Swiss Watching Read online

  SIX

  WAR AND PEACE

  Every year a national survey asks the Swiss people what three things they associate with their own country. And almost every year two themes come top of the vox pops: peace and security, and neutrality.1 In the Swiss mind those two go hand in hand; they value their status as an oasis of security in a troubled world, but maintaining it is only possible through upholding their neutrality. These are the two wheels of the Swiss bike; lose one and you lose both. Incidentally, the third factor to be mentioned changes almost every year: democracy, orderliness, freedom and landscape have all featured in the list. None has the consistency of neutrality, which is seen as a fundamental part of the Swiss identity, both at home and abroad, the most sacred cow in a land of many. That’s partly due to the strict rules the Swiss impose on their own neutrality, but also to the ongoing links to one organisation, the Red Cross. It may be nominally independent, but for many the Red Cross is as much a Swiss creation as army knives and holey cheese. That it exists at all is down to one man, who should be the most famous Swiss person of all time, but few people have heard of him. After all, this is the man who gave the world a conscience. And gave Switzerland a world role.

  It’s hard to imagine what the world would be like if Henry Dunant had never been born: no Red Cross so no humanitarian aid, no Geneva Conventions so no rules of war, no YMCA so no Village People. Without him such a terrible world might exist. Even if assessing his global effect is too much, what about his part in the making of modern Switzerland? If Dunant, and thus the Red Cross, had never existed, how different a place would Switzerland be? Or, almost as important, how different would it be seen to be?

  Time to find out more about this most Swiss of international institutions, and also about its creator. Time, in fact, to go back to the most international of Swiss cities, Geneva.

  A WORLD VILLAGE

  Small as it is, Geneva is the physical embodiment of Switzerland’s much-cherished internationalism and neutrality. It is home not only to the Red Cross but also to the European end of the United Nations and many of its subsidiaries, such as UNICEF and the World Health Organisation. Over the years, a whole menagerie of other international organisations has mushroomed, making Geneva truly a world city. Some, like the World Trade Organisation, are well known; others you might not have heard of. The International Road Federation, anyone? Or the International Textiles and Clothing Bureau? How about the International Organisation for Standardisation, which sounds almost Orwellian? And then there’s the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, though I can’t imagine it is too busy. These are just a few of the 21 international bodies with headquarters in Geneva, which, along with about 250 non-governmental organisations stationed there, employ over 42,000 people.2 That’s the equivalent of everyone in Salisbury working for one of these organisations: a city within a city. With so many diplomats, international civil servants and other hangers-on, it’s no big surprise to discover that 43 per cent of Geneva’s population is not Swiss, one of the highest percentages in the country.3 Perhaps that’s why Switzerland itself has a diplomatic mission in Geneva, though its official role is to liaise with the UN and all the others.

  Many of these organisations are in the city’s International Quarter, clustered around the monumental Palais des Nations. Built to house the ill-fated League of Nations between the world wars, it was then converted to become the UN European HQ. And that was despite Switzerland not joining the United Nations until 2002, when it became the 190th member, and only then after a close referendum. A little more than 54 per cent said yes,4 but that narrow victory represents quite an earthquake in Swiss terms; a previous attempt in 1986 failed after managing to score just 24 per cent approval.5 The intervening 16 years had seen the end of the Cold War and 9/11, which were enough to persuade a majority to overcome fears of compromising Swiss neutrality and being bound by UN resolutions. Letting the people decide foreign policy may seem rather strange to anyone brought up in any other country, but to the Swiss it’s perfectly normal.

  The International Quarter is one of Geneva’s posher, leafier suburbs, where gracious villas stand in manicured gardens, making the UN building, with its severe, almost Stalinist architecture and forest of flagpoles, appear rather ungainly. But it’s nothing compared to the ghastly concrete structure of the Red Cross Museum, which sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe its 1980s ugliness is intentional, there to remind us that the world has as many thorns as it does roses. For proof of that you need only look at the property next door, the Russian Embassy compound, which has razor wire all along the top of its outer walls. Welcome to the neighbourhood.

  INSIDE THE RED CROSS

  On Swiss television news the Red Cross, which pops up with alarming regularity, is known in German as the IKRK. The full name is rarely given, as for Swiss viewers it would be condescending to explain what the letters stand for; imagine if the British news always gave the full version of the NHS or American the FBI. But for non-Swiss viewers, the letters IKRK signify nothing. At first I thought it was referring to some separatist movement in the Middle East (it was a story on the war in Iraq) or a weird offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan (in a story about Hurricane Katrina). Or, most worryingly, how IKEA was helping reconstruction in both places. Even when they interviewed some chap from the Red Cross, the caption just read so-and-so from IKRK. They love captions on Swiss news, especially when interviewing people, which usually means thrusting a big grey microphone into the interviewee’s face, something the BBC stopped doing about 20 years ago. Every time they come back to the interviewee for another soundbite, up comes the caption again, to remind you who the talking head is. This is not because the Swiss have memories like goldfish but because a viewer might have tuned in halfway through and need to know who is speaking. It certainly makes the news livelier, with captions flashing on and off screen every few seconds.

  But back to my white supremacist furniture dealers in the Middle East. The letters actually stand for the Internationales Komitee vom Roten Kreuz, aka the IKRK. That’s the organisation’s official name and on its website it refers to itself almost exclusively in those terms, even in English, when it becomes the ICRC (short for International Committee of the Red Cross). For sure those four letters have never been seen or heard together in the British news, where the more informal Red Cross is used, not least because it’s easier to say with a straight face. Having to say ‘icy arsey’ more than once might make even Trevor McDonald smirk. Of course, the ICRC being Swiss in origin, there is a logical explanation for the long-winded name. Each country has its own Red Cross (or Red Crescent) society, which is why those giant food-aid bags always have ‘Gift of the American Red Cross’ stamped on them; although I thought it was the Americans showing off again. Overseeing all the societies is the ICRC, which really is a committee, composed of 18 members,6 who take decisions by consensus. It’s all very Swiss, as is every member of the committee. This is to ensure its neutrality, as having other nationalities on the committee might compromise it. For example, how would a Russian member react to a need for aid in Chechnya, or Sudan about Darfur? Remaining unbiased would be hard, and the ICRC would end up as impartial as ice-skating judges and Eurovision juries. So to refer to it as merely the Red Cross, as we lazy English speakers do, is technically inaccurate, and the Swiss are nothing if not accurate; they make the world’s best watches, after all.

  So, in true Swiss spirit, let’s give the museum its full title – the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum – and then go back to being English and reduce it to something more manageable. This is one of Switzerland’s better museums (although closed for refurbishment until 2013), managing to be informative, unpatronising and thought-provoking, while all the time exploring the effects of inhumanity. Most of all, it is moving. It would take a hard heart not to be touched by the sight of seven million index cards in stacks a third of a mile long, each card representing one prisoner of war in the First World War. My soft hea
rt is left wondering what happened to each of those men, or to the 45 million POWs in the Second World War, whose index cards thankfully are not on display; they would be too much to see.

  The most engrossing thing is perhaps one of the humblest, finding out what’s inside a plain cardboard box: 1 litre of vegetable oil, 3 kilograms of long-grain rice, 3 kilograms of pasta, 100 grams of yeast, 1 kilogram of white sugar, 500 grams of salt, 8 kilograms of flour and 2 kilograms of dried white beans or five 425-gram cans of chicken luncheon meat. It may sound like a particularly unpleasant recipe but it’s actually a typical Red Cross food parcel, designed to last one adult for one month. As for the sanitary parcel, that’s equally illuminating: 3 kilograms of washing powder, 4 rolls of loo paper, 200 grams of soap, 75 millilitres of toothpaste, 250 millilitres of shampoo. That’s also for one adult for a month. The contents of both boxes don’t look much inside the display cabinet, but they have saved countless lives. So often I have seen them on television, being unloaded in disaster zones and refugee camps around the world, and never really contemplated the contents. At that moment, I realise how much of the daily, dreary fact of existing we take for granted. We may all complain about the cost of living sometimes, but it’s nothing compared to the price of staying alive.

  BORN IN BATTLE

  The history section of the museum introduces Monsieur Dunant and his personal campaign to change the way countries behave in wartime. In 1859, he was a 31-year-old banker who cut a rather dashing figure with mutton-chop sideburns and a penchant for white suits. He was also desperately seeking an audience with Napoleon III, about whom he had something of an obsession; the fact that the third Napoleon was rather busy fighting the Austrians in northern Italy doesn’t seem to have deterred him. Off he went to Lombardy, arriving just as one of the bloodiest battles of the war had finished.

  Nearly 40,000 dead and dying soldiers littered the battlefield at Solferino, with next to nothing being done for them. Dunant sprang into action and for three days organised the locals, bought provisions and tended to the wounded from both armies. It was a bloody, traumatic experience that changed his life, and our world, for ever. Determined to make a lasting difference, he wrote a slim book, Un Souvenir de Solferino, about the battle, its aftermath and his idea of creating a society of qualified volunteers to provide care in wartime. Dunant paid for the 1600-copy print run, which these days might be called vanity publishing, and sent it to the great and good (and royalty and politicians) across Europe. It was an instant success.

  Apart from being lionised by Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, the Queen of Prussia and the Empress of Russia, Dunant initially saw few concrete results. Then in 1863 he met with four other Geneva men, including the seemingly ubiquitous General Dufour,7 and formed the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, a body that would later become the ICRC. That led to an international conference and the original Geneva Convention, which is on display in the museum. Signed in Geneva’s Hôtel de Ville on 22 August 1864 by 12 states and comprising only 10 articles, it sets out the rules governing the treatment of wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Most importantly, it recognises the neutrality of medical staff, vehicles and buildings, as well as stating that all combatants shall be cared for. And Article 7 says that ‘a distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted… a red cross on a white ground’.8 An iconic symbol of hope and trust was thus created. What’s more of a surprise is that there are actually four Geneva Conventions. Three more followed for the treatment of wounded sailors, prisoners of war and civilians in wartime, plus additional Protocols to protect victims of armed conflicts, including non-international ones.

  Despite its heroic work over the years, the Red Cross hasn’t always got things right. Not every country was willing to get on board with the whole neutral-and-fair thing. It might have been a Swiss man’s idea, but Switzerland waited two years before creating a Red Cross society, which is actually quite speedy in Swiss terms; remember, it waited 57 years to join the UN. The US was much worse, dithering around until 1881 before joining. And if you thought political correctness and religious oversensitivity are modern afflictions, think again. Muslim countries objected to the cross, so as early as 1877 the Red Crescent was recognised as the alternative, though it took another half century for it to be adopted officially. That of course has led to a Red Star, for Jews, and now the Red Crystal, presumably for Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and non-believers. It’s taking things a bit far and threatens to dilute perhaps the biggest factor in the organisation’s success: instant recognition.

  PEACE IN WARTIME

  The Red Cross’s greatest challenge – and failure – came during the Second World War. None of the then three Geneva Conventions (the fourth was added in 1949) was designed to deal with mass incarceration and murder of civilians, and the Red Cross failed to adapt its policies and procedures to the reality of concentration camps. Another problem was the relationship between the Red Cross and Switzerland, both officially neutral. The former feared that any intervention in Germany would be seen as taking sides, so embarrassing its host nation, and undermine the organisation’s work, limited as it was. Having a member of the Swiss government on the Committee might also have had something to do with it. The Red Cross, both collectively and individually, helped where it could, but there was no public condemnation of the death camps, even though it was later proved that the ICRC knew exactly what was going on.

  Switzerland itself behaved little better. Neutrality can be difficult at the best of times, and this was definitely the worst of times, with Switzerland an island surrounded by the Axis powers and threatened with invasion. But the invasion never came, and the myth of Fortress Switzerland, with its mountain bunkers and ever-ready army of sharpshooters, was born. The Swiss saw (and many still see) the war as their finest hour, when they stood up to the might of Germany. Hitler might well have been deterred by the prospect of snipers in mountain hideouts, but it’s more likely that he got distracted by bigger things such as invading Russia or rescuing a collapsing Italy. And it didn’t do him any harm to keep the Swiss neutral. That way he could still use their Alpine routes for non-military transport, benefit from their engineering expertise, and hide his gold in their banks. Switzerland had little choice but to play along – it’s hard to deal equally with both sides in a conflict when one is 1000 kilometres away and the other controls your access to the outside world and its supplies – though it possibly did more than strictly necessary to accommodate Germany.

  A neutral country is often caught between the devil and the deep blue sea; landlocked Switzerland chose to deal with the devil. During the war that wasn’t so much of a problem; that came later when the Allies viewed the Swiss as, at best, moral cowards and, at worst, collaborators with evil. But if Switzerland turned away Jewish refugees, then it acted no differently from Britain or America; it was just closer to the problem. If it pressured the ICRC into silence, it was trying not to give Germany any flimsy excuse for invading. If it traded with ‘the enemy’ (which meant either side, of course), it did so to survive. Every action, and inaction, can be interpreted two ways; it just depends on what you want to see. With the benefit of hindsight and of winning the war, the West’s condemnation of Switzerland’s wartime record has never gone away, but it’s probably only justified in one area. As we have seen, the words ‘Nazi gold’ came back to haunt Switzerland and its banks long after the war was over.

  The Red Cross and its host nation eventually parted company, with the latter becoming an ‘international legal personality’. That’s not a cross between Michael Palin and Perry Mason, but puts the organisation on the same legal footing as the UN. The ICRC is still based in Switzerland but, like an embassy, its premises are no longer Swiss; they are international territory. And in contrast to Switzerland being forced to face up to its wartime record, or maybe because of that, the Red Cross voluntarily admitted it made mistakes in dealing with the wartime genocide: ‘The ICRC today regrets its past errors and omissions. This failur
e will remain engraved in the organisation’s memory.’9 Well said.

  Today the Red Cross is a global player, but its founder never quite achieved the same success as his creation. Henry Dunant went from hero to zero so quickly and completely that even in his own country few people would be able to tell you much about him. The Swiss are generally a modest lot; they dislike egoism and view self-promotion as something not to be encouraged. But even by their standards, Dunant deserved much more recognition than he got. So what happened to him after his good deed was done?

  THE END OF THE ROAD

  Henry Dunant’s life, which began by the shores of Lake Geneva, ended above the lake at the other end of Switzerland. These two lakes sit like giant bookends on opposite sides of the country and share a few similarities. Both are essentially a giant bulge in a big river – Lake Geneva is a swelling of the Rhone, Lake Constance of the Rhine. Neither is entirely within Switzerland, and each has a completely different name in its native language. In French Lake Geneva is Lac Léman, ostensibly derived from the Latin Lacus Lemannus, but it may have more to do with the fact that the French can’t bear to have their biggest lake named after a Swiss city. The English name for Lake Constance is a logical extension of the main settlement, a German city which tried but failed to join the Swiss Confederation in the sixteenth century. But in German the lake is called Bodensee, literally ‘floor lake’, a name that makes sense when you look at a map of Germany: the lake is very clearly at the bottom of the country. Never mind that for the Swiss and Austrians, who both use that name, it’s totally nonsensical (see the map of eastern Switzerland on page 275).