Should the world blame the Swiss?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 6, 1997 | by David Wagner

Some of the guest speakers favored increasing the number of signatures required for national initiative and referenda -- but they aren't holding dinner waiting for this to happen, as any federal statute making such a change would be subject to a referendum.

"That's another source of the international left's irritation at Switzerland," says the conservative American Europe-watcher quoted earlier. "They are an important country on the international scene, yet they steer clear of international institutions in which the left tends to be influential."

The oath fellowship of the mountains is dazed and confused these days by its sudden descent in the American mind from hot-chocolate sainthood to war criminal. But if the former image was exaggerated, so is the latter The fervent hope of the Swiss leaders Insight met with was that Americans soon may realize that most of us neither are heroes nor reprobates, and that relations between two nations with such similar institutions can soon return to their centuries-old pattern of friendship.