Word: switzerland
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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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...
...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 the E.C. and still retain its highly decentralized system of direct democracy...
Ironically, Switzerland is a minimodel for the new confederal Europe. No melting pot here; instead it is a patchwork stitched together for common convenience -- and prosperity -- with each part retaining its distinctive culture and mores. There is no center, no dominating commercial or political capital. Power here is even more discreet than money, and like money in this richest of all European countries, it is spread around...
...story is much the same elsewhere in Europe. Alpine forests in Austria and Switzerland have been denuded to make way for ski runs and cable cars. For the Conservatoire du Littoral, the French agency charged with preserving the Mediterranean coastline, the grossly overdeveloped French Riviera is the sorriest example of tourism gone awry. Not only has the coastline been ravaged by urbanization and the sea severely polluted, but tourism was down 30% last year from 1989. Pollution and overcrowding also figured in a similar drop in tourist revenues in Spain...
...difference between exporting a pound of coke from a producer country and exporting an AR-15 and its ammunition from the U.S. to murder innocent people in developing countries? Why are countries such as Germany free to export materials used to refine cocaine? Why do countries like Switzerland, Panama and even the U.S. protect money whose origin is dubious...