STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
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Swiss banks provided "money-laundering" services to the Nazis during WWII
that enabled the Nazis to use looted gold (including from teeth) to buy
strategic items needed to carry on the war.
Also, the Swiss persuaded the Nazis (and not the other way around!) to mark
the passports of Jews with a "J" stamp so that the Swiss could turn them
away at the borders.
Alida
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Rozoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 4:46 PM
Subject: Democracy OSCE Approves Of [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
> STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
>
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> [This is BBC after all, so don't expect logic, truth
> or consistency. For example, when what are generally
> considered to be universal democratic rights are
> violated, it's - from the point of view of the BBC
> writer - the result of "too much democracy." In the
> Western, OSCE-approved version, any time people vote
> it's democracy and any time they don't it isn't.
> Parliamentary cretinism, as it was once defined. Of
> course no one is permitted to vote on anything that
> matters - national economic or foreign policy, for
> example - except in the Republic of Ireland yesterday
> and we saw how that turned out: Too much democracy.
> Must do away with it.]
>
> BBC News
> Friday, 8 June, 2001, 15:18 GMT 16:18 UK
> Swiss democracy gone mad?
> The Swiss vote on everything - even street lighting
> By Imogen Foulkes in Emmen, Switzerland
> Milunka Milovanovic has had a hectic social calendar
> recently. She and her family are busy trying to
> persuade their local community of Emmen, near Lucerne,
> that they deserve Swiss nationality.
> Now they have to convince Emmen's 10,000 voters
> In Switzerland, 20% of the population is foreign, but
> you can only vote if you are Swiss. Switzerland has
> the strictest nationality rules in Europe - you have
> to have lived in the country at least 12 years,
> Emmen is a small industrial town and, like many
> similar Swiss communities, it recruited foreign
> workers in the 1970s and 80s. Among them were the
> young Milovanovics: 21 years ago they arrived from
> Yugoslavia.
> Now they and their three children, who were all born
> here, would like to be citizens of their adopted
> homeland.
> The Milovanovics have met all the legal requirements
> for citizenship: They have paid 1,000 francs for their
> application to be considered, they have been
> interviewed by the local council, they have passed
> German tests, and demonstrated their understanding of
> the Swiss way of life.
> But now they have to convince Emmen's 10,000 voters.
> In order to help people make up their minds, Emmen
> town council has sent a brochure to every home: In it
> the hopeful faces of the applicants stare out. Beneath
> the photographs their jobs, hobbies and reasons for
> wanting to be Swiss are listed.
> Public test
> Milunka Milovanovic, we are told, works in an old
> people's home, and in her free time likes to walk in
> the country. She wants to be Swiss, she says, because
> she has lived in Switzerland more than half her life.
> But all this is not enough: The local political
> parties in Emmen have been holding meetings so that
> voters can ask the applicants questions.
> The meeting organised by the right-wing Swiss people's
> party becomes a shameful spectacle. The five
> Milovanovics are placed on a stage. Rows of upright
> Swiss voters stare up at them. The questions come
> thick and fast.
> Who would you cheer for at a football match -
> Switzerland or Yugoslavia?
> What language do you dream in?
> Why do you really want a Swiss passport - isn't it
> just because you think you can get a better life here?
>
> The Milovanovics answer everything patiently, meekly,
> with great courtesy. But why submit to such a
> humiliating public examination? After all, the
> meetings are supposed to be voluntary.
> Milunka smiles wearily before hurrying off to the next
> meeting.
> "Well, if it has to be, it has to be,'" she says.
> "We'll just put up with it."
> Locals' whims
> There is good reason for her stoicism; last year when
> Emmen voted on applications for nationality, 48 out of
> a total of 56 were rejected. Not a single person from
> the Balkans was accepted.
> Ethnic origin is not supposed to influence citizenship
> decisions. But Switzerland has accepted a lot of
> asylum seekers from former Yugoslavia, and, human
> nature being what it is, many people now think there
> are too many people from the Balkans in their country,
> and are expressing their concern at the ballot box.
> It is democracy gone sour, a way to express prejudice,
> and punish innocent people
> But the victims are not asylum seekers at all, who
> cannot apply for citizenship, but families like the
> Milovanovics, who live here permanently.
> After watching the goings on in Emmen with increasing
> unease, I asked a Swiss friend whether it would not be
> better to take the whole nationality issue away from
> the local communities and make the decision
> anonymously at federal level. He too is repelled by
> the prejudices expressed in Emmen, but he looks at me
> in surprise.
> "That could never happen in Switzerland. The people
> always have the final say," he said.
> Another Swiss acquaintance related with approval that
> she regularly rejected applications.
> "We had one woman who applied," she explained. "She'd
> been here for 20 years, but you know she never said
> hello to me on the street, and she didn't join any of
> our lady's clubs -so I voted against her."
> Personal view
> Is this really what Swiss democracy is supposed to be?
> Neighbour judging neighbour, over real or imagined
> slights?
> Switzerland has been my home for almost 11 years now,
> and it is in so many ways a very civilised, friendly
> and cultured country.
> But the example of Emmen depresses me, because it is
> democracy gone sour, a way to express prejudice, and
> punish innocent people. But because in theory it is
> democracy, no one, it seems, wants to challenge it.
> "People would vote the same way in your country if
> they could," said one Swiss friend.
> I am sure many would, but they do not have the right
> to, and quite frankly after watching the ordeal of the
> Milovanovics I think I prefer a more limited
> democracy.
> The irony of the whole miserable Emmen episode is that
> if the Milovanovic family's application for
> citizenship is rejected, they will still live
> permanently in Switzerland, doing the same jobs, going
> to the same schools and visiting the same shops.
> But they will be doing it all in the knowledge that
> for some reason their neighbours did not think they
> were good enough to be Swiss, and worthy enough to
> vote alongside them.
>
>
>
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