Newsweek has ruffled some feathers in Switzerland with a provocatively titled article “The Death of Switzerland.”  While this probably sounds like music to the ears of mercurial Libiyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi who tried to introduce a resolution in the United Nations last year calling for the dissolution of country, it has naturally drawn some pushback from the locals that Newsweek is being a a tad melodramatic.  See link.

They may have a point.  Even in their alpine refuge the Swiss are hardly immune to the worries and fears that have spread across an aging continent.  With no tradition of taking in immigrants, Europeans have struggled to integrate the more conservative and religious (and often Muslim) newcomers.  Even the increasing separation of Switzerland’s communities is hardly original in today’s Europe.  See link.

If, as the Newsweek article suggests, English is rapidly becoming the common tongue of the Swiss, it is yet another example of how the former language of imperial rule is today the glue that holds diverse countries (like India) together.

Malaise is easy to find across the Western world nowadays.  One thing the Swiss have in their favor is 800 years of experience in keeping an unwieldy confederation together and adapting to changed circumstances.  It is too early to count Switzerland out.  Rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

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