“Where you hear singing, stop. Wicked men have no songs.” (LS Senghor)
On June 14, we took a train from Locarno to Lugano, Switzerland. The train station in Lugano is high above the city center. The steep descent took us into the old town filled with upscale shops. At the bottom of the hill, elders dressed in mismatched green and white were raising their voices high, accompanied by guitar and accordion. Swiss and Italian folk tunes. When they were finished, they marched into the courthouse. When they came out, a male chorus had gathered to fill the square with their song. A soloist hit the highest notes humanly possible, cracking all my stereotypes about yodeling. Thinking about his sweet sound still brings tears.
Lugano, Switzerland
The men also ended their singing by walking en masse into the courthouse.
It was a Sunday, voting day, and the singers who had performed the night before had stayed in town to vote. On the ballot were two proposals. One would cap the Swiss population at 10 million. The population now is just over 9 million. Since birth rates are below replacement, the only way for the population to grow is through immigration. The right-wing party that pushed the population proposal used all the racist button-pushing that right parties all over the world use to channel economic discontent into anti-immigrant sentiment.
The other legislative proposal up for a citizen vote would stiffen the rules for men applying for conscientious objection and domestic alternatives to military service. Switzerland maintains neutrality in foreign wars while requiring all men to serve in a standing army, meant—ostensibly—to protect its borders. Switzerland borders Italy, France, Germany and Austria. According to the military, too many men are opting for domestic service in non-profit organizations, so the legislation would raise the bar on proving conscientious objection. The two proposals were related, reflecting a rise in xenophobia that has seized all of Europe.
Statue, Lugano, Switzerland
Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries in the world. It has a financial fence that keeps immigrants from putting down roots here, but not from providing essential labor. Lugano is a border city. Italian workers have been crossing here for centuries, providing labor for major public works projects such as dams, bridges, and innovative railroad projects that make the Swiss Alps accessible to those who can afford the rail ticket. Lugano advertises itself as being the perfect combination of Italian romance and Swiss “efficiency.” Not sure what that means. The waterfront was indeed stunning, with mountains circling green waters, and a tree-lined promenade that becomes a botanical wonderland on one side and a sculpture garden on the other. And the restaurant prices were ridiculous. We ate our rice cakes and peanut butter on a shaded bench by the water. I wanted to come to Lugano on voting day because I heard that they rallied against the population proposal on May Day. We found no public manifestations on the 14th.
If we had gone to Zurich on June 14th, we would have encountered women on a one-day, unpaid work strike. They marched to central locations and then lounged, en masse, in parks. Women got the right to vote here in 1971. My Swiss-American friend and I were in eighth grade, finishing Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, the year her Swiss mother got the right to vote. June 14 1981, the Swiss people voted for full equality for men and women. Every year since, women have protested the gap between law and reality. Today in Zurich, some of the women sent solidarity messages across the ether, holding Palestinian flags and signs in support of protests at the G7.
If we had gone to Geneva on June 14th, we would have encountered those massive protests against the economic summit of world leaders, about to begin, over the border in Evian, France. The seven world powers: France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany and Italy, as well as attendees from Brazil, Egypt, India, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Korea, and Ukraine were meeting to discuss “global economic imbalances,” by which they did not mean the growing inequality between haves and have-nots, but China, the “unfair” competitor, flooding global markets with cheap electric cars and other goods.
Sixty different groups from around the world gathered at the protest. They had different agendas, but all agreed that the world faced more pressing problems of injustice and unsustainability than capitalist trade imbalances. They held signs for climate justice, against racism, for immigrants and refugees, in support of LGBTQ rights. They demanded an end to war in Iran and Ukraine and a boycott of Israel. While Switzerland was not invited to the G7, the protest took place in Geneva because it was the nearest big city and a global political center. Five thousand Swiss soldiers protected the entourage of 3,000 world leaders from protesters. The Swiss union federation, which represents transportation workers, educators, social service and health care workers, was among the protestors. The neutral, defensive Swiss army protected global powers from organized Swiss workers.
Also gathering in Geneva on June 14 were testifiers and UN commissioners of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which would hold its 20th-anniversary meeting at the Palace of Nations, June 15-July 7. The Human Rights Commission would address climate change mitigation as a human right. They would discuss human rights violators across the world, including the United States, for its “deteriorating human rights situation and erosion of the rule of law … as well as its commission of, or complicity in, grave violations abroad, including in Iran, Venezuela, Palestine, and the Caribbean and Pacific.” Among testifiers would be a woman from my home state: Minnesota, USA. Police killed Amity Dimock’s son in 2019. She was there in Geneva to testify about ongoing US human rights violations.
On June 15, the Human Rights Commission in Geneva began with an official ceremony. The G7 leaders applauded what would prove a tragically faux deal between the United States and Iran. The women of Zurich went back to work. The choirs in Lugano returned to their hometowns. The votes on the two legislative proposals were tallied. Switzerland would not close its gates to immigrants, but Swiss men seeking a domestic alternative to military service would have a harder time. We went back to Ronca Sopa Ascona and had a picnic by the church, overlooking Lago Maggiore, underneath a seven-hundred-year-old chestnut tree.
