Peter Stamm

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Europa

Abroad, Switzerland may be best known for its smart ski resorts and discreet banking services for the superrich, but the Swiss themselves are remarkably allergic to the trappings of conspicuous wealth.

It was not quite another Occupy moment perhaps, but in a referendum held in March of this year, the Swiss electorate voted by a two-thirds majority to ban bonuses and golden handshakes and force companies to consult shareholders on executives’ remuneration. It’s not easy for ballot initiatives like this to succeed in Switzerland: Of the 110 that have made it to a vote in the last 32 years, only 20 have passed.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, ,

Three years ago I was invited to the Tehran International Book Fair; afterward I traveled around the country. The mosques I visited were so empty as to give the impression that Iran was as secular as Western Europe.

It wasn’t until I took a trip to a place of pilgrimage in the mountains that I saw large numbers of the faithful. The traffic started piling up even before my group reached the town of Imamzadeh Davood. A few of the pilgrims were making the trek on foot, together with the sheep they intended to sacrifice. The narrow streets were bustling just as at Christian places of pilgrimage: booths crammed with junk, groups of teenagers taking pictures of each other, every nook and cranny packed with candles lighted by believers in the hope their wishes would be fulfilled.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Summer has brought another rash of extreme weather around the world: relentless rain has caused flooding in Britain, India and Texas, and record-breaking heat has led to wildfires in Greece and in Utah — demonstrating, once again, how severe weather and climate change can quickly alter the landscape. But slower alterations in the earth’s natural features are happening, too, as a result of human activity, and some of these are far more drastic and lasting. The Op-Ed page asked four writers to report on how the environment is faring in their parts of the globe. Here are their dispatches.

1) Winterthur (Switzerland)

The Great Swiss Meltdown

Some years ago, when a German critic accused me of “meteorological mannerism” because weather plays such a large role in my books, a friend came to my defense: “We happen to have a lot of weather in Switzerland.”…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

Most Swiss newspapers didn’t even bother to report that on March 1, 170 Swiss Army troops crossed the border into Liechtenstein.

Not that we see that many invasions here in the Alps, but it soon became clear that this was simply an error in orienteering. The incident occurred in bad weather and in the middle of the night, when Switzerland is hard to tell apart from its neighbors. “It was all so dark out there,” said one of the misdirected recruits.

The incursion caused no political stir, and was played down by the civil authorities as well as the army. Aristocratic titles may be forbidden in Switzerland, while the head of Liechtenstein is a hereditary monarch; and Liechtenstein does let people get behind the wheel who would classify as drunk in Switzerland.…  Seguir leyendo »