When I was posted to Zürich, back in the 1990s, a colleague of mine said: “Switzerland is a wonderful place. Too bad it is inhabited by the Swiss”.
At first I didn’t subscribe with his rather radical views about the country, but after living there for a few months (and having had some run-ins with the natives and their rather peculiar views about people who, in their eyes, “didn’t belong”), I had to admit that they weren’t too much off the mark.
Maybe not all the Swiss, but a large chunk of the population over 50 at the time appeared to harbor a lingering disdain toward people who acted or looked “foreign” in their eyes, or simply didn’t conform to what they believed were the “rules” in force. And they wasted no time in making their point known right there and then, like they were the anointed guardians of an established order of things.
Pretty soon, anytime I parked my car in the street without steering my front wheels straight and parallel to the sidewalk, someone was there wagging his finger at me and pointing at them.
Within 24 hours from getting the keys to my rental apartment, an anonymous note mysteriously appeared in my mailbox, intimating to put a label with my name on it.
I was lucky enough to find an apartment in a building that once hosted a workshop, and was subsequently renovated to host a warehouse on the ground floor and my apartment on the upper floor, without anyone living above or beneath me.
I listened to horror stories from my coworkers who had the misfortune to rent apartments in buildings where old and cranky Swiss neighbors made life unbearable for them by stealing and destroying their mail, having garbage strewn on their doorsteps, their laundry soiled or ripped when left in the communal washer/dryer, etc.
And of course anytime they complained with the superintendent or the police, it was their word against their Swiss neighbors’, and guess who was always found at fault?
This attitude is masterfully resumed in a citation of the renowned Swiss author and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt: “Any Swiss is both a prisoner and his own warden”.
Switzerland is a terrible country. Do not get me wrong: their country, their decisions. If I go there, I have to follow the rules. The people face to face usually friendly, the landscape is nice. Just the way of life…
I have relatives there, and as a truck driver I go frequently to Switzerland. I am Hungarian, I got used to the need to bend some rules sometimes in order to keep things going. We had to in the last thousand years. Forget it there.
A couple of years ago I went to a company to load. I was told, it is too late, they can load me the next morning. I can park and sleep in the truck’s cabin on the premises and at 7 am I can load. No problem. It was around October, early November, I had to use the cabin heating at night.
The next morning the battery level was low. Since it was already 6:30 I thought it did no harm to start the engine to charge the batteries. I was fully aware that the Swiss people are very sensitive to noises, but it was not night anymore. Buses run on the street, kids on the way to school, pedestrians on the sidewalk etc.
The engine was running for 5 minutes when the chief of the loading company ran to me breathless, and told me to stop the engine at once. ‘But why? It is 7 o’clock already, and I need to charge my battery’ I said. ‘I don’t care, just kill the engine right now!’ – hissed the guy. He explained there were many complaints in the past.
There are houses nearby, and the people call the police if they hear any disturbing noises, such as diesel engines. The guy was literally begging to me to stop the engine, otherwise within ten minutes the police was going to be there. Crazy.
But the same goes with toilet flushing at night, the neighbours call the police if they think your car’s tyre is too worn out and things.
As a driver if you make some small mistake, there is no mercy. Do not even think of speeding, phoning during driving, parking illegaly etc.
OK, I fully understand the rules are for us. We live in a society not in the jungle. But the Swiss way is simply too much for me. Recently I got a job offer to work there, as a trucker, but no way. It is enough to me to go there once or twice a month.
It is the closest to a POLICE STATE that exists in Western Europe.
No need for an elaborate police apparatus: every Swiss is an instinctive policeman or even spy!
In 1979 appeared a prize-winning film: “Les faiseurs de Suisses” (The Swiss makers). The fact that over a million Swiss went to see the picture at the time shows how much this parody was true to life! In 2015 the Swiss TV showed the picture again and the station was flooded with comments claiming that it could depict the present situation. What is it about?
Many foreigners are allowed to visit, work, live in Switzerland…but to be accepted as a Swiss citizen that person must behave just like a Swiss…so the film depicts what information is gathered about a candidate who after a stay of several years wants to achieve this honourable status.
Clean home? Must be checked! Opinion of the neighbours? They must be interrogated. Making noise? Very un-Swiss! Switzerland being a small country it wants to keep its identity by accepting only perfectly integrated people!
I have had a personal experience of this “police-minded” instinct of the Swiss. I once had a job in Zürich with the Swiss subsidiary of an American company. At the time all foreigners working in Switzerland needed a work permit, which I duly received for the first year of my stay.
Then the Swiss decided that the country was in danger of “Überfremdung” (excessively crowded by foreigners) and refused to renew the permit. This created a mess for both the company and myself.
A Swiss firm would probably have fired me: my boss decided that he had never been officially notified and kept on paying my social security dues.
I resigned my apartment and moved into a hotel room. After a couple of weeks the hotelier told me that seeing me leave every morning at fixed hours, he had the strong suspicion that I was not just a tourist, but an illegal worker! It was his duty to advise the authorities!
What I did is to fill up my room with books about birds: the birds of the Swiss forest, the secrets of bird-watching and so on. As predicted, a policeman did show up in the hotel and wanted to see me. What was I doing in the country?
Well, walking in the nearby forest as I prepared a study of the birds! No way to interrogate the birds…but I had to leave my room every morning, including Saturdays and Sundays, as the birds don’t respect opening hours!
