Switzerland

To follow up on yesterday's post on Ken Pollack, it's worth considering in more detail his recommendation that Iraq "move to something closer to a cantonal system along Swiss lines." Now, Switzerland is a very successful multiethnic country. One that, unlike Belgium and Canada, isn't even wracked by periodic political crises over its multiethnic nature.

At the same time, ethnosectarian conflict is a major problem in many parts of the world. Not just Iraq, but Lebanon, Russia (Chechyna), China (Sinkiang/"East Turkestan"), Turkey (Kurdistan), Congo, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, etc., etc., etc. If you could really solve these problems by simply pointing out that the Swiss political system is very successful, don't you think we wouldn't have all these problems? But, of course, the thing about Switzerland is that Swiss society is so very rare. And that's just the rub -- there's an extraordinary sociological naiveté involved in these recommendations that Iraq just be less like a war-torn post-colonial state and become more like a stable western one. Of course Iraq should become more like a stable western country and less like a war-town post-colonial state. But how?

It's hard these things don't just happen because the American ambassador says they ought to. The situation is different, the age-structure of the population is different, the attitude of the neighbors is different, the oil makes a big difference, the presence of a giant foreign occupying army is different, everything about it is different.

(Beyond all that, how much familiarity do we really think Kenneth Pollack has with the Swiss constitution? Nothing in the article suggests that he really means that Iraq ought to have the distinctive features of the Swiss constitution -- tons of direct democracy, a seven-person collective presidency, a bicameral parliament, etc., etc., etc.)

Comments

I think he means that the US should begin teaching the Iraqis German, French, Italian,and Romanish.

Posted by Rob | December 29, 2007 10:02 AM

What's up with you and Wade-Gilles? "Sinkiang"? Why do you insist on using such an annoyingly archaic romanization system? AGGH! Sure pinyin was created by the commies, but at least some of the words look how they sound. It feels like reading John King Fairbank's works from the 1960's or whenever and that's not necessarily a good thing.

Posted by Reality Man | December 29, 2007 10:11 AM

And of course you know why Switzerland is a successful multiethnic society right ? The communities don't fight with each other (that's not entirely true but that's very calm and sedate compared to, say, Belgium) because they are too busy hating everybody else. Foreigners, aliens, the EU, and so on ... Bloecher takes a third of the votes and the general population has a clear distrust of anything coming from the outside (surprisingly considering Geneva is in Switzerland). They spend their time voting on referendums and you will be interested to notice many of them are small measures that are either anti-foreigners, anti-foreign influence or anti-EU . And since those "votations" happen very regularly (and up until now are the only competitive elections Switzerland has since otherwise the government is a coalition of all the major parties, whatever the results of the real elections), they have the effect of keeping up the distrust towards outsiders and reminding Swiss how cozy they want to have it with each other.
It is the same theory that united Germany in the 19th century. Bismark wanted all the German state to unite and become one but they were too busy fighting and resenting each other ... until he declared war on France and suddenly they all realized how much they liked each other. And Germany was born.
It is unfortunate but national sentiment is often built against somebody else's.

Posted by Benjamin | December 29, 2007 10:20 AM

"What's up with you and Wade-Gilles? "Sinkiang"? "

That's not even Wade-Giles, which would be Hsinkiang. Xinjiang, please....

And so long as we're talking ethnic conflicts in China, lets not forget Tibet and Inner Mongolia...

Posted by justaguy | December 29, 2007 10:35 AM

As I said in the thread below, the actually relevant canton system is Bosnia. A system that is hanging by a thread as the Serbian canton wants to leave.

Posted by P O'Neill | December 29, 2007 10:54 AM

I think a good start, and the bit that is under our power (well, Bush's) is to advance Iraq to the point of "war-torn post-colonial state", because the current status of war-torn neo-colonial state seems like a dead end.

Posted by aleks | December 29, 2007 10:55 AM

The Swiss still live in enclaves, each village to its valley. It's really not a workable model for Iraq---particularly not middle and southern Iraq, where people have to cooperate in managing water resources.

Posted by Jackmormon | December 29, 2007 11:26 AM

Maybe if we seeded Iraq with little bars of swiss chocolate the chocolaty goodness would seep into their bitter hearts and they would learn to live together and, yes, someday, to love.

Posted by cw | December 29, 2007 12:14 PM

I suspect the Swiss part has been already taken by the Emirates. To give to Iraq Ken should first bomb Dubai into the stone age.

Posted by abb1 | December 29, 2007 12:34 PM

Benjamin is essentially correct here; the Swiss continually squabble along ethnic lines. They just realize that (1) they are better off in their own xenophobic state and (2) they are willing to compromise among themselves to maintain that state. Starting with Canton Schwyz (populated by a Germanic tribe), the country grew as an agglomeration of peoples who saw the Swiss canton system as being mutually advantageous (rather than being gobbled up by the stronger, surrounding states). In my opinion, Switerland is more the exception than the rule in tribal societies, where local politics is more important than national politics.

Iraq is a British creation; the tribal entities there may tolerate a central state, but it is doubtful that they will ever see it as being mutually advantageous or be willing to compromise enough to maintain it. Sykes-Picot Agreement essentially negated any hope that the Kurds might obtain a homeland, something they are unlikley to forget. It is doubtful that the Sunni tribes will ever accept rule by the Shiites. Only a political compromise, along the lines of Lebanon, will bring elements of stability, but the result would not be free of tribal intrigue.

Posted by Emrys | December 29, 2007 12:59 PM

The tendency of States is to fragment unless the system allows for a strong ruler or assimilation is pressed unrelentingly. That is one of the lessons of history.
China is a 3,000 year long history of Hans pushing other ethnicities out, of warlordism as strong central authority collapsed, then sporadic periods of unification.
So too Europe, going from various tribes to being Romans, then Holy Romans and Byzantines, to princepalities, to nations, to split nations, to unified nations set up on ethnic or religious purity, to split nations.
Japan, with its ethnic purity and island status -still had a long history of divisions in it's past - between nobles, a long early history of war to wipe out the numbers and power of the native Ainu.

In recent times, the cancers of diversity and multiculturalism have accelerated state breakup, as well as laws meant to discourage the rise of strong leaders that will keep a state together by force, or similarly force reunification or conquest of old, lost territory.

Switzerland exists with different people and decentralized power in large part because good mountain chains make good fences. Still, the Swiss had a horrendous time in the Reformation until force finally restored stability.

In the tribally organized Muslim world, lack of strong central authority and reliance on rule of law and secular lawyers - as opposed to Sharia - appears to be an invite to civil war. Same in tribal Africa.

Exceptions in Islam are "One River, One People" Egypt, "islands make good neighbors Indonesia", and states like Turkey, Malaysia, Libya which have wiped out most troublesome minorities. Elsewhere, where tribes are held together by a strong ruler, they reluctantly and peacefully share land, water, trade, and fossil fuel resources.

Posted by Chris Ford | December 29, 2007 1:49 PM

If you were the shiites why would you compromise, as a group? You have baghdad, a lot of the oil, a numeric and probably military advantage, the support of Iran, governmental legitimacy, a long list of legitimate grievences against the sunnis.

Posted by cw | December 29, 2007 2:02 PM

I think it would be much more awesome to recommend that Iraq be more like the Federation on Star Trek, so that they would have those cool uniforms and there would be no in-fighting and they would have a San Francisco spaceport and everything.

I mean, as long as we're simply wishing for stuff as an excuse for policies.

Posted by El Cid | December 29, 2007 3:10 PM

Chris Ford has convinced me that the world would, indeed, be better off with Saddam still in power.

Posted by Kenneth | December 29, 2007 4:16 PM

...the world would, indeed, be better off with Saddam still in power

Is there really any doubt?

Posted by abb1 | December 29, 2007 4:26 PM

How do the Swiss do it? The sociologist turned sociobiologist Pierre L. van den Berghe studied the issue carefully in his masterful 1981 book on the genetic roots of ethnic conflict, The Ethnic Phenomenon.

Van den Berghe's top line: "Switzerland, in short, is a very special case."

Switzerland is a rare state that "did not originate either in conquest or in the breakdown of multinational empires." It grew out of hill tribes banding together for mutual defense.

Van den Berghe notes:

"Switzerland is a confederation of cantons, not of ethnic groups. ... The Swiss state gives no formal recognition to ethnicity as a basis of political incorporation, citizenship, legal rights and obligations, land tenure rights, allocation of resources, assignment to school systems -- any of the bones of contention in multiethnic states. ... The state does not need to be a "consociational democracy" [like Canada or Belgium], because, being so little of a state, there is so little at stake. ... Switzerland is a very pleasant country, but it is not much of a state by modern standards. Perhaps it is such a pleasant country because it is not much of a state."

The Swiss federal government is less important relative to its own lower levels of government than in most other European states. It accounted for only 61% of government spending - despite a large army - compared to 84% in neighboring Austria. Consequently, much of government decision-making is done at the monolingual level.

Cantons tend to be ethnically homogenous -- 22 out of the 26 cantons are officially monolingual. In the Sixties, French activists in the Jura Mountains succeeded in winning separate canton status for their part of a predominantly German-speaking canton.

The three main ethnic groups are fairly equal in wealth, so none of the language groups feels they are subsidizing the others. Most of the richest cantons are German-speaking, but so are the two poorest, which are hillbilly cantons in the Alps. The one Italian canton of Ticino is in the middle of the income range.

Although Switzerland is relatively evenly split between Catholics and Protestants, there is little correlation between language and religion (except among Italian-speaking Swiss). For example, the Sailers are Swiss German Catholics, while French-speaking Geneva was the home of Calvinism. This meant, among other things, that Catholic opposition to contraception did not cause one language group to notably outbreed the others. (Political scientist Frank Salter has emphasized the importance of equal population growth rates.) In Kosovo, the Serbs felt they were being overwhelmed by Albanian immigration and higher birthrates. In Switzerland, the ethnic balance has been more stable.

Immigration: If novelist Vladimir Nabokov wanted to live for decades in a hotel in Montreux, he was more than welcome. If the hotel wanted to hire Maltese "guest workers" to deliver the great man's room service, it could (within limits). But neither Nabokov nor the bellhops could realistically expect to ever participate in Swiss political life.

Switzerland's policy of self-sufficient armed neutrality is crucial in two ways. Neutrality has kept Switzerland from ripping itself apart during wars involving France, Germany, and Italy. And the "every man a soldier" principle, complete with most adult men having a small arsenal in their homes, intensifies patriotism. Every citizen feels responsibility for his country.

Finally, the Swiss tend to have reserved, self-disciplined personalities. In other words, they are not much fun. For example, the national hobby is sharp shooting. They tend to make rational rather than emotional decisions. This does not make the Swiss popular. Hollywood movies treat the Swiss like Nazis. But it does mean their ethnic passions, like all their other passions, are restrained.

Posted by Steve Sailer | December 29, 2007 4:34 PM

Also, the Swiss have very few natural resources (other than some hydroelectric dam sites) to fight over. The main economic resource of Switzerland is the Swiss, so even the most rent-seeking politicians are inclined toward a limited array of good government policies (invest in education, health, infrastructure, etc.) to maximize the productivity of the people so they can pay more taxes to the politicians.

In contrast, the people of Iraq are worth far, far less economically than the oil in the ground, so politicians don't care much about making the people of Iraq more productive, since nobody in Iraq believes that Iraqis would turn into Swiss pharmaceutical scientist-entrepreneurs even with all the education in the world. What Iraqi politicians really care about is grabbing ownership of the oil.

Posted by Steve Sailer | December 29, 2007 4:42 PM

The Swiss federal government ... accounted for only 61% of government spending

That doesn't sound right, has to be much lower. They pay much more in cantonal and communal taxes than in federal taxes. The feds don't collect/spend much at all, maybe 20% or so (just a guess).

Yeah, and Valais - one of the largest, richest and most beautiful cantons - is bilingual French/German. No apparent problem there, no detectable hostility whatsoever.

Posted by abb1 | December 29, 2007 4:52 PM

Why are so many here criticizing Matt's point?

There are ton of similarities between Iraq and Switzerland.

Posted by thehova | December 29, 2007 6:22 PM

How much oil does Switzerland have? How many of Switzerland's neighbors are democracies compared to Iraq? How much khat does Ken Pollack chew each day?

Posted by joejoejoe | December 29, 2007 6:30 PM

"Perhaps it is such a pleasant country because it is not much of a state."

Got that right.

But their military is first rate. Got massive airfields buried in caves in the the mountains so their fighters are only exposed for a few seconds on takeoff. Switzerland would be one tough nation to take down for anybody, short of nuking every major city.

They did have a small band of anarchist terrorists back in the 70's, but mostly those guys were playing support for terrorist groups in the rest of Europe. They stole mines and other explosives from the Swiss military for export to other terrorist groups.

Switzerland is about the last country I would expect to find much in the way of anarchists, let alone terrorists.

Anyway, when Pollack talks about "cantons" in Iraq, what he probably really means is "tribal fiefdoms" in the provinces - which is what they're pretty obviously going to end up with, anyway.

And that's going to be irrelevant to the overall problems between Sunni and Shia, especially over the oil division.

But even there, people need to remember that Iraq society is more complex than just "Sunni vs Shia". There are many families who are a mix of Sunni and Shia. They got along on a family level for generations. When we talk about Sunni vs Shia, we're talking about the political parties and their militias - not necessarily about individuals or families.

Not every Sunni wants to kill Shia, or vice versa.

If we don't understand how things are REALLY done in other countries, US policy is going to end up ham-handed and ineffective - which is one good reason NEVER to get involved in the internal affairs of another country for ANY reason.

As a character once said in one of Frank Herbert's Dune stories, "Can your strategy be reduced to the level of the ambitions of a regional governor's wife?"

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 29, 2007 10:23 PM

Mr. Hack makes some good points about how it's not just Sunni vrs. Shia and I think he is correct to compare them to political parties. But that analogy kind of takes away from his point at the same time. When major politcal decision have to be made--like who get's the oil, who's side am I going to fight on--the nuances of personal politics aren't usually available to most people. You usually have to pick a side, shia or sunni, republican or democrat, north or south.

Posted by cw | December 30, 2007 2:05 AM

True - and that's the problem with politics and the state in general. Instead of dealing with your personal problems, you start trying to control other people for your benefit - or the actual benefit of whoever is controlling you.

I wasn't exactly comparing them to political parties. I was saying that the political factions in Iraq are the ones rousing their members to do the fighting. Whereas the bulk of the Iraqi population probably did not care up until the time Saddam was overthrown, like most people in most countries don't really care about things on a national scale. It was only when the power was up for grabs that the religious divisions became critical, and polarized segments of the population.

The point I was actually making is that the US is not in a position to make political decisions for other countries populations. Presuming we have that knowledge and ability is what gets the US in trouble in places like Iraq and Pakistan (not to mention that most of the reasons for US involvement are not even related to actually trying to "help" anybody.)

The principle should be to let every country's population take responsibility for their own country - even if that leads to genocides or civil wars. So be it. It's only when they decide to attack us that we should care (which is not to say we can't try to avoid that by adjusting our relations and policies long before that.)

The problem is that humans are hardwired to want to control other humans, so this idea is anathema to just about everyone.

For thousands of years, that tendency was limited by primitive technology to fighting the people across the border - or, in the case of the Romans and Greeks and the Persians - regional wars.

Today we can deliver an army in weeks to the furthest parts of the world. That tempts people to do just that just about everywhere.

There's nothing rational about it. It's pure chimpanzee behavior. "They've got the bananas, we want the bananas, we're gonna take the bananas."

It's just dressed up in "foreign policy" rhetoric and nationalism and fear of "foreigners."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 30, 2007 2:28 AM

Switzerland is about the last country I would expect to find much in the way of anarchists...

Richard, probably not too much now - though who knows, see this and this - but historically, late 19th-early 20th century, Swiss Jura plus the area around lake Leman was, of course, the world's center of anarchism. This is where the movement started. Proudhon was from Jura (though I'm not sure whether Swiss or French part).

May I recommend a book?

Posted by abb1 | December 30, 2007 4:33 AM

I wish the Swiss, for once, would give up the false pretense of being a neutral state. Pure hogwash. The Swiss made out like bandits during and after WW2 by stealing all the Jews wealth, and money laundering for the Nazi regime. Since then, they are the world capitol of money laundering for every murderous regime active in the world today. The Swiss are anything but a thinly veiled cover for the corrupt and murderous thugs of the world, which btw, makes them just the same as.....

Posted by Expat | December 30, 2007 3:37 PM

The Swiss made out like bandits during and after WW2 by stealing all the Jews wealth...

"The Swiss" here stands for "Swiss banks", I take it. But they don't force anyone to open an account and deposit all their wealth nor when you open an account do they ask you for your religion, so I can't imagine how they could manage to "steal all the Jews wealth". The rules for dormant accounts are the same for everybody, Jews or Gentiles.

Since then, they are the world capitol of money laundering for every murderous regime active in the world today.

Here, again, Expat seems to ignorant of the obvious: the rules are the same for every regime, murderous or otherwise: Swiss banks will do money laundering (though technically it's illegal) for Bush/Cheney's murdering regime just the same as for any benign market speculator or a CEO.

See, Expat, that's exactly what is called 'neutrality'.

Posted by abb1 | December 31, 2007 4:31 AM

Capital idea. We just need to build some mountains in Iraq and surround it with the Hapsburg empire constantly trying to invade. Right? Isn't that what made Switzerland what it is today; unique geography and geopolitics?

Posted by freddiemac | December 31, 2007 9:27 AM