Gregory A. Fossedal, Direct Democracy in Switzerland, 2002.19
Diversity
"In Switzerland, minorities are not tolerated.
They are favored." A. TogniAs the country eases into social peace and unity, it is easy to forget that, for most of its life, Switzerland was gripped by Europe's grudges. Alexis de Tocqueville summed up the Swiss situation in 1835 as follows:
One people, composed of several races, speaking several languages; with several religious beliefs, various dissident sects, two churches both equally established and privileged; all religious questions turning into political ones, and all political questions turning quickly into religious ones -- in short, two societies, one very old and the other very young, joined in marriage in spite of the age difference. That is a fair sketch of Switzerland.Even today, Switzerland suffers from natural divisions any one of which would severely strain national solidarity in most countries. The Swiss have three major languages, each of which is the home language to a powerful nation and culture on the Swiss frontier. Those national cultures along the Swiss border -- in many cases less separated by natural boundaries from their affinity group than the three major Swiss language populations are from one another -- have been an entropic magnet, always urging the country apart. "Nature has hindered movement and exchange within the country," as American sociologist Carol Schmid observes, "more than with the neighboring countries of the same language group."1
Ethnic Italians, Germans, French, Jews, and Arabs -- groups that haven't been able to get along anywhere else for centuries -- swirl together within a work force more than one-fifth foreign born. The country has long been home to two of the sternest Protestant sects in the world, the followers of Calvin and Zwingli, and to a highly orthodox Roman Catholic population in the Forest Cantons. For hundreds of years these sects have held sway in various cantons and communities not merely as the religion of preference, but as state-spon-sored churches. Scholars and historians comparing Switzerland to such multilingual nations as Belgium, Canada, India, Nigeria, and South Africa are intrigued at the degree to which the Swiss have managed to form a bona fide nation.
It is tempting to call the result a melting pot. Yet this would not be accurate. The Swiss system is held together by something, but it does not homogenize its members. In the United States, ethnic groups tend -- when not burdened by perverse incentives -- to learn English, adopt American customs, and thus, gradually, become one people in many practices. The Swiss blend together on some customs, but tend to retain their mother tongue. They learn to cooperate with others who speak a different language, and, to an extent seen in few other countries, tend to learn one or more tongues outside their first.
Visiting Switzerland today, one remarks at the smoothness with which the Swiss handle their three-way language barrier. At first you notice it everywhere. And then, after a while, you hardly notice it at all.
Riding from Bern to Geneva, the train crosses over an invisible cantonal border -- and the conductor shifts effortlessly from German to French. The RA. announcements continue to be in both languages, but now French is first, and is spoken by the same voice with a nearly perfect accent.
In a court room, one of the more formal and tense of situations, the participants deal in their language of choice -- with a translator if necessary, though it seldom is if the languages are German, French, Italian, or even English. In some cases, a listener simply followed along in his second or third language where possible, then asked for a translation if needed. What struck me in several different courts was the matter-of-fact way in which language was simply dealt with. In some ways, there seemed an advantage in the occasional pause for translation. The hiatuses cut against any buildup of emotion of the type one often sees even in an American traffic court. It never caused, in my experience, significant friction. In general, as one might expect, in dealings with the government poly-lingualism is visible and its costs seem high. In almost any settings where government documents are on display, one will see four or five stacks of everything -- always German and French, and frequently in Italian, English, or Romansch. Even small public buildings or services often seem to have a second or third official around who appears to be there in large part to communicate with the occasional Italian, English, or Romansch speaker.
Restaurant menus are normally printed in the language of the district, though in the larger and more cosmopolitan cities there are invariably French or German subtexts; occasionally Italian and English ones as well. In German-speaking Switzerland, even in relatively remote parts of Schwyz, Uri, Glarus, or Appenzell, my informal survey found that more than 90 percent of the people could hold a basic conversation outside of German -- either in French or English. An American asking for directions in Switzerland would, in many regions, have less difficulty than if he or she were to visit a convenience store or a gas station in the U.S. These statistics far exceed the levels one obtains from more formal surveys, but the problem with the formal studies is that they seek a higher level of competence than my informal test. The level at which a Swiss calls himself or another Swiss competent in a language is higher than the level at which a taxicab driver or office security guard might be able to communicate, with a few added hand signs or occasional German word, with another.
Language, for the Swiss, is the object of a whole invisible superstructure of conventions and assumptions and social devices. When a group of three Swiss, already conversing in German, is joined by a Swiss they know to be much more comfortable in French -- and if they do not know at first, the Swiss are adept at finding out, so well-tuned is their ear -- then the existing line of conversation will shift into French. On the other hand, an Italian-speaking Swiss, joining a larger group, will resist being spoken to in Italian -- feeling that surely some of those present will not be comfortable in that language. He will attempt to steer the conversation back to German -- or the whole group will ease into French, which as the second language of choice for both German-speaking and Italian-speaking Swiss, is a handy unit of exchange. In this way, everyone in the room is making some slight adjustment, but no one feels patronized or .patronizing.
Interestingly, even "German-speaking" Swiss do not speak true German -- but rather one of more than a dozen highly particularized local dialects. "High German," as is used in Germany and Austria more broadly, is virtually always used in Swiss written documents, even unimportant ones. This sets off a whole further set of practices and distinctions. One important effect of these dialects is to make all German Swiss into quasi-minorities. As German speakers they add up to a majority, but no dialect is anything more than a tiny minority. The dialects also reinforce a certain Swiss pride in separation from Germany and Austria. If one wants to insult a German-speaking Swiss on a number of levels, one need only tell him that his German sounds like the German spoken in Bonn or Berlin.
The Swiss linguistic codes are subtle, unwritten, seldom even articulated. Probably for this reason they even vary occasionally from one Swiss to another.2 But they exist -- and are part of a whole ethos of adaptivity and businesslike consideration that is the essence of Swiss culture and society.
In almost any social setting where a group of Swiss who didn't know me (or my origins) came into contact with me, they made a tangible effort to determine as quickly as possible what my primary language was, and to use it. Generally this took place within thirty seconds -- though my later practice of speaking French in German-speaking cantons, and German in the French-speaking ones often achieved a delay of up to several minutes before my Americanism was ferreted out.
Watching the Swiss in these situations is like watching a beautiful waltz or minuet danced by a couple emphasizing grace and simplicity, not flair. There are few excesses, no gaudy shows, only an easy agility. In America, the non-English speaker is met with a kind of benign arrogance -- the lovable but ugly American at home, who will raise his voice and say to the Japanese tourist very slowly "It's next to the World Trade Center." Germans now exert at least a friendly helpless cultural smile, "nein, kann kein Englisch," in situations where in Switzerland, there would be a prompt turn to a colleague and a resolution. In France, there is an active contempt; even the Frenchman who can speak English will often abstain from doing so, as if exacting some petty revenge. Even in Belgium (Flemish and French) or Canada (French and English) the determination of one party or another to assert his linguistic heritage sometimes makes one feel he is in a battle zone. The quiet dance of the tongues is one of the most endearing elements of Swiss society, and this facility for dancing, developed in one sphere, contributes to balance and grace in a host of others.
How have the Swiss achieved this facility at languages -- and more broadly, a national facility, almost an article of patriotism, for listening and adapting to other languages, practices, and cultures? The answer is a mixture of history, special factors, deliberate policy, and predictable (but not necessarily intended) aspects of policy -- a tapestry of causes and effects. And yet, behind the picture, or abstracting from it, are strong unifying themes, such as the Willensnation concept of a people determined to be a people, adhering by free choice to a credo of democratic ideals.
We can divide the causes of Switzerland's adaptation to diversity into three general groups. The first group consists of historical factors and accidents: some of them purely random -- true "accidents" -- and others a mixture of luck and institutions. The second group consists of deliberate acts of policy, such as intensive instruction in second and even third languages in Swiss schools. The third group is composed of deliberate policies or institutions that do not have assimilation as their primary aim, but which nevertheless contribute to it. In this group are a whole range of Swiss institutions from the army to the people's strong patriotism and its basis in a set of shared ideals.
Facts, Tendencies, and Happy Accidents
Perhaps the most important fact about Switzerland's various groups is that there are a number of them, and they tend to criss-cross and overlap. There's a sufficient diversity of different societal groupings (race, language, religion) and of different levels of government and other institutions so that most Swiss are in some important minority and some majority groups -- particularly if one considers more than one unit of society. Meanwhile the highly fluid, nonpartisan, multiparty structure of Swiss politics brings these groups into regular coalitions and cooperative enterprises. Much as Madison counted on a multiplicity of special interests to act as a check on one another in The Federalist, so Swiss society defuses some of the rigid rivalries that have formed in other countries divided into groups.
Religion and language cross-cuts offer one good illustration. In Switzerland as a whole, Roman Catholics are a minority in the population and a minority in the population of most cantons, albeit a growing one. And, of course, the majority of Swiss people and of cantons are primarily German-speaking. Yet there are many German-speaking Catholics in Switzerland, as well as French-speaking Protestants. Anyone who belongs to one of these groups is in one national minority already.
The picture gets more subtle and interesting when we look at the cantonal level. A German-speaking Swiss Catholic who now lives in the Ticino, the Southern, Italian-speaking portion of the country, is in a national majority as to language and a cantonal majority as to religion, but is in a cantonal minority as to language and a national minority as to religion. A French Protestant in Geneva is in the cantonal minority but the national majority in his religion; but his is in the cantonal majority and national minority as to his primary language.
"It is one of the fortunate accidents of Swiss history," Carol Schmid writes, "that the linguistic and religious boundaries do not coincide. Language conflict was moderated, since both religions had their adherents in every language area." The Swiss have learned to respect one another's rights as minorities -- and, at the same time, the right of local majorities to run schools, churches, and other institutions by the language and faith of their heritage.
These dynamics become more powerful, not less, when we broaden our scope and look at other group characteristics and interests. Sociologist Jiirg Steiner writes: "There is usually a cross-cutting rather than a cumulative separation between political parties, economic interest groups, voluntary associations, and newspapers."
Zürich, for instance, is considered a center of German culture, wealth, and Protestantism. Yet it ranks behind French Geneva and Catholic Zug in per capita income. In economic matters, the French cantons have tended to vote for social democratic programs -- higher spending, higher taxes, greater federal powers. On cultural matters, however, the French Swiss emphasize federalism and autonomy. Several French cantons (Geneva, Vaud, and Neuchatel) are among the most affluent in Switzerland, though shaken by 1990s fiscal crisis and tax incentives. "The disparities are far greater within each linguistic group than between them," Schmid notes.
The populations of the Italian-speaking cantons, being a distinct minority nationally (about 5 percent of citizens and 9 percent of the resident population), naturally view with reserve any proposal that might empower Bern, or erode local identity and autonomy. The federal government has proved a friend in some instances, however -- for example, in sponsoring language programs in the Ticino and the Grisons, to preserve the Italian language and culture as well as Romansch. Though less than 1 percent of Swiss nationally speak Romansch, it is the primary language of almost one-fifth of the people in Grisons canton. Hence the Italian Swiss have some suspicion of the federal government, but also a certain affinity for it.
Yet these myriad divisions could simply balkanize the Swiss further. Furthermore, some of these same criss-crosses are present today in multilingual societies that do not enjoy Switzerland's harmony. So there must be added explanations and factors that explain why the system does not simply fly apart -- some kind of binding that, while allowing freedom of movement, holds the parts together as well.
• A history and ethic of inclusion. Switzerland's tradition of accepting immigrants, small border states, and relying on foreign trade for much of its commerce has fostered a spirit of inclusion among the people and their institutions. The history is as old as 1291 and the effort of the Forest Cantons to form relationships with the powerful cities and peoples of Bern and Zurich, or accept Protestant and Jewish emigres from Germany and France, and as recent as the repeated Swiss votes against efforts to set tight limits on immigration, and for promoting Romansch as an official language of Switzerland.
• Foreign threats. For many nations, foreign threats become a spur to ethnic rivalry -- since many nations are based on, or have strong elements of ethnicity. For the Swiss, a multiethnic nation, foreign threats have generally functioned the other way around. It was ethnic or cultural nationalism and exclusionism that threatened from the outside. For the Swiss, unity against these threats meant unity, in part, in support of their own diversity.
This phenomenon has deep roots, but is also a product of recent experience. If not for the alliance with border areas, Switzerland would have been swallowed up by Austria, Italy, or Germany in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, or by the French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries -- as they were, briefly, by France in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, of course, the threat from Germany led to a rallying against "Germanism" in Swiss culture and politics, symbolized by the building of the Bundesbrief Museum in 1935.
It is revealing that the one foreign invasion of Switzerland that succeeded in 1,000 years, the French occupation of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was at the front of a powerful ideology -- and a universalist, inclusionary ideology at that. By contrast, in 1914, when Swiss leaders wanted to rally the people against the Kaiser's Germany, the federal council issued a declaration rallying the people to Swiss values. Among them was "the ideal of our country as a cultural community and a political ideal above the diver-sity of race and language." Switzerland's French-speaking general in World War II insisted, "we are a people and culture of inclusion," in calling for a military "and philosophical" resistance to Nazism.
• Elite leadership, and popular acceptance of it. Swiss elites have long held a more or less self-consciously liberal view, in the European sense, on the matter of dealing with diversity. This holds on questions from trade and immigration to their own children's education. It is a common practice, for example, among German-speaking Swiss to send their children abroad for a year or two to improve their French or (popular in recent years) English. Many German-speaking Swiss attend a university, or take a first job, in the French-speaking region.
Arend Lijphart, the sociologist who first coined the term "consociational democracy," goes so far as to say that this leadership is the key to effective acceptance of diversity. This may go a bit too far. At best, it ignores the critical question of why Swiss elites have been able to achieve such a positive sum outlook, while those in many other countries seem to feel they have more to gain by engaging in divisive, winner-take-all politics. The Swiss open door, moreover, was not always laid out by elites first. During World War II, for instance, it was the Swiss people who allowed thousands of Jewish children (and in some cases their parents) over the border and into their homes. In so doing they went against government policy and, in fact, suffered occasional arrests by the border police.
Nevertheless it is true that Swiss leaders have adopted a generally liberal attitude, and have a proud record of leadership on such questions. Once again, the unusual degree of harmony between people and elites in Switzerland, the mutual respect unusual even in democratic societies, makes it very difficult to say who is leading whom.
Deliberate Policies
The most visible and most important means by which the Swiss deliberately encourage pluralistic harmony is through the schools. Instruction in a second national language is mandatory, and in a third and even fourth language is now the common practice, especially given the popularity and importance of English.
In a 1973 survey of Swiss twenty years of age or older, two-thirds had a working knowledge of at least one other official language. Sixty-five percent of German-speaking Swiss had a working knowledge of French, and 52 percent of French-speaking Swiss were capable in German. Today the figures are higher in each category, and as well, there are large numbers of Swiss who are capable in English: More than 60 percent according to official data, and more than 70 percent in my experience, which probably accepts a lower level of English as constituting some capability. Dozens of Swiss told me they were "not very good in English, but willing to use English" -- and then proceeded to converse with high fluency.
This formal training is buttressed by Swiss arts, newspapers, and other teachers from the school of life and culture. Most Swiss movie theaters carry French movies with German subtitles and German movies with French subtitles. Italian films and Italian subtitling is not ubiquitous, but normally applies to 5 or 10 percent of the offerings in any major German city, and more in the French zones. The result is an easy way for students or adults to polish one language or another. Newspaper stands, television, and other mass media offer a similar range of cross-translated materials, now supplemented by the Internet. Much of this activity would take place without government assistance; some would not. The government aid, as much as adding sheer resources, gives a stamp of approval and makes a statement that this is valuable activity. The combined message of this policy and the private activities is that serious Swiss citizens should be able to communicate in two languages or more.
An important concept that contributes to Swiss harmony is the principle of territoriality. Under this principle, the language of instruction for schools, the first language of discourse for public facilities and government agencies, and so on are all set by the canton or the community. Furthermore, this language, as set, is not to be challenged. Hence if in a particular district, the number of French-speaking Swiss was to change from 47 percent to 53 percent, this would not imply a change in the official language structure. It would remain German.
This feature of medium-term immutability is not written down; it is a tacit arrangement, a modus vivendi. It is, however, no less powerful for being understood rather than explicit. It is, in fact, likely that if a much larger shift were to occur in the language of usage, it might, like other elements of Swiss politics, eventually be adjusted. The formula by which seats on the executive council were allocated for fifty years, for instance, appeared on the verge of change after the 1999 Swiss elections. One thing the principle would definitely rule out, however, in its subtle way, would be any sort of agitation of the question; such arrangements, once reached, tend to remain in place until circumstances have long since rendered them clearly obsolete. And by then, they are so clearly obsolete that the thing is changed with minimal fanfare or excitement.
The great Swiss jurist Walter Burckhardt describes the subtle way in which this practice can fairly be called a policy, and yet, is not a matter of statute or regulation:
It is now a tacitly recognized principle that each locality should be able to retain its traditional language... and that linguistic boundaries once settled should not be shifted, neither to the detriment of the majority nor of minorities. It is trust in this tacit agreement that provides a foundation for peaceful relations.... Adherence to this rule, as well as respect of each group for the individuality of the others, is an obligation of Swiss loyalty. It is no less sacred because it is not laid down in law; it is one of the foundations of the state itself.This implicit understanding, avoiding the persistent churning and reopening of certain arrangements, is critical to making the principle of territoriality work to defuse conflicts -- rather than set off new ones. If a society were to merely emulate Swiss federalism as a negative concept -- letting states and localities select their own language, but allowing this to change on a regular basis -- it is easy to see that the result could be the very opposite of the social peace enjoyed by the Swiss. Shifting populations would render temporary majorities tenuous, and there would be constant battles in districts with evenlybalanced minority populations. It was this dynamic, in part, that rendered the Kansas-Nebraska Act so odious to Abraham Lincoln and the American Republicans in the 1850s, as against the Missouri Compromise setting out accepted slave and free territories. Efforts at mere federalism, especially with unit rule and spoils systems, can provoke new conflicts rather than solving them.
This is an illustration of the dangers of adapting Swiss institutions or lessons piecemeal into different situations. Swiss federalism takes place in a cultural and social context. Of course, this is an argument for care in adapting them -- not for ignoring these precious lessons merely because they are not an exact, test-tube match for situations elsewhere. He who ignores history, because it contains slight variations from his own situation, is condemned to repeat it, with slight variations.
The Swiss do not give minority languages, institutions, and cultures their due. They strive to give them a little more than their due. Swiss majority groups do not demand what they have coming. They demand a little less, and take comfort in their secure position as a majority.
This approach by both minority and majority groupings is another policy or tendency -- or an element of many policies -- that helps explain much of Switzerland's ability to thrive on diversity. The Swiss do this in both political situations such as the policies mentioned for language, and in social ones, such as the gentle race to find a person's first language and put him at ease by using it.
"No effort whatsoever is made by the Swiss Germans, who are in the overwhelming majority numerically, to assert any linguistic dominance," writes Kurt Mayer. "There are no linguistic minorities, either in a legal or in an informal sense."
Carol Schmid has an excellent term for this, suggesting that Swiss linguistic and religious majorities often "do not act like majorities." Or, one might say, they act as confident majorities -- majorities that are not threatened by the rights of minorities, and gladly allow them to flourish. When asked what foreign country they would most like to live in, French-speaking Swiss, not surprisingly, named France first (45 percent), followed by Holland (22 percent), and Austria (10 percent). Interestingly, though, German-speaking Swiss also listed France first (30 percent), followed in this case by Austria (23 percent), and Holland (17 percent).
Perhaps Schmid's most interesting and certainly original evidence of this comes from her survey, mentioned previously, in which she asked members of the three major language groups to estimate what share of the Swiss population belongs to each group. For example, she asked German-speaking Swiss to estimate how many Swiss speak German as their primary language, how many speak Italian, and how many speak French. Then she repeated this procedure with speakers of French. By large majorities, both French- and German-speaking Swiss overestimated how many Swiss speak one of the minority languages (French or Italian), and members of both groups underestimated how many Swiss speak German.
In most other multilingual societies, the exact opposite phenomenon is seen. Estimates of minority population and culture tend to understate the presence of the minority, and overstate the majority. The minority groups feel aggrieved, besieged, and hence their presence as smaller than it really is. The majority feels a certain arrogance, overestimating its own strength. The Swiss have escaped both tyranny of the majority and tyranny of the minority, with both the minority and the majority acting as if they were on a rough par.
The Swiss are similarly tolerant of religion, even in their government institutions, in a way the United States, Canada, and much of Europe are not. Diversity of religion includes individual rights to worship in the church of a citizen's choice, and freedom from having religious views or practices imposed. But diversity also includes a respect for religious displays and practices by official policies. Religion and atheism, worship and nonworship, are on an equal playing field.
In their classic History of Civilization, Will and Ariel Durant ascribe much of the violence of the French Revolution to the preceding repression of the ancient regime. By cracking down on dissent so severely for so long, they argue, the French kings created a cauldron of deep resentments. Once it boiled over, it did so with vengeance. It may be that modern post-religious cultures are emulating the same error (though only to a slight degree, to be sure) in their treatment of the remaining religious elements of society. Clamped down on until they feel little room to breathe, regarded contemptuously by elite culture and official institutions, the religious of the United States, for example, have begun a highly politicized counter-revolution in the form of the Christian Right. This minority feels, at any right, that it must fight an aggressive war for survival and recognition.
The Swiss have avoided these errors. Thus -- probably not by accident -- while the Swiss have a substantial number of orthodox Catholics and socially conservative Protestants, these groups do not feel under siege the way such groups do in the United States, Canada, parts of Europe, and much of Latin America. The toleration of community standards and religious practices, while shielding the right of the individual to abstain from them, has left both the religious and nonreligious comfortable that their status is respected and secure.
The relative lack of involvement of the courts -- the least democratic of institutions even in Switzerland, though not nearly so remote as in most democracies -- has helped as well. Swiss religious policies, since the constitution of 1848, have for the most part been worked out through institutions such as the referendum, and to some extent the different legislatures, that are highly democratic. Thus not only the substantive solution, but the procedure, for finding workable agreements about religion, have been populist and participatory in nature.
The bottom-up nature of this elaborate patchwork of compromises, worked out over many years, makes it difficult to picture its direct transfer to other societies -- perhaps even dangerous, as in the example of federalism's two-edged sword. But the basic spirit -- of real tolerance (indeed, embracing) of all sorts of persons and ideas, including the politically incorrect -- may hold deep lessons for other Western countries, not to mention universities, corporations, unions; churches, and other institutions.
Indirect Policies and Impacts
Tolerance, federalism, live and let live -- all these concepts, while laudable, impart a negative or at best minimalist sense of how the Swiss deal with diversity. These connote a kind of grudging social armistice, in which warring factions, while they cannot agree, can at least "agree to disagree" to go their own way and leave one another alone.
In fact, the Swiss have achieved this minimalist respect for individuality and separate communities. But they have achieved more than this. The key to Swiss "tolerance" of diversity is that the Swiss, in fact, embrace diversity. More than that, they embrace (and take pride in) the ability of their democracy, and their ability as people, to have worked out such a highly functional social contract amidst such divisions.
It is not merely that the Swiss have decided to accept such cleavages. Rather, they have a real, substantive unity behind certain principles, such as civil freedom and political equality. In this sense, the Swiss appear, more than any other country, to have an actual "body politic," an organic cooperation of the social parts. It is not that the liver merely "tolerates" the heart, or the lungs "obey" the brain. The organs cooperate.
Common ideals are the most important fact in Switzerland's collaboration of the parts. None of these was invented as a conscious effort to manage diversity, nor would they work very well if they were. But whenever we tug very hard on one of the policies or principles, such as federalism, that seems a partial explanation of Swiss comity, we find these deeper dynamics of unity and idealism at work behind them.
The lesson for other societies may be that an appreciation of diversity is a thing best captured not by chasing around after it in a mad search, but instead by building unity and a shared body of principles. Happy diversity, like personal happiness, may be something that is best attained indirectly.
One of the most important factors identified by Ms. Schmid in her study of Swiss diversity is the way its highly accessible democracy encourages crisscrossing political coalitions and cooperation. Significantly, because of the number of decisions reached by direct democracy at the federal, cantonal, and community levels, much of this criss-crossing is popular in nature -- people reaching agreement and working with people across different religious, linguistic, and other "divides."
'There is a recurrent tendency," as Schmid notes, "for French Switzerland to join forces with the Catholic forces of German Switzerland in opposing measures they feel to be either too centralizing or threatening to local autonomy." Swiss politics on the European Union, to take a highly current example, have brought together coalitions of greens, religious groups concerned with local autonomy, and others in opposition to early efforts at Swiss membership. The same issue has promoted combinations of business interests and blue collar workers in parts of French -- and German -- speaking Switzerland in favor of a more aggressive effort at integration.
Swiss voting on issues of diversity itself have produced unifying cross-alliances. When the Jura, a Catholic region of what was then Bern canton, wished to form its own separate canton, Swiss voters of all different religious and language groupings voted overwhelmingly for the constitutional amendment necessary to create the new state.
"Thus, although the referendum process is not a device for minority recognition as such," Schmid concludes, "its operation has enabled the religious and linguistic minorities to combine for structural reasons." Schmid's emphasis on direct democracy as a key sociological device is impressive because she does not appear to be seeking that conclusion. Rather one feels part of an unexpected and intriguing discovery.
The Swiss army, like the referendum, is a great civic melting pot. It brings together all male youths from the age of eighteen onward -- and continues the process, for most of them, for thirty years. Included in this are the conventions by which officers address individual soldiers in their primary language, whenever practicable, and other policies directly having to do with the treatment of diversity.
In his study of America, Tocqueville was impressed by the effect that juries had as a kind of "training ground" for citizenship. Yet jury service is a rare event for Americans, something most of us will experience once or twice, for a few days, in our life. The Swiss army, as we have seen, permeates social, business, and political relationships in a populist way -- not through money or interlinking interests or conflicts but through people, cooperating in a national enterprise. The importance of the Swiss army -- both as a practical experience, and in the institutional message it sends to all citizens as equals and necessary contributors -- cannot be overestimated.
Indeed, when we consider the activity generated by these Swiss institutions, the phrase "cross-cutting cleavages," a favorite of sociologists, emerges as too static, as insufficiently vital, to convey what is going on. An improvement on such phrases might be "cross-pollination," or "criss-crossing association-building." Swiss diversity is not sterile, but active.
Over and above these operational impacts of institutions like the referendum and the militia system is something still more profound -- a real national consciousness based on shared principles.
One such concept is the principle of a nation based on principle -- rather than ethnicity or language or economic interest alone -- in and of itself. This is the Swiss idea of Willensnation. In some ways, it is difficult for other countries to even understand let alone emulate this concept. America is an exception because it, too, is a Willensnation, a nation of ideals whose ancestors, as Bill Murray once put it, "were kicked out of all the best countries in Europe." Upon reflection, however, it is not clear why the presence of a certain ethnic affinity in countries like Germany, Russia, or France, would not allow for national pride and identity based on a shared vision of good. And these are nations no longer rent by fatal internal divisions anyway. Countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and India will have no basis in national unity unless they can forge pride in their accomplishments and principles -- there is no ethnic, religious, or even linguistic unity to start from. While a Swiss- or American-style act of national and individual wills is obviously not in the prospect for them in the short term, it is what they must strive for.
Another important factor is Swiss neutrality. This includes not only neutrality as a foreign affairs policy, but as a kind of national-personal ethos of the Swiss -- the act of self-abnegation and renunciation of vast schemes or imprudent efforts. What Switzerland has decided is a prudent realization of its limited influence as a nation, most Swiss have internalized as a matter of their individual philosophy. Their motto is the song of Psalm 119, "Yahweh, my heart knows no lofty ambitions; my eyes do not look too high."
Konrad Falke provided an insightful description of this national-personal philosophy in his work, Das demokratische Ideal und unser nationale Erziehung:
It makes a tremendous difference whether man has been brought up to the thought: "You belong to a great power which one day must fight for world supremacy," or whether he must always say to himself: "If it should come finally to fighting, we can hope for nothing better than to keep what we already have." This is the influence of the politics of a people upon its ethical attitude, and in the latter is influenced by the former. In this mutual action and reaction, the character of a people is formed.It is these and other deeply shared beliefs and experiences that enable many Swiss to credibly say, as Corriere Del Ticino editor Giancarlo Dillena insists, "We are not a multi-cultural country. A respect for these differences, and an appreciation of a country where they can coexist -- this is part of one, national Swiss culture. A pride in our democracy, our direct democracy, and a deep love for it -- these are traits of nearly all Swiss."
This certainly appears to be the case on the basis of survey data and other broad surveys of national attitudes. When asked an open-ended question about their reasons for being proud to be Swiss, most named some element of the political system, such as direct democracy. This answer, provided by nearly 60 percent of Swiss, was larger than any other two answers, and almost as large as the next three most frequent answers combined. It is evidence, summarized in Figure 19.1, that the Swiss have a deeply shared ethos -- and an optimism about "politics" perhaps unmatched in the world.
Yes, as Schmid concludes, "there are a number of accidental and human factors" that have enabled the Swiss to thrive on diversity. But to a large extent, "the so-called 'fortunate accidents' have often been more attributable to public policy."
Whatever the causes, Switzerland has managed to make diversity into a strength -- arguably a major source of Switzerland's greatness.
Business is only one example, but a prominent one. The Swiss facility with different languages has made them a natural power in the emerging world of global business. In an age with a premium on information, the Swiss are expert listeners. Meanwhile, as science locates new wonders, but in different languages, the Swiss are quick to assimilate its lessons -- and to generate their own innovations as well. This is seen by the country's highly disproportionate share of Nobel science prizes and international patents.
Swiss investment bankers enjoy an edge not only because of the country's privacy, but because they are able to make people from many different cultures and countries feel comfortable that their needs are being heard, and will be met. Swiss manufacturers of products from chocolates to major engineering projects are able to reach markets no monolingual Frenchman, German, or American can. These countries may, indeed are likely, to eventually close the gap with the Swiss in terms of formal language instruction. But they may never be able to capture the full advantage enjoyed by a Swiss who lives his entire life, and most of every day, in a multi-lingual environment.
Ironically, perhaps -- since they already have to deal with four official languages -- the Swiss leaped past much of Europe in becoming a nation skilled in English, the new version of Latin as the language of international business, politics, and culture. Some years ago when a merger was announced involving Union Bank of Switzerland (which joined with Swiss Bank Corporation), many Swiss employees of the bank were informed in a press release and employee memorandum that was, revealingly, written in English. Statistics suggest perhaps 50 percent of Swiss are capable in English. In my experience, the number of Swiss that had a workable competency was somewhere closer to 70 percent -- 80 percent or more in the cities and in service industries there, and still between 40 percent and 60 percent even in relatively remote (and sparsely populated) areas.
As the Internet and other tools of global communication yield greater physical efficiencies, the remaining costs of dealing across languages and borders, even if declining in absolute terms, will be an even higher percentage of the remaining costs of transaction in the world. There will be even more of a premium on being able to communicate -- to listen and talk, literally to "share" -- over and above those remaining barriers.
Far more important than the Swiss facility with language as such, with words and symbols, is the ethic behind it. Ultimately, what the Swiss emphasis on crossing various language and other barriers teaches is a certain view of the person who is speaking the language. Swiss respect for religion is not a respect for a building, but the people inside it.
Notes 1. From Schmid's important study of Swiss social relations, Conflict and Consensus in Switzerland, University of California Press, 1981.
2. For instance, my Swiss friends are somewhat divided on the question of whether it is advisable for an American to address a letter to a person of some stature in business or the government in German or English. (Particularly, let us say, someone not acquainted to the American, who may speak English but may not.) The majority opinion holds for English, because any awkwardness in the German will make the exercise seem strained, and as well, as one Swiss put it, "it is insulting to the person to act as if they can't speak English." But a significant minority leans toward German, especially in light of my argument that "a Swiss would write a letter to me in English, normally, and this is merely the reciprocal or symmetrical courtesy."