&sous.les.montagnes
BOOKLET English Translation
Text Timon:
In times of rearmament it is worth taking a closer look at the urban legend of Swiss neutrality.
Tradition refers not only to the passing down of behaviours and customs, but also to that of ideas and values. In a bourgeois conception of the Swiss nation-state, the country is widely praised as neutral far beyond its borders.
Who is the state? C’est qui l’état?
‘Fatherland’ is a moral concept; it is often confused with a specific territory, which in turn is merely a piece of nature. ‘In order to defend our independence – our greatest national asset – we had to be prepared to relinquish parts of our country, albeit not without a fight. By choosing not to defend everything in order to defend ourselves for the long term, we exchanged space for time, which is far more significant in the life of a nation than its physical territory.’
Who is neutrality? C’est qui la neutralité?
These are the words of Samuel Gonard in his 1959 retrospective. Gonard was head of Henri Guisan’s personal staff during the Second World War. He was therefore at the forefront of the so-called ‘Réduit’, the Swiss Army’s strategic plan in the event of an invasion by Nazi Germany.
This is a detail highlighted by Erich Keller in „Gegen die Zivilbevölkerung“: three-quarters of the Swiss population lived in the area that was to be sacrificed to gain time.
It seems that, at least in times of crisis, the state, is not to be understood as synonymous with its population. I, for one, long believed that the Réduit-plan contained provisions for the rescue of all ‘Swiss people’. Quite the contrary: if necessary, the military would have even been required to ‘sacrifice its own’ in order to uphold the plan.
Kinda wild if you ask me...
A few years before these discussions, on the 9st of November 1932, a massacre took place just a few streets away from what is now the Quai Henri Guisan and the ADC Pavilion in Geneva. Buried beneath mountains of folklore about neutrality and fraternal union lies a dark chapter of Swiss history. On that day, antifascists gathered to protest against a provocative, fascist rally chaired by the far-right extremist Georges Oltramare. Acting on official orders, the Swiss Army opened fire on the protesters, wounding 65 and killing 13.
Who is neutrality? C’est qui la neutralité?
Clearly, this glorified notion of neutrality historically does not even hold true within the country’s own borders. The term appears to be a tool used to push through hegemonic rhetoric and policies, whilst idealising them in popular discourse. A country that, under pressure from the right, uses ‘its own people’ as cannon fodder can, at best, claim a lack of backbone as a tradition to fly on its banner.
These examples may date back some time, but the history, hidden beneath the mountains, is in fact considerably older:
The Matterhorn, for example – part of what was then the Réduit and now a symbol of the nation – traces its origins back some 40 million years. That was when the great collision between the continents of Eurasia and Africa took place. In a slow process, the mountain range rose whilst simultaneously being eroded by gravity, water and glacial ice.
Erosion has revealed the Matterhorn in its present form. The mountain is therefore an erosional relic of the African-Adriatic Plate.
SHE IS AFRICAN.
The mountains we walk upon hold history. Partly visible due to weathering, partly as bunkers that have been converted into server farms, and partly still forgotten to this day.
We dig, we remember.
To remember is to resist – from Geneva to Hanau to Gaza.
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