking Lake Lucerne. The field can be reached only on foot, so the celebrators clambered up the bank of the lake to gather at the historic site where, according to legend, rebellious farmers from the founding cantons swore the first oath of Swiss allegiance in 1291. The backdrop was dramatic but fittingly modest: no parades down grand boulevards, just a nostalgic tribute by a modern industrial nation to its simpler, farming roots. When night fell, ) bonfires and fireworks...
Beyond a distaste for excess, the reluctance of the Swiss to indulge in a splashy birthday bash also reflects a country increasingly ill at ease with itself. The questions raised go to the very foundations of what made Switzerland exceptional -- its status as an Alpine refuge protected from the wars and revolutions that have ravaged the rest of Europe through the centuries. The Swiss like to say they are less a nation than a conglomerate formed by disparate mountain people under pressure to defend themselves against outside threats -- from the Habsburgs and the Bourbons to Hitler...
...dynamic toward ever closer unity. By the beginning of 1993, if all goes well, the 12 members of the European Community will have created a single market that, with 345 million people, rivals the U.S. in economic muscle. Far from prizing their traditional standoffishness, many of the 6 million Swiss are asking if they can afford to remain on the sidelines of this new Europe. Does neutrality still make sense as the risk of war in Europe recedes and the vision of a confederation stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals advances? Can Switzerland hope someday to join...
...these varieties of Swiss, the temptation to march in the European parade is at hand, but it is far from clear whether Switzerland will succumb. , Last June, in one of the most important referendums in years, a majority rejected adoption of a value-added tax, a reform that would have brought the Swiss fiscal system closer to that of its European neighbors. Says Christoph Blocher, Zurich industrialist and member of the federal parliament who is leading a campaign against E.C. membership: "If Switzerland joined, it would have a lot to lose: sovereignty, independence, democratic rights, neutrality and security...