Tag Archives: Swiss

I’m proud…

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…that we can change our government without dumping the constitution whole.

Thanks to this civilized invention called an election.

The one thing that makes me super-happy to be Swiss: the government has given us this thing called “a ballot” that gets sent out to registered expat Swiss voters every so often (basically once per quarter). And unlike Aussies who are required to vote, we can legally toss the ballot into the shredder (as in not vote at all) without this hidden fear that government might be breathing down our neck, wondering why we were so civilly disobedient. (Sole Swiss exception: the Canton of Schaffhausen, up north, requires people to vote.)

The upcoming Swiss elections take place on 23 October 2011. I’m sending my ballot back the next few days to be doubly sure that my votes count. I’ve decided to give the SVP (the Swiss People’s Party) Dumpster treatment after its racist “minaret ban” got Switzerland some seriously bad publicity. Worse still, it allowed the Swiss to do something un-Swiss: to eat upon the freedoms the Constitution gave this land. You thought China had “human rights issues”? Have a gander at just how bad the situation is in Switzerland, especially post-ban. Communist China has a minaret right by the new Tianjin West Railway Station (and it looks pretty new — both structures, that is). That kind of architecture (the minaret, not railway stations) are now hors la loi in this supposedly “neutral” country.

I don’t want to get into politics — especially not as a politician. But now, post-ban, whenever there’s a vote about stuff that’s Swiss, that’s like — it sets off an auto reaction my end. I posted a whole slew of commentary regarding the whole election on Facebook. I’ve reposted this on my blog so that most of you get to know my political views on this matter:

  • The best thing about a democracy is you can expel those idiot politicians and unsightly parties screwing the whole country up. Thank you god!!
    Now voting as an expat Swiss as the Swiss national elections loom large and clear. For one thing, the SVP is DEAD. You gave us the crap minarets ban, ookie… we are voting you suckers out of office!!
  • Of course, all politicians ultimately (will) stink. There is nothing you can do once you get your nose shoved into this trade…
    But the good thing is this: I have not chosen a soul who wants to nuke us. As in let the Swiss keep doing nuclear power plans, especially after Fukushima. Nuke power has always been this kind of hidden bomb that could feed on humanity — and it has, as Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown us…
  • The one “mediated event” of Swiss politics that has completely blown me off is the crazy minarets ban 2 years back. I basically made a huge anti-ban campaign over social media. I told every last living human, algae, cockroach and Swiss-citizen-to-be NOT to vote for that short-sighted bill.
    Which was passed “anyway”.
    And which got me bat-fr*ck-insane when that DID happen.
  • Once upon a time an election was a mere election. Now, it is no more. And while it’s not some kind of crusade or “to save the minarets” (if you can call it that at all), I did find the so-called “minaret ban” most absurd, most unsightly and most anti-humanity.
    I don’t know much about the Muslim world. It kind of fascinates me, though, in all ways. I wouldn’t convert religiously, of course, but having said that, I don’t think a minaret should be something that you should have a cow over or stuff like that.
    Yes, women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. But instead of making a huge propaganda campaign against that and by calling that “backward and undemocratic”, the best we can do as outsiders is to respect that. I don’t think the entirety of any established religion is problematic, perverted or anything like that.
    The thing that totally pisses me off about the minaret ban is, of course, discrimination, but also this latent and real fear that the Swiss constitution is being eaten alive, bit by bit, by its citizenry. When you start modding the constitution to feed upon itself, when that thing starts taking away the very principles on which it was established, that sure is one hell of a scary development. You think China’s human rights issue is scary? Just you wait until Switzerland comes out with stupider still mods to its constitution. A bigger human rights issue in the making…

And while I think the odds that the Swiss People’s Party will be politically nixed or humiliated are by no means guaranteed, what I can do with my ballot is to show my disapproval. Of course, the vote will be a secret vote, but Bern will have one less ballot in favour of the Swiss People’s Party this time. They’ve sinned and stuff’s got to happen to right that one very big wrong.

What <350 km/h Means To A Swiss

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First of all, notice that there is no such thing such as like “the average Swiss”. The French-speaking Swiss are too artsy-fartsy: the Italian-speaking Swiss are too crazily unorganized. Those Swiss passport holders speaking Romansh don’t even have a non-federal standard that applies for the whole language region; those doing German with Swiss characteristics are either the lazy Bernese, the too-internationalized people from Basel or the “cash and super cold” folks from Zürich. The Appenzell people are too backward with the “open air show of hands with political motives” (Landsgemeinde), and we find those in Biel/Bienne to be linguistic schizophrenics (Deutsch and Français).

Now, having said that, we the Swiss have a major rail route (or a combo of these) running from St. Margrethen in the northeastern part of the country all the way to Genève-Aeroport in the southwest. That thing is roughly 400 km or less. A regular train running at 160-200 km/h takes about four hours to finish the whole thing — because, of course, it has to stop at major rail hubs, including the gargantuan (for Switzerland!) Zürich Main Station. The fastest trains in Switzerland now run at 200 km/h, and the new Gotthard Base Tunnel is designed for speeds up to 250 km/h. Thing is, as far as I know, Swiss trains don’t go that fast…

Which means that for the two years I owned a GA general ticket, which enabled me to travel throughout the country — basically at will — the maximum speed recorded was about 200 km/h — or less. Eight years later (after the last “real” ride in 2000), the Beijing-Tianjin high speed railway topped out at 348 km/h. Tracy and I experienced some of the fastest rides yet this June, when the Hangzhou-Shanghai-Nanjing high speed railway topped out at 351 km/h.

The news now is that China will discontinue its last 350 km/h high speed line for a while (some say for a few months — others say for about one or two years), with the Shanghai-Hangzhou high speed line now reduced to “just” 300 km/h. When the new Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway opened on 30 June this year, it opened at a “mere” 313 km/h, far below the maximum allowed speed of 380 km/h.

But let’s hold it at that — 380 km/h. If a train was to travel from St. Margrethen to Genève-Aeroport at that speed, we would be crossing borders and leaving the country within just over an hour. To a Swiss, that’s too fast for you to experience a country where there’s a fair bit of a difference between the settlements of Aesch BL, Aesch LU and Aesch ZH. It’ll also be difficult for you to keep count of just how many times you passed that “magical chapel” on the Gotthard railway line — was it once, twice or three times?

While China’s high speed trains “take a break” from speeds of 350 km/h or faster, be it either for security, cost / pricing, or, as I’ve been told indeed, political pressure from above, to me, as a Swiss, it will mean nothing. None of Switzerland’s trains go that fast! And how about faster trains from our neighbours? Well, the way the Swiss see it, the Germans are too cold and make too much of a noise about our planes leaving Zürich airport; the French are always on strike; the Italians are too disorganized; the Austrians are too lost (and their trains too slow); and the Liechtensteiners are too small. Oh well. To the Swiss, we are happy with our trains as-is. This Swiss will fondly remember Chinese high speed trains running at close to Maglev speeds — and await their permanent return to speeds above 350 km/h as long as this Swiss remains inside Chinese territory with a PRC wife.