Swiss Review 2/2020

Swiss Review / April 2020 / No.2 31 Climate activists celebrate “historic” judgement January saw the acquittal of 12 climate activists at Renens district court (canton of Vaud). The activists stormed a Lau- sanne branch of banking giant Credit Suisse (CS) inNovem- ber 2018.Wearingwhites andwigs, the group staged amock tennis match inside the branch to highlight CS’s “hypoc- risy” in using Roger Federer’s squeaky-clean image for their advertising campaign while investing in environmentally damaging fossil fuels. In court, the judge rejected CS’s charge of trespass, concluding that the activists had been acting on grounds of “justifiable emergency”. He said that their behaviour had been “necessary and appropriate” in view of the impending climate catastrophe, and that there had been no other way for themto elicit a reaction fromthe bank. The activists’ lawyers called it a “historic verdict in Swiss case law”. (MUL) Large bank Credit Suisse in turmoil Swiss large bank Credit Suisse (CS) has been rocked by boardroomturmoil. CEOTidjane Thiamresigned on 14 Feb- ruary 2020 after Swiss media reports had revealed that CS had spied on its own senior executives. Thiam said that he had been unaware of the surveillance. (MUL) The “father of the solar sail” dies Johannes Geis, the University of Berne physics professor who developed an experimental device designed to collect solar wind on the moon (see “Swiss Review” 3/2019), has died. Geis’s foil contraption was used on the first success- ful moon landing. The “spiritual father of the solar wind sail” passed away at the end of January aged 93. Through his research efforts, Professor Geis helped to bring interna- tional renown to Swiss space science. He also played a sig- nificant role in the European Space Agency scientific pro- gramme. (MUL) President of the Swiss Confederation meets Holocaust survivors Ahead of the 75 th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga (see also page 12) met Holocaust survivors who live in Switzerland. President Sommaruga also in- vited history students to this meeting, remarking that one of the aims of doing so was to ensure that this “dark chap- ter in Swiss history” was never forgotten. (MUL) Sibylle Berg Top Pick News First her novel, “GRM.Brainfuck”, scooped the 2019 Swiss book award. Then she won Switzerland’s top literary prize, the Swiss Grand Prix Literature. Author Sibylle Berg has finallymade it inher adopted home country. She is clearly delighted, as she explained in an interview: “What is nice is that, after 24 years, the public are starting to seeme as I have long seen myself, that is, as a Swiss author”. Sibylle Berg was born in 1962 inWeimar. After emigrating to theWest in 1984, the first thing she did was travel to Ascona to attend a course at the Scuola Te- atroDimitri theatre conservatory. She then studied the disparate sub- jects of oceanography and political science in Hamburg, before re- turning to Switzerland in the mid-1990s, settling there for good and eventually becoming a Swiss citizen. Her first work, “Ein paar Leute suchen das Glück und lachen sich tot” (A few people search for hap- piness and laugh themselves to death), was an instant hit, laying the foundation for an internationally acclaimed literary career that cur- rently spans 15 novels and two dozen plays. Berg’s provocative style is one of the reasons for her success. She has been referred to as a “hell- raiser of the theatre” and the “hate preacher of the single society”. Her latest novel, “GRM.Brainfuck” (see page 30 for more details), under- scores this reputation but has a serious message too. It is an uncom- promising piece of writing and a furious indictment of contemporary society. “GRM.Brainfuck” explores our near-future, where segrega- tion between rich and poor is absolute and human endeavour has be- come worthless. It makes for extremely uncomfortable reading, but is a vision of what may happen one day. BEAT MAZENAUER