What with certain Middle Eastern rulers calling for holy war against Switzerland, and a general and quite unusual Swiss jitteriness about themselves and their future, I felt a nostalgic fondness for the place and turned to memories of my own Swiss past and French-Swiss
scribblers largely unknown beyond the Confederation’s borders: the late Jacques Chessex (L’Ogre) and his predecessors, Guy de Pourtalès (La Peche Miraculeuse), and C. F. Ramuz (Derborance). The intensity of these Swiss
writers surprised me, the first time I read them. Like the Greek Kazantzakis, they raged at the fates and loudly proclaimed the all-importance of Art. They were
gritty, self-confident, and proudly Swiss, and they imbued me with a finer
feeling for the country, so small in size, so vast in ambition, that was my home for many years; they taught me to see Switzerland beyond the barriers of my
own search for identity. When I lived there I took mundane
jobs in hotels and on the
proceeds traveled around the country, to Lucerne, the Engadine, Ticino, Fribourg, and the Valais.
Switzerland became, at last, a familiar hinterland, "diverse" beyond a bureaucrat's dream of diversity. Vive la Suisse, I said, and say. But I learned that there’s a
fundamental chasm between the Swiss and Swissness. Their very success in
transforming into a single nationality three antagonistic nations—German,
French, and Italian—depends on lowering the volume of national dialogue to an inaudible
level for fear of setting off nationalistic hubris with louder, loftier topics
like immigration, culture, The Nation, etc. This makes for provincialism. And
the fact that the three groups manage to co-exist is testimony not so much to
their ability to get along as to their talent for ignoring one another. Few
French-Swiss I knew ever bothered to learn German, and all Swiss-Germans now
learn English rather than French or Italian, and as for the Italo-Swiss, well,
they’re mostly just German-speakers with Italian names. This creates three
islands of provincial culture exposed to the greater world only through the
escape routes of their giant neighbors: Germany from Zurich, France from
Geneva, Italy from Lugano. In one sense Switzerland is a kind of neutral anteroom where the three great nations of the
Continent observe a permanent truce while counting out their francs. In another
sense, as those writers showed me, there’s a tough, unique Swissness that derives
from the granite cliffs and unforgiving valleys and the heavy drinking of her
peasant folk; not volkisch folk,
except at alpenhorn festivals, but tough, grim survivors. It's a great little country. I miss it.
