Switzerland is good – but what about kindness?

The good and the good are less than 100 meters apart. The lion monument in Lucerne stands for what has been the epitome of good in Switzerland for centuries: bravery and the fulfillment of duty. It is the agonizing memory of 670 dead young men turned to stone. The Swiss Guards had defended the Tuileries Palace in Paris against an agitated mob of revolutionaries when Louis XVI. and his entourage had long since fled.

A building of its own has been built for the sake of goodness. The Bourbaki panorama is reminiscent of the internment of the French Eastern Army at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. At that time, Switzerland took in more than 87,000 soldiers who were suffering from hunger, cold and disease. It was the first big challenge of the later Red Cross. An act of humanity that has engraved itself deeply in the collective memory and that shapes Switzerland’s humanitarian self-image to this day.

Collective memory is kinder than history

The lion monument, erected 27 years before the state was founded in 1848, had already fallen out of time when it was inaugurated. The country had left the centuries-old economy of rice in the service of foreign masters behind. The dying lion was considered anti-liberal, reactionary and conservative. The Zofingia student union, founded in 1819, organized a counterparty celebration in the Tell Chapel in protest – in memory of another heroic deed, one for freedom.

With the Bourbaki panorama, the story was friendlier. The rotunda was renovated in 2000. His message is spread daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Solidarity and humanity have no expiration date.

Switzerland has made itself comfortable with this self-image. The humanitarian tradition of armed neutrality is our guiding principle. At least in speeches and softly worded labels to distant rulers with whom we are economically connected. Yet collective memory is more gracious than historiography. Neither during the state strike of 1918, nor at the state borders in World War II, nor when the contract children and the daughters and sons of travelers were sold, the country showed much kindness.

The death of the three young watchmakers who were shot by soldiers in Grenchen during the chaos of strikes over 100 years ago has never been investigated. Police captain Paul Grüninger, who, as the chief border officer, had enabled hundreds of Jewish refugees to cross the border into safe Switzerland, was only politically rehabilitated in 1993. There was no criminal prosecution of the two main actors in the Kinder der Landstrasse project. Those responsible in the guardianship authorities who looked the other way were never brought to justice. The process of coming to terms with the fate of tens of thousands of children and adolescents who had been in involuntary servitude with farmers up until the 1980s began only ten years ago.

The nature of this land, its hardness and its goodness, is described in a masterly manner by Gotthelf. The writer viewed his compatriots through the eyes of a humanist, educator and enlightener. As a pastor, he campaigned for the poor, defended himself against the exploitation of contract children and in his writings repeatedly criticized the ruling Bernese patriciate, which turned a blind eye to the need in the country. In his novels he described selfishness, indifference, greed, lovelessness, ruthlessness, but also warmth and philanthropy. With Gotthelf, the system critic, quality never arises from a system, it always appears in person. Gotthelf’s good people often don’t do much: a nice word here, a cake there, an understanding look. He knew: “Love is like plants: if you want to reap love, you have to sow love.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, Switzerland experienced a Bourbaki moment

Sometimes, however, the system actually produces goodness. That was the case when the Bourbaki Army was interned, and so it was during the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic. Switzerland shut down half of its economic system to protect the elderly and particularly vulnerable. When the canton of Uri wanted to ban the elderly from going out, the Federal Council called it back. This act of solidarity was very special. But he didn’t stop.

The tone of consideration grew lower and lower. In the meantime it has almost completely faded away. The fact that thousands of home residents were isolated in their rooms for months, that people had to die lonely because some home directors preferred to adopt rigorous protective measures rather than show compassion, has so far only been discussed in passing.

Instead, Switzerland is eagerly discussing who should be given precedence when dying in the hospitals. Although not a single case of triage has become known in 23 pandemic months, the guidelines of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences are to be adapted: Vaccinated patients should be treated in the intensive care units before the unvaccinated if there is insufficient space.

It is one thing when patient organizations ask themselves whether critically ill cancer patients or the disabled have a chance of getting a place in the intensive care unit at all. Another is when politicians seriously demand that seriously ill, unvaccinated Covid patients should do without a bed in the intensive care unit in an emergency. This is not only a departure from the solidarity principle in health care, but also a break with the humanistic values ​​of this country.

The Swiss polymath and humanist Heinrich Glareanus, born in 1563, praised the Swiss Confederation in his «In Praise of the Thirteen Places» not only for its history and beauty, but also as a haven for new humanistic education, as the home of thinkers, poets and scientists. Glareanus – actually Heinrich Loriti – orientated itself mainly on the classics and the knowledge of science. He alienated himself from the Reformation because it put religious dogmas before scientific knowledge.

500 years later, the story experiences a faint déjà vu. Religion has been marginalized, but religious zeal is back. Embittered opponents of the Swiss policy of measures like to portray themselves as martyrs, as awakened among many blinded people. The strictest proponents of measures, on the other hand, like to see themselves as enlightened, as the only legitimate interpreters of case numbers, hospital occupancy rates and exponential curves. Both sides consider themselves the good guys. There is no longer any room for goodness. The humanism that has shaped this country threatens to become a footnote in the pandemic.

Self-responsibility – condemned before the court martial of the zeitgeist

Liberalism is no better off. “Personal responsibility” has been named the “phrase of the year 2021” by a collective of self-proclaimed language critics. The word is misinterpreted as a synonym for social responsibility and serves anti-vaccination campaigners as a justification for egoism, is in the rationale.

So now self-responsibility has also been condemned before the court martial of the zeitgeist. Something good has turned into something bad. Self-responsibility is obviously something for egoists. Altruists, on the other hand, take responsibility: apparently like top-down.

This misinterpretation is fatal. Because the principle of personal responsibility is based on the liberal ideal of a responsible, self-determined person – a citizen. This self-image in no way implies a refusal to take responsibility for others. On the contrary: Liberalism is always humanism as well.

So what’s good now in this pandemic? What bad? To which event should the next lion monument be erected? Which is the next Bourbaki panorama? History teaches us that the understanding of “good” is always changing. Before the lion monument was erected in 1821, the fallen Swiss Guardsmen were still considered heroes, a little later they were just unhappy mercenaries. An aid organization took care of the “Children of the Landstrasse” and was only recognized much later as an institution of evil.

Goodness, on the other hand, is timeless. As Gotthelf knew, it usually does not grow out of a system, but rather small and large acts of humanity: It is lived by the police captain who does not send people to their death, by the home manager who does not let anyone die alone, by the guardian who does not look away , or from the vaccinated mother who listens to the fears of her unvaccinated neighbor on the phone every day. Collective willingness to help as with the internment of the Bourbaki army is rare in history. In the end, it’s the personal Bourbaki moments that make the difference.