Dirty Swiss Secrets

Painful Memories – Lost in a Haze, photo: Ben/flickr

Only a couple of days ago, on 10 September 2010, Switzerland’s justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf issued an official apology on behalf of the Swiss government to thousands of her fellow citizens, as the small Alpine republic was once again shaken by a confrontation with its not so distant, not so clean past.

The reason for the admission of guilt was the long-awaited acknowledgment of government atrocities committed between 1942 and 1981, when thousands of men and women across the country were imprisoned without trial, in line with a policy then called ‘administrative detention’. This procedure was aimed primarily at young men and women, usually teenagers, who were judged by their parents and/or communities to be socially ‘difficult’. Official reasons for the incarceration often included ‘depraved lifestyle’, ‘licentiousness’ or ‘alcoholism’.

Many cases involved unmarried girls who got pregnant, and were then shunned by their embarrassed families only to end up being forced to give up their babies for adoption. Some young women – deemed to have ‘loose morals’ – were even forcibly sterilized by command of the authorities.

At the same time, thousands of young men, most of them unskilled day laborers, were imprisoned and forced to work without pay. All these men, women and children had, however, never committed a crime and had therefore also never faced trial. They never had access to any form of legal support and were never given the possibility to appeal. They were completely innocent – even according to the laws of the day.

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She’s Made It. Follow Her!

Simonetta Sommaruga, the latest woman to join the Federal Council, courtesy of Simonetta Sommaruga

What do Rwanda, Sweden, Argentina and Finland have in common?

They are the world champions of women in politics. Women make up more than 40 percent of each country’s parliament. Switzerland just joined the club of the women-friendly elite on Wednesday. The Federal president, as well as the speakers of both legislative chambers, are women, and now the Federal Council, the executive organ of the government, has four women among its seven members.

Women’s strong showing in the Swiss executive branch is surprising for several reasons. First, it stands in sharp contrast to women’s representation in the legislature: there, women do not even reach the 30 percent mark –  28.5 percent of parliament members are women, while in the executive, they represent 60 percent.

Second, women only gained the right to vote in 1971. Yes, 1971. The country of humanitarian law and human rights allowed women to vote 51 years after Azerbaijan, 40 years after Sri Lanka and nine years after Afghanistan.

I congratulate members of the Swiss parliament for having elected another woman to the Federal Council to help ameliorate the shame that had made Switzerland look like an undemocratic country.

It can only encourage other countries that have only recently instituted women’s suffrage to believe that rapid progress really is possible.

On the same topic: Check out our recent Special Report “Closing the Gender Gap.”

Labour and Its Fraternal Struggle

David and Ed Miliband: rivals for power, photos: Downing Street/ Department of Energy and Climate Change, both flickr

Most of us know a bit about sibling rivalry. Of course politics has never needed the familial part to inspire rampant competition and skullduggery. Nonetheless a number of siblings have managed to coexist while holding political office, John and Bobby Kennedy spring to mind along with the more recent Kaczynski twins in Poland. Few, though, have ever had to run against each other for their party’s top job.

For that challenge just ask David and Ed Miliband, the brothers whose participation in the British Labour party’s leadership election has consumed media coverage in a race with apparently few other marketable qualities. All we know for sure, or so the pundits would have you believe, is that the new leader will be a Miliband. The all important forename will be announced this Saturday 25 September when the campaign draws to a close.

It is perhaps unsurprising that, in a campaign that was meant to be about long-term goals and principles, much of the debate has descended into a reassessment of New Labour after its 13 years in power and recent electoral humbling. The Milibands have given their own variations on the past with ex-Foreign Secretary David (in some quarters known as the ‘heir to Blair’) taking a predictably more centrist position on the issues. For his part, Ed as the former Climate Change Secretary has carved out a position on the left of the field, despite his close links to former PM Gordon Brown, and set out plans that resonate with more traditional Labour voters.

Despite the inevitable focus on Labour’s economic stewardship, it is in international affairs and the perceived loss of moral authority where the party’s malaise poses the greatest challenge – both for the new leader and for the cause of balanced political debate.

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Brazil Votes

vote sign on sidewalk
Brazilians go to the polls on 3 October to elect a new president, photo: Theresa Thompson/flickr

On 3 October, Brazilians will go to the polls to elect a new president and parliament. This weeks the ISN examines what impact the elections will have on the country’s growing regional, and increasingly global, reach – and how a new president can emerge from the long shadow of Lula da Silva’s popularity to built a legacy all her own.

This ISN Special Report contains the following content:

  • An Analysis by Eliot Brockner about how the next president can begin to fill Lula da Silva’s ‘big shoes’.
  • A Podcast interview with Paulo Sotero Marques about Lula da Silva’s domestic and foreign policy legacy.
  • Security Watch articles covering the spectrum of Brazil’s regional and international relations.
  • Publications housed in our Digital Library, including a monograph from the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College on the ‘Dilemma of Brazilian Grand Strategy’.
  • Primary Resources, like the full-text of the May 2010 joint declaration by Iran, Turkey and Brazil on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  • Links to relevant websites, such as the Washington, DC-based Center for Public Integrity’s website that presents the results of an investigative journalism project on the climate change lobby in eight countries, including Brazil.
  • Our IR Directory, featuring Brazil’s Ministry of External Relations.
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Keyword in Focus

Keyword in Focus: Millennium Development Goals

If there is a keyword that best summarizes this week’s international agenda it’s this: UN Millennium Development Goals. Ten years into the third millennium and five years before the goals need to be attained, at the occasion of the UN summit taking place in New York today and tomorrow, political leaders, activists, journalists and academics discuss what has already been achieved and what still needs to be done.

What are we talking about? The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of eight goals, with several concrete targets each, to which all 192 UN member states as well as dozens of international organizations committed in 2000:

The eight Millennium Development Goals
Image: courtesy of UNDP

The situation regarding the goals doesn’t look as bleak as some like to imply. But it doesn’t look too good either.

For a more nuanced evaluation, check our our Digital Library, where some or our partners from the north, south, east and west have published excellent reports, analyses and commentaries on 10 years of MDGs. Under the keyword UN Millennium Development Goals you will also find primary resources, such as the UN Millennium Declaration from 2000, organizations that deal with the MDGs, links and ISN news articles.

The fact that we still talk about the MDGs is, in my view, a surprising success for the UN leadership. It shows the UN’s agenda setting power. On the other hand, I’m still skeptical whether we’re not missing something by focusing on these eight development goals. And there is an inherent problem in the goals as with all output-oriented performance evaluation: You only measure what’s measurable and human well-being is notoriously difficult to measure.