The Swiss have pretty much figured things out. Like the Great Wallendas, they learned how to walk a fine line. They are passionately dispassionate. They survived intact in a tough neighborhood. During two world wars in the 20th century, the Swiss went about their business, their buildings unbombed, their citizenry unharmed. Switzerland was the eye of the maelstrom that crept to its borders. Its doors were open to both sides, the epicenter for those wanting to trade with the enemy, where deals of all manner were consummated, where the fellow you passed in the street may have been in your sights the day before and where spies increased newspaper sales tenfold.

Switzerland is perhaps the most beautiful country in the world. It is home to high mountain pastures with quaint homes hanging precariously off the sides, to Lake Geneva and the Red Cross city that abuts its shore, to Lugano and the wondrous lake shared with Italy, to the beautiful capital of Berne, gateway to the greenness of Interlaken, to the majestic, snowcapped Matterhorn, to Zurich, unfairly known more for its finances than its good looks, sitting on its own lake and just a short drive from a charming section of the Rhine, a place where Roberto Clemente could throw out a runner trying to go home on the German side.

Surrounded by its natural defenses, the Alps and the Rhine, and its collected inhabitants, Switzerland is a difficult country to enter if you’re leading a military invasion or have plans to emigrate. The Swiss keep their borders open to visitors and commerce, closed to war and tightly screen those who want to stay too long. Switzerland is more national park than nation. You can camp but you can’t build. If you have something unique to offer, there is a small chance you can linger. If you’re name is Robinson, it’s easier to be Brooks than Frank.

The Swiss have never been joiners. They have shunned the exclusive clubs that other countries twist themselves out of shape to accompany. They contented themselves with observer status to the United Nations until 2002 when they finally decided, somewhat tepidly, to take a seat at the table. Though well within the borders of Europe, they are not members of the EU, having opted instead for a loose association. And while on occasion they have sent troops on peacekeeping missions where they walked side by side with NATO forces, they are not part of NATO. Surrounded on all sides by the evangelical Euro, they follow the gospel of their own Profit, Franc.

The Swiss are expert at getting along but with limits. Obligingly, they will speak to you in your own language. Each Swiss is born with two things; a numbered bank account, assigned at the moment of conception, and five languages, six if you count the yodel. These are five useful languages: two forms of German, French, Italian and English. Many Europeans speak multiple languages but the Swiss seem the most proficient and have decided on languages that give them range and understanding.

In contrast, Belgians speak at least two languages, but one of them, Phlegmish, is of little use outside of northern Belgium. The area, hence the language, came by its name in days before modern medicine when it was a center for the treatment of pulmonary diseases such as tuberculosis and asthma. Although Phlegmish is rarely heard outside of the region, it is easily identified by the deep, almost guttural throat clearing that precedes its deployment. As usual, the Swiss are more practical.

In addition to being born with the two aforementioned assets, the bank account and the multiple language thing, the Swiss come into the world with one more distinction. There are two doctors present at birth, an obstetrician obviously and what is lesser known, a proctologist. The former, like a pitching coach, is there to ensure a smooth delivery, while the latter’s role, and this is required under Swiss law, is to insert a suppository time clock up the little one’s arse. This guarantees that the Swiss are always prompt if somewhat uptight.

Being late is an unknown to the Swiss. They can’t grasp the concept nor even imagine it. To them it doesn’t exist. Lateness is as foreign to the Swiss as science to the Vatican, as compassion to the modern conservative.

The trains run on time, not to the minute but the second. Babies are delivered nine months to the day. If you have to yell “hold that cab” it’s gone. When you’re dead, you’re never referred to as the “late Johan Schmidt.” There are no such things as waiters, they’re servers. Appointments are to the minute so there is no need of waiting rooms.

It would follow then that the Swiss do not allow immigration from Latin America – and with good reason. The two sides cannot co-exist. The Swiss are scientists, the Latinos artists, and never their minds or souls shall meet. A 3:00 PM commitment to the Swiss is absolute. To Latinos it’s a rough guide, one of many possibilities and might just as easily be 3:00 PM the next day. Conversely, the Swiss can never travel to Latin America.

Latinos have many levels of lateness. “Ahora” or “now” could mean sometime that same day but might not. “Ahora mismo” or “right now” is merely a figure of speech. It’s meant to buoy your hopes, fool you into believing that someone will show up any minute. But the intent is not haste rather to stop you from asking. If a Swiss accidentally arrived in Latin America, one look at the lines and lack of urgency would cause him to catch the 3:00 PM to Zurich which is delayed until further notice.

Despite being fiercely neutral, the Swiss are no military pushovers. Swiss men have two weeks of compulsory military service each year from their 18th birthday until they turn 55 or reach an accumulated total of 300 days. There are redoubts built into the sides of the mountains from which military jets can take off and land and which hold enough provisions for the entire population of Switzerland to survive for six months. For centuries, the Swiss, ever nonaligned, always with an ear to the Profit Franc, hired themselves as mercenaries to the highest bidder. They could be sitting on your bench in the first half and looking at you from across the field in the second.

They were so good at what they did they were hired by the Vatican, rarely outbid, to protect the Pope. To this day, you can see them in their traditional garb and medieval pikes, marching ceremoniously slow, an appropriate symbol for their antiquated employer.

To paraphrase (or misquote) Orson Welles, the Germans with their long history of war, hegemony, destruction and death, produced Goethe, Beethoven and Wagner. Or maybe it was the constantly bickering, pre-Garibaldi Italians, from whence came Dante, Michelangelo, da Vinci and Rossini. Meanwhile the Swiss enjoyed relative peace and prosperity and produced the cuckoo clock. If art is born of tragedy and suffering, the Swiss have said to hell with it. We’ll look at your art and watch you bury your dead while we ski and count our money.

Of course there are famous Swiss. It can even be argued that Roger Federer is an artist, certainly one of the top male tennis players in the history of the sport. While not as well- placed historically, Martina Hingis, the Czech/Swiss Miss, relying on guile more than the strength that came to mark the game after her, dominated the ladies’ tour at the end of the 20th century.

Then there’s William Told, nee Tell, the Swiss Robin Hood, part-man, part legend. Ordered to shoot an apple off his son’s head using a crossbow, he split the apple in equal parts, then hunted down and killed the Austrian bad guy who had made him do it. Tell is the father of Swiss nationhood in the proud but understated Swiss way. They like William and his courage but they don’t clean themselves and get down on their knees five times a day to worship him. The Swiss know where to draw the line and it is well before fanaticism.

The Swiss have given us chard, crazy but precise clocks, army knives, chalets, cheese with sizeable parts missing, topless beaches with no parts missing, Ovaltine, huge, alcohol-bearing dogs, tax avoidance and the means to hide a country’s stolen wealth. They have protected with vigor the beauty which tectonic plates have bestowed. They are the world’s leading practitioners of pragmatism and equilibrium. They are a people of controlled passion and uninhibited rationality, less trusting of the senses, more of the mind.

So welcome to Switzerland. Come spend or hide your money, take in the sublimity, but like a good relative, don’t stay too long. And don’t expect anyone to be waiting for you.

Copyright © 2009 Paul Heno