To the Editor:
Michael Ledeen’s article, “Europe Breaks Apart” [May], is unfortunately typical of the naive and less than well-informed ideas that characterize much of the thinking of American experts on European affairs. Trying to discern “trends” in Europe is about as meaningful as trying to discern trends in the Western hemisphere. The political situations in Norway and Greece are no more closely related than those in Canada and Guatemala. And the repeated references to the situation in Malta in an article on European politics are as ludicrous as referring to the situation in Haiti as an augur for forthcoming U.S. congressional elections. From places far away, such as Washington, Europe may seem to be a geopolitical entity, but in fact, most European countries have little in common except proximity, which usually translates into a history of thousands of years of armed conflict.
Mr. Ledeen’s assertion that “Switzerland regularly considers legislation to send all foreigners out of the country,” is both factually incorrect and misleading. The statement is incorrect since none of the three soundly defeated initiatives “contre l’emprise étrangère” would have required all foreigners to leave Switzerland. The last, and most severe of the initiatives, would have placed a limit on the number of foreigners resident in Switzerland at 10 per cent of the indigenous population (20 per cent for Geneva), and would have required the government gradually to reduce the foreign population to this limit over a number of years. The statement is misleading because it fails to account for the particularities of the situation in Switzerland. Switzerland is a small country, about twice the land area of New Jersey, with an indigenous population of less than 6 million. . . . The population of Switzerland is 50 per cent Protestant and 50 per cent Catholic, there are German-, French-, and Italian-speaking cantons (states). Although Switzerland has common frontiers with France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, and has been subjected to intense ideological and military pressure over the centuries, it has maintained its independence and practiced the same highly democratic form of government for the last seven hundred years (the only deeply rooted, indigenous democratic society on the European continent). Further, landlocked Switzerland, with few natural resources, is one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world.
However, as recently as the 1930’s, Switzerland could not support its own population, and many of the million Swiss who reside abroad are descendants of those who left their homeland to find work. Today, about one million foreigners, mainly Italians and Spanish, reside in Switzerland. In addition to the resident foreigners there are several hundred thousand “frontaliers” (foreigners who work in Switzerland while residing in frontier zones of neighboring countries) and “saisoniers” (foreign workers who reside only part of the year in Switzerland). More than 40 per cent of the population of Geneva are foreigners. Thus, in a country which has struggled for centuries to maintain its cultural and political independence, which until recently was overpopulated and subject to severe unemployment, and which today is an island of stability and prosperity in a sea of conflict and violence, it was perhaps inevitable that a political movement would arise to advocate the limitation of the foreign population, a foreign population drawn mainly from the turbulent southern European countries, which, it was feared, would upset the political stability and delicate religious and linguistic balance which is the heart of the Swiss system. (It is revealing that the Swiss left-wing parties are strong advocates of extending political rights to foreigners.) Despite this situation, there is relatively little support for anti-foreigner laws in Switzerland. Only a few small right-wing parties advocate such laws. Under the Swiss system fifty thousand signatures in favor of a proposed law are sufficient to require the government to conduct an “initiative” (referendum). There have been three anti-foreigner initiatives, all defeated, the most recent one by a two-to-one margin. In the light of these facts, Mr. Ledeen’s statement that Switzerland is a “virulently chauvinistic nation” is, to say the least, misleading.
I have described in some detail the Swiss “particularities” to illustrate that opinions concerning the political situation in European countries must be based on knowledge of the history, culture, and actual situation in the countries concerned. . . .
Kent Gordis
Geneva, Switzerland
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Michael Ledeen writes:
I am grateful to Kent Gordis for the excellent documentation he has provided for my claim that Switzerland, like Germany, has seen the growth of a virulent chauvinism. At the same time, I stand corrected on one particular—only nine out of ten foreigners would have been expelled if the most recent referendum had passed, and not everyone.
Mr. Gordis’s letter is, of course, not a denial at all, but an apology for the phenomenon I described. He says, quite rightly, that this xenophobia is hardly surprising under the circumstances (indeed he sees it as “perhaps inevitable,” a claim I did not make), but attempts to pass it off as an epiphenomenon. COMMENTARY readers may judge for themselves: three referenda in recent years, with between 30 and 40 per cent voting in favor of expelling foreigners, is, to my mind, a significant development in a country which traditionally gave lessons to the rest of the West in toleration and civic virtue.
As for his brief attack on my naiveté and ignorance, once again Mr. Gordis only supports what I wrote: that the attempt to create the structures of European unity is failing, that nationalism of quite a traditional sort is again the dominant phenomenon on the continent, and that all of this has provided an opening for forces working against America’s (and Europe’s) true security and freedom. Far from seeming to be “a geopolitical entity,” Europe appears to be—as the title of my article suggested—flying apart. If Mr. Gordis thinks it’s somehow outrageous to find Malta included in this discussion, he should consult the makeup of the NATO forces, which found room for Maltese bases. Or, better, he ought to visit the headquarters of the Order of the Knights of Malta on the Aventine Hill in Rome, which would tell him a great deal about the important role Malta has played in the West for several centuries. Indeed, he may well thank Malta for the fact that Switzerland is half-Catholic and half-Protestant, and not part of Islam.
