Switzerland Country
Switzerland CountryOfficial name: Confederatio Helvetica (Helvetic Confederation; the latins conquered this province and called it Helvetia I understand.) The name comes from a tribe which the Romans called the Helveti, who settled in the area around the time of Caesar.
That's why their toplevel domain is .ch
Switzerland's northern border, where the Rhine separates it from Germany, was once the limit of the Roman Empire in that region. A few stone watchtowers still stand on the southern bank of the Rhine, where Roman soldiers once guarded against incursions by the barbarian tribes living to the north.
Someone has repeatedly posted comments here stating that the Romans did not conquer Switzerland. This is somewhat misleading. Helvetia was part of the Roman empire at one time. See http://www.rollintl.com/roll/switzerland.htm for some details. See the comment above regarding the watchtowers (I actually stood in one). Also, there have been a number of excavations of Roman settlements in parts of Switzerland, e.g. Aventicum (Avenche) in the west, Dunum (Thun) near the Bernese Oberland, and I believe also in Berne. The excavation in Avenche is particularly interesting, including an entire small ampitheater in easily recognized Roman style.
Comments
A strange country. All the money and no movies are made.
It is also the oldest democracy in the world. There is officially no head of state: all Swiss citizens together are the head of state. Every Swiss citizen can add amendments to the constitution using an initiative. Note that this is not a law. All laws are still passed by parliament.
For official occasions, the president of the Bundesrat acts as head of state. The Bundesrat is a group of seven people elected by parliament. Traditionally, any decision taken by the Bundesrat is to be taken unanimously. All laws passed by parliament can be fought via referendom.
This, normal people can propose additions to the constitution (initiative) and block new laws (referendum) - if they rally enough support.
There is still discussion whether individual states (cantons) are allowed to separate from the confederation.
Hmm - yes it's an old democracy - but not that old again: 1848 marked the birth of the modern democratic Switzerland that is in place now. 1291 marked the birth of the "original Switzerland" - hardly a democracy as we know it now. Basically, rebels (or were they called freedom fighters?) threw out the dominating forces (Austria, Habsburg, ...) and founded the "UrSchweiz?" (3 cantons Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden). The model caught on, and other cantons joined the union. When they were not busy fighting wars for others, the different cantons were at war between themselves. (Over stupid things like religions etc. Why is it any more stupid to fight over religion than, say, territory, national price, Volk und Vaterland, etc.?) The heritage of the cantons is still very visible today - there are 26 of them - and they have their own authority in many places.
Actually, all the authority that is not explicitly given to the confederacy in the constitution is held by the lower levels. An important difference to the EuropeanUnion, where these things are not so clear.
There is a parliament, consisting of the Nationalrat and the Ständerrat. The Nationalrat is a 200 members. Every canton has a number of seats, proportional to it's size. (Zurich 34, Uri 1).
The Ständerrat has 46 seats, two for every canton (one for every half-canton). Zurich with over 1 million people has two, and Uri with 36,000 people has two too.
The government is the Bundesrat, consisting of 7 ministers that manage the major ministries (Foreign, Internal, Finance, Law, Military and Sport, Volkswirtschaft, Traffic). The seven Bundesräte are elected by the combined parliaments. Reelections take place, when a member decides to leave the Bundesrat. (like tomorrow, 2000-12-06), otherwise they are members for life.
Not they are not, but it is a very rare event that a Bundesrat is not reelected.
Interestingly, this system has been stable since 1960 - i.e. the proportions of parties in the Bundesrat have been constant (re. ZauberFormel? - magical formula)
As noted above, anybody can change the constitution - there are only two small hurdles to take:
Switzerland has a very high number of firearms because every citizen keeps his military gun (with 20 bullets) at home all the time. Interestingly enough, the guns aren't used very much for private use (murder, robberies, ...) probably because everybody is accountable for the 20 bullets and they'd have to answer where they went in the regular military service (3 weeks every two years until the age of 35 - or similar).
It's a wonder Switzerland hasn't been kicked out of the European Union, but then the EC are trying to use the EU as leverage against Switzerland in order to change its banking laws.
Switzerland is NOT (and never has been) a member of the EuropeanUnion. It is surrounded by member states (France, Germany, Austria, and Italy). Of course, we don't want to forget Lichtenstein, which is not a member of the EuropeanUnion either, but a nice neighbour.
"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly."
Orson Welles (as Harry Lime) The Third Man(1949)
Switzerland uses SwissFrancs? as their currency, and most AmericanCars? have a built in exchange calculator: a speedometer which converts miles to kilometers can (today, April 17th 2001) also be used to convert dollars to SwissFrancs?.
There are several towns in Switzerland, for example Basel, Zurich, Geneva and, the capital, Berne.
Basel
Basel is not considered Swiss by the rest of Switzerland. Some even go so far as to say this is a bad thing. It's a great place to walk around, see the tombs of famous humanist philosophers, and admire the weird old churches.
It is, for instance, lively. They have the greatest Carnival parade in Switzerland, in which they turn off all the lights downtown, and then the marching bands, consisting only of piccolo and snare drums, march in costumes through the streets with candle lanterns on their heads or instruments. No words can describe the experience of being trapped in a dark alley with 30 piccolos and 50 snare drums.
Great restaurants in Basel:
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(last edited March 29, 2006)
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