herasy! burn her!

Have the politicians been better in the past ? No, not at all
Have the cities been cleaner in the past ? No, not really
Have the trains been more punctual in the past ? No, not at all
Have the roads been better in the past ? No, not at all
Are the trains generally late ? No, they are not
Have the cities been more beautiful in the past ? Not really
Were there no problems in Switzerland before 1848 and now ? Sure there were

i think they are trying to defend their choice of coming here

I don't agree with article conclusion, only because Switzerland has some faults, it has to be shut down? come on...

Besides author of this article is actually using contradicting arguments, Switzerland seems to be at the same time xenophobic AND too open to foreigners and other languages?

What i think is that this guy got treated badly by somebody while he was living in Switzerland. Maybe even by the system somehow, and it's his personal revenge. He seems to believe in stereotypes so he probably imagined Switzerland a little different from reality...

The problem with this article is that you can write this about any country in the world. US soldiers are killing innocent children in the middle east, US is stealing resources, spreading it's recession to the whole world, has enormous debt, is full of racists and at the same time white man in US is being outnumbered by other races, etc.

So what? Bunch of facts presented in biased way.

Ah, you won't get me to agree on that one. I lived through the worse president in recent history and I used to think it was Reagan. I soon realised that he wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.

BTW, I don't think that the folks who fought in the wars would appreciate the co-opting the name of a very useful organisation like the USO. But, oddly enough, it is a free country.

After all of the damage over the past decade, how is the current president in any danger of damaging our reputation or country further?

Brian.

Trains still run on time as far as I am concerned

Perhaps, but the Canada I grew up in no longer exists as well. I reckon you can say that about most places....

My last visit to Toronto, I counted 12 people sleeping on Bay street from Front to King. Kind of distracted me from the nostalgia of the architecture...

Wolli, why settle for mediocrasy?

..I couldn't agree more with you.

There is some truth in it, the trains are late nowadays. Last couple of weeks were horrible but it can be attributed to bad snowy weather conditions, which as opposed to some other countries where public transport and infractructure might be paralyzed in similar conditions, they still run at least. Amazingly they are always late during week days but never fail me for long distance trips to remote ski resorts on weekends.
I can hardly say what was it like before as I have been living here for 2.2 years only but I heard this is quite normal. At least they inform you about delays so that you can inform people at work that you'll be late for the meeting.

I think everybody agrees that Switzerland is not perfect (where is?) but the article is so heavily weighted in the direction of someone who obviously either doesn't like Switzerland or has, as Juice99 pointed out, had a bad experience here. It's almost like the author of the article has pieced together every negative snippet and woven it into a semi-rant.

It's crap journalism with a massive chip on the shoulder. There is nothing in his article to substantiate his article. Trains being "grubby" is highly subjective; compared to what? The inside of his car? The inside of his fridge? I could say the trains are pristine but I could be comparing it to the state of my balcony floor which is covered in Winter detritus which I haven't bothered to clean away yet.

His whole article is full of holes.

It is called REALISM !

And the Bundesrat ? Compared with the folks there in the 1960ies, it is an exciting jolly bunch of people now

And I can still remember when at 24.00 policemen appeared in all restaurants to declare "Polizeischtund" and to close them for the night. So that Zurich for example is exceedingly entertaining compared with what it was in the 50ies/60ies/70ies !

The area of Zurich between Limmatplatz and Schlieren ? In the 1950ies/60ies still, to put it in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, a "valley of ashes" ! While it is now entertaining and in places even elegant, and flourishing.

Indian restaurants in Zurich ? The first one, the Raja Bongo, opened shop in about 1980. Chinese restaurants ? In the 1960ies just two in the whole greater Zurich area. Thai, Mexican, Vietnamese, Greek, Turkish ? zero nada nothing ! Gelaterias ? None, with the only places with somewhat decent icecream being two outlets of Mövenpick.

Highways ? in 1960 ? None, absolutely zero ! The program to build them only started in the 60ies !

Trains ? Compare the "Bummelzüge" in the Zürich area with the S-Bahnen today ! A tremendous difference between those creepy, smoke-filled, uncomfortable (REAL WOODseats !!) trains of then and the swift S-Bahnen today.

Look at the historic city-centre in Zürich, plus many other cities. In reality in many cases rather dilapidated neglected old towns and politicians dreaming of tearing all the old buildings down and replace them by buildings in US style, still in the 1950ies ! And now, in most cities, more or less nicely renovated city-centres.

The Lake of Zurich ? The pond in where you in summer could share the swimming areas with dead fish happily "swimming" upside down towards the city-centre ? Where you when swimming had to be careful not with your feet taking a kilo lake-weed with you ? And look at that very same Lake now ? If you see any fish, the creatures are happily alive. You can look into the lake for meters and not just 2 centimeters. And if you when swimming by accident get some waters "into" there usually is no reason for panic.


Back to the trains. Go to Zürich HB, where you now can see trains like TGVs and ICEs arriving and starting. In the 1950ies/60ies, such would have been a most exotic idea.

To all of this you can say that in neighbouring areas like Vorarlberg & Tirol, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, Alsace Burgundy and Savoy, Piemonte and Lombardy things now are similar. Why not ? What is bad about it ? If mediocrity means just to share fate with splendid neighbours, what is so bad about it ? If places like Bregenz, Friedrichshafen, Konstanz, Mulhouse, Annemasse, Annecy, Varese and Como are increasingly nice places comparable with places just inside some borders, what is bad about this ? And if Konstanz and Kreuzlingen grow closer and closer together by the day, is this bad ?


************************************************** ***********

Nowadays ? When were they punctial ? Have you waited for delayed trains in the the 1950ies, 60ies, 70ies, 80ies ? Not ? Then you either have not been here or drove by car. In reality however they by average were punctial then and still are.

Yeah, but this is true no matter what country you go to.

The more we analyse this article the more pointless and clueless it becomes.

B.

I still remember the days of the Schwarzenbach-Initiative, which wanted a good parts of all foreigners (mostly Italians then) to get expelled, and the borders getting more or less closed to all immigration. There were justified fears that it might even get approved, and the NO majority was not exactly overwhelming.

That was my point, albeit briefly with a "WTF" - point me towards a European country that really doesn't have a right wing group fighting against "foreign influence". It is probably just that little more visible here because of the democratic model, and of course the easy target of the minarette ban. Given that this hasn't had an impact on freedom of religion I don't think you can use this in the argument he makes.

The Swiss have always had a xenophobic streak anyway, but I've always put that down to the way CH was created, i.e. they never really wanted to be part of anything else and thus have always has a "protectionism outlook".

I think Sandgrounder put it correctly in that the author is 1) making a bunch of erronious claims and 2) making a load of hanging comparisons, suggesting highly that he has his own agenda.

I think this is the product of Switzerland's international and maybe mythical reputation. One of the things people say when I tell them I live in Switzerland is "Oh, I bet you can set your clock by the trains, can't you." They are always surprised when I tell them the local trains, especially, are regularly 5 or 6 minutes late.

That is not a criticism on my part it's just me saying that Switzerland is outstandingly normal, it just carries around this super-efficient reputation which seems to have been bestowed upon it by visitors to the country.

Oh oh oh, you've got me that's right, I'm really unhappy here...





Oh hang on, I am happy here in CH and I do like it. I also do think that it is better than what I had before I came to CH and if I returned to the UK, I don't think my life would be as good.

OK, maybe the UK is a second/third world place for comparisons, but my life here is better. It's not justification, it is fact.

I just don't get it. Every place has its plus and minuses, because you think CH is sh!t you assume everyone must agree with you or they are wrong and wearing rose tinted spectacles or have a screw loose. If that was the case, I would be yearning for the UK.

Back to the article - do you really think that the rest of Europe compares much better on the key points that the author derided CH for? My experiences of travelling around Europe (which I do at least 2-3 times per month for a few day each time) suggest otherwise.

Very much so!!! That would bring us to the thread WOW! you live in Switzerland. The Confederation Helvetia has her reputation bestowed upon by tourists or folks abroad who have never been here but learnt from media. Everyone I know would comment: "The public transport must be very punctual and no rubbish along the rail tracks". I won't blame them though because of media feeding the superlative. People'll always be inclined to see grassy greener...

And here's similar news from this week's Economist, usually a pretty fair arbiter of the ol' verité...
(I've posted rather than linked, coz they'll lock the article out after a wee while.)



How broken is Britain?

It has become fashionable to say that British society is in a mess and getting worse. It isn’t.

THEY are not the world’s most effusive people at the best of times. But even by their usual gloomy standards, Britons seem to have got themselves into a slough of despond of late. Well before the economic crisis they were weeping on the shoulders of pollsters, who reported rapidly rising levels of dismay about the country’s direction and an increased sense of nostalgia about the good old days. For those (and they are legion, on inner-city council estates as well as in the shires) who think that society in Britain is “broken”, the country is stuck in a mire of crime, fractured families and feral youth.

It is an idea that resonates. Every week serves up a new tragedy or outrage to be added to the pile of evidence. Such episodes have the power to jolt the public mood, as in 1993 when Tony Blair, then the shadow home secretary, described the murder of two-year-old James Bulger as a sign of “a society that is becoming unworthy of that name”. A similarly awful attack last year on two boys in South Yorkshire was held up by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, as not an “isolated incident of evil” but evidence of a profound problem that goes to the heart of society. He has made “broken Britain” a leitmotif in the run-up to the general election due by June 3rd.

It would be idiotic to claim that Britain is perfect. The vomitous binge-drinking mainly by the young, the drug abuse and teenage pregnancy that are still higher than in most west European countries and the large proportion of single-parent families all tell a tale. But the story of broad decline is simply untrue (see article). Stepping back from the glare of the latest appalling tale, it is clear that by most measures things have been getting better for a good decade and a half. In suggesting that the rot runs right through society, the Tories fail to pinpoint the areas where genuine crises persist. The broken-Britain myth is worse than scaremongering—it glosses over those who need help most.

The bad old days
The broken Britain of legend is one where danger stalks the streets as never before. In the real Britain, the police have just recorded the lowest number of murders for 19 years. In mythical broken Britain, children are especially at risk. Back in real life, child homicides have fallen by more than two-thirds since the 1970s. Britain used to be the third-biggest killer of children in the rich world; it is now the 17th. And more mundane crimes have fallen too: burglaries and car theft are about half as common now as they were 15 years ago. Even the onset of recession has not reversed that downward trend so far.

Comatose teenagers line every gutter in the boozy Britain of popular imagination. Yet after a long period of increase, there are tentative signs that Britons are drinking less alcohol. The overall consumption of drugs is dropping (though some narcotics, including cocaine, are becoming more popular) and rates of smoking are now among the lowest in Europe.

As for family breakdown, some commentators seem to think that sex really was invented in 1963. British grannies know differently. Teenage pregnancy is still too common, but it has been declining, with the odd hiccup, for ages. A girl aged between 15 and 19 today is about half as likely to have a baby in her teens as her grandmother was. Her partner will probably not marry her and he is less likely to stick with her than were men in previous generations, but he is also a lot less likely to beat her. In homing in on the cosier parts of the Britain of yesteryear, it is easy to ignore the horrors that have gone. Straight white men are especially vulnerable to this sort of amnesia.

A dangerous misdiagnosis
Such forgetfulness can be partly blamed on a dominant national press that tends to report the grotesque exceptions not the blander rule. But politicians have connived in this. Labour is far from blameless, but it is the Tories who are on course to be the next government. In attempting to convince voters that society has suffered a comprehensive breakdown (and pandering to his own party’s right wing), Mr Cameron has been guided towards social policies that are designed to heal the entire country, rather than help the relatively few who need it. His proposed tax break for married couples and gay civil-partners is an example. It does nothing for workless households. It would help only 11% of the 4m British children in poverty, while handing bonuses to plenty of well-off people. That would be a bad idea at any time; in a period when the state must tighten its belt it is an extraordinary proposal.

Above all, however, it is a distraction from the Conservatives’ far better policies to deal with something that does need fixing: education. The main reason why a small but worrying proportion of families and young people is falling behind is that schools are failing to give them the skills they need to get and hold a job. This is about more than Britain’s ability to compete in a brave new globalised world that demands flexible, highly skilled workers. It also has to do with social behaviour.

The waning of the manufacturing jobs that used to be the mainstay of the working class has created a generation of young males, in particular, who don’t know what to do with themselves. Britons have been boozers and scrappers for centuries, but self-destructive behaviour today in part reflects the perception that their lives are not worth much. As for children bearing children, there is evidence elsewhere that if girls are given better education—not just about sex, but also in areas likely to improve their job prospects—they are less likely to get pregnant at 16. Yet for all the official talk at home about ever-improving exam results, Britain is beginning to slide down the international league table of educational attainment.

The government used to be keen on overhauling education but it has run out of puff. Now it is the Tories who have thoughtful ideas about getting more good school places through supply-side reforms. They should focus on these rather than proselytising about marriage, which suggests a nannying streak curiously at odds with Mr Cameron’s (largely correct) view that government has got too big for its boots. Britain has a crunched economy, an out-of-control deficit and plenty of social problems; but it is not “broken”.
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...especially when it comes to spelling.
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I think the key observation in this article is that the role Switzerland plays in the world has changed, not because Switzerland has changed, but because the world has changed. Looking back to ancient history, the Old Confederation basically came about because a bunch of people didn't want to have the major European powers (principally the Holy Roman Empire) interfering in their affairs, and they took advantage of the geography of Switzerland to assert their independence. This has been the default position of the Swiss ever since: we'll do business with you, but on our terms.

Until 1990, Europe was always divided by alliances between great powers and their shifting mosaics of alliances and client states. Once it was Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Prussia, then it was Britain, France and Germany, then it was NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In such a world, a fiercely independent country has an important role to play in the world because the competing factions can go there and do business with each other, be it trade or diplomacy. This gave Switzerland a high profile in the world. In the post-1990 world, however, there have not been significant factions in Europe, with most nations content to work with the EU. This means that Switzerland, as an independent nation, is no longer an important meeting point for competing powers, because the powers are not competing any more.

The thing is, what actually happens in Switzerland, in terms of the internal economy and culture has not changed. I would submit that if you compare Switzerland with Britain, France, Germany and Italy, across the years from 1850 to the present, the Swiss have changed the least in those years compared with those other nations, and this remains the case.

Robin

Really fascinating read. I'm a big fan of Newsweek and in particular their International Editor