Not even the Swiss can resist making disparaging remarks about themselves and their country. Poet Carl Spitteler claimed that if the Swiss had created the Alps, they would not have been so high. Playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt noted that his country's vaunted neutrality "makes me think of a virgin who earns her living in a bordello but wants to remain chaste." Not surprisingly, the Swiss celebrated the septicentennial of their confederation this month with restraint.
"Seven hundred years, that's enough." So went the slogan of some 300 left- leaning intellectuals protesting ceremonies for a nation they consider too rich, too smug and...
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