Hey guys,
Just wanted to share this new initiative.
Pro Schweiz: Eigenständigkeit, Freiheit, Neutralität, Selbständigkeit, Weltoffenheit
Be civilized and respect others opinions.
I feel this initiative transcends being attached to a particular political party, and it’s more about how we want our Switzerland to be in a objective better way. Neutrality it’s not a matter of opinion.
Its not about being of the right or left, it’s about preserving and improving the neutrality of our beloved country.
Remember, you have high standard of living because your country is the way it is. Maintain the status quo. We don’t need to adopt sanctions, we better just help with money those in need and try to make peace between whoever.
That is what the neutrality initiative wants
«Swiss neutrality» must be preserved.
«Swiss neutrality» must apply at all times and without exception.
“Swiss neutrality” must be armed: with an army that can successfully defend the country and its people in the event of an attack.
Switzerland may not join any military or defense alliance. (The only exception: in the case of a direct military attack on Switzerland.)
Switzerland may not take part in military conflicts between third countries.
Switzerland refrains from non-military coercive measures, i.e. «sanctions», against warring states.
Switzerland continues to meet its obligations to the UN.
Switzerland prevents non-military coercive measures being circumvented by other states via Switzerland.
Switzerland uses its perpetual neutrality for “good offices” to prevent and resolve conflicts.
Switzerland wants to be respected by all countries in the world as a staunchly and reliably neutral country.
“If the political elite loses its bearings, the sovereign must correct the wrong course. The neutrality initiative points the way back to permanent, comprehensive and armed Swiss neutrality. Switzerland needs its neutrality and the world needs a neutral Switzerland.”
25 comments
>Switzerland may not join any military or defense alliance. (The only exception: in the case of a direct military attack on Switzerland.)
lol de füüfer und s weggli
anyone with more than 2 brain cells knows this doesn’t work.
>”Swiss neutrality” must be armed: with an army that can successfully defend the country and its people in the event of an attack.
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>Switzerland may not join any military or defense alliance. (The only exception: in the case of a direct military attack on Switzerland.)
this is a joke. we are surrounded by nato, the only military alliance that can attack us is NATO. trying to go up against nato as switzerland is pointless and there is no military alliance that can help us against them.
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>Switzerland refrains from non-military coercive measures, i.e. «sanctions», against warring states.
this will isolate us both in europe and internationally. you might as well create a new initiative and call it “please everyone hate us”.
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>Switzerland continues to meet its obligations to the UN.
this will inevitably collide with one of the other points and is a joke.
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>Switzerland uses its perpetual neutrality for “good offices” to prevent and resolve conflicts.
who will want those when the rest of the world hates us?
>Switzerland wants to be respected by all countries in the world as a staunchly and reliably neutral country.
pretty sure europe and many other countries made their stance clear on this: not happening.
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this is impossible to be taken seriously
>I feel this initiative transcends being attached to a particular political party…
Only SVP/UDC and Lega people in the committee, but I’m sure they speak for all of us (/s)
> I feel this initiative transcends being attached to a particular political party
It’s textbook SVP posturing. Using initiatives as campaigns is really dumb.
How many conflicting statements do you want to make in one post?
Yes
Delusional
In all seriousness. Switzerland was never neutral. It has always been just a label.
The confederation gave up its expansionist politics after the battle in 1515. We promised to become „neutral“ to France which basically meant that we will not do anything against their interest.
From then on until the French Revolution, we were a de facto ally to France – we provided them with soldiers and they guaranteed our independence.
In the Revolution we almost lost our independence, but then Napoleon again decided that it was good to have a buffer state.
The Vienna congress confirmed the status. And it more or less stayed the same until the Second World War. Even in WW2 it was clear which side we were on – our army had close ties to the French army and it was decided that we would join them, should the Germans attack us. Luckily, they chose to go through Belgium (another „neutral“ state). Well and then we were surrounded by Germany, and our „neutrality“ was again not our own decision but because a foreign nation let us be so.
After WW2 and until today we still played the same game of officially telling everyone that we are neutral, but clearly being part of the western block.
I respect your opinion to disagree, OP, but I strongly say that we should stop pretending that we are neutral when we definitely are not.
This does not mean that we should join something like the Bush‘s war in Iraq. However we should, like Sweden and Finland, clearly commit ourselves to be part of the democratic West and that we are also willing to defend these values (ideologically, economically, and – I hope it will never be needed – also militarily).
“The initiative is not about party affiliations or being left or right”
*lists off an amalgamation of conservative talking points seasoned with reductionist at best arguments*
Irrationally worshipping and wanting to preserve values and traditions while stifling change is a political stance, don’t try to sell this as an issue that transcends party lines.
Also, looking at the page you linked, it seems like the committee that is pushing for this initiative is mostly consisting of former members of the AUNS, basically Christoph Blocher’s pet project.
In order to comply with your plea for civility, which I am *absolutely* and *totally* certain you are treating every single resident of Switzerland with, I will phrase my next sentence as politely as I possibly could: Fuck off
Honestly my opinion is that all of these points in the list were just decoration that most people would agree with in order to ‘dress up’ and insert point 6. Of course given the events in the world right now, this initiative is essentially asking ‘should we sanction Russia?’, but I find it quite dishonest in the way it is being asked. And again this is just my opinion, but the whole ‘if the political elite loses its bearings. the sovereign must correct the wrong course’, seems to be written with subtle buzzwords to appeal to a very particular political demographic, the very same one that would generally oppose sanctions on Russia regardless of whether this infringed upon the concept of neutrality.
Perhaps I’m over-thinking it but I really feel like I can see straight through this.
Nah let’s stop being neutral and send weapons to Ukraine
Just vote openly for PNOS. Don’t hide ur hatred.
Are you people in favor of sanction other countries? Are you happy to sanction just because you are forced to do so by pressure?
Well, I’m not.
A lot of actions made by powerful countries are horrible, and should be sanctioned as well, but nobody cares and everybody sleeps well, and you don’t feel guilty or ashamed from the lack of action/ sanction, right? But now people feel urge for sanctions, funny isn’t?
Maintain “fake neutrality”, improve it by not adopting sanction anymore and move on.
And people, stop being hypocrite please. Open your eyes and stop being a group of angry sheep’s (I’m speaking here about some other members which were rude). We don’t need sanctions in Switzerland, period. You don’t understand it and therefore don’t believe in it? That all right. Keep calm and be gentle and kind in life.
P.S
Don’t join EU, you never know what kids can do given freedom to choose.
Back in the 1993 (more or less that period), when Switzerland population voted against entering the economic are of EU together with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, everybody was saying that it will be the ruin of Switzerland not to join, and it wasn’t at all.
Be gentle in life, never forget and always apply.
Schurbler be schwurbeling
Should we be neutral in a contest between liberal democracy and a fascist, barbaric dictatorship as represented by Putin’s Russia?
Should we withold ammo for Gepard AA tanks that serve no offensive function but protect Ukrainian civilian areas and infrastructure against Russian missile attacks?
This initiative is stupid AF and if you answered “yes” to the two questions above you should be shipped indefinitely to Moscow, apparently a paradise for you.
I agree, the role of Switzerland is to promote peace between nations, so maintaining good relations is essential. By imposing sanctions on a country, deserved or not, it becomes an enemy and we lose the possibility of doing our good offices. this is what happened with Russia, we imposed sanctions, it put us on its list of hostile states and now it refuses to allow us to act as an intermediary. In the end, we lost the opportunity to serve as a neutral ground for talks and the bodies still pile up. Instead of punishing, let’s do our best to maintain cordial relations so that diplomacy can prevail, even if the world hates us for it. That is the only way we can alleviate the suffering.
But obviously this should not prevent us from stating an opinion and from respecting international law.
While the initiative is focused and somehow charming at first look, I do disagree with it.
First of all, it does violate democratic principles. By setting everything what neutrality has to mean in stone, you block any kind of democratic process and agreement. We don’t know how the world will change. And we don’t know if we could even uphold such a law.
Second: Upholding the law. Just because we write a law, doesn’t mean we will enforce it. Just look at “Alpeninitiative” where we wanted to drastically reduce truck traffic through our country. It’s written in the law. But the opposite happened. We have more truck traffic than ever.
Third: Threat of supporting the unmoral by not acting. Switzerland has taken over the sanction packages against Russia. Because Switzerland decided that despite being neutral, we also don’t want to finance a country which actively started a large conflict and massacres civilians. We simply don’t want to be neutral on that.
Such a law would prevent Switzerland from taking appropriate measures when times call for them. We want to be neutral, and we should. But if we continue to finance war criminals in the name of neutrality – we are neutral towards them, and deaf to human suffering.
>Switzerland may not join any military or defense alliance. (The only exception: in the case of a direct military attack on Switzerland.)
Please explain to me, as an European and Italian citizen why in case of a direct military attack on Switzerland by someone who isn’t NATO, my or other neighboring governments should help you. If you want to be neutral that’s fine by me, but this is a cherry picked neutrality maintained only when it’s beneficial to you.
As Stress once said:
Blocher et l’SVP se sont mis en place.
Faut que les jeunes votent pour qu’ils s’effacent.
So: no
“Not attached to a political party”
As if “maintaining the status quo” isn’t conservative. It’s actually pretty much the definition of Conservatism.
Bullshit Initiative by an idea of a very old white man named Blocher.
So: Nope
Translation: We want to keep sucking it to russian oligarcs, let Putin’s mistress live here, trade blood commodities from russia freely, because money for us is more important than decency.
I usually dont comment on swiss politics posts, as i will leave before beeing allowed to vote on anything anyway. But hell, conservatives are completely disconected from reality everywhere, arent they?
While I am in favor of not allowing the Munition that’s caused such a scandal lately to be given to Ukraine by Germany (because it’s in the Damn contract they signed and contracts are binding and not to be changed Willy billy because of your moral urges)…partaking in sanctions is something entirely else.
Russia is violating human rights and international Law.
Switzerland is a hub for so many human rights organizations and the most Democratic nation on earth. We should definitely take a stance against an autocratic Dictatorship.
Also I don’t think we Are Breaking neutrality. We are sanctioning Russia from as our decision (Miley pressured by the EU but that’s not on paper). If we would give weapons or munitions to Russia’s enemy‘s. That would be breaking neutrality.
Also the Talk about political Elites betraying the values of Switzerland Sounds like fearmongering and I agree with others here that it sounds very much like right-wing rhetoric.
The Ukraine situation kinda shows that if you isolate yourself and don’t cooperate with other closely you are screwed if attacked.
Imagine Ukraine had no cooperation or allies at all. They would have been done in days.
You either neutral as its suppose to be or you are not. But since the majority of population wants to live in a neutral Switzerland, sanctions must be forbidden as the initiative propose.
I’m not saying to you to chose neutrality, but to chose an objectively coherent way of doing politics and lead a country. You want to apply sanctions, go for it, it’s not wrong, but leave your status of neutrality. Your way of thinking it’s just blatantly wrong from the premise, but still, you all have courage to speak against the initiative and even to be rude to me.
GTFOH