Copy deadline! Everything’s ready for this edition. Almost everything: the deadline’s looming, but we still need a cover picture. It has to be something to do with farmers. Something about the emotional well-being of Swiss farmers, since they are the focus of this issue. They drove their big, imposing tractors through the streets during the spring in protest. You could tell they were hopping mad. So what shall we put on the cover? Angry Swiss tractor drivers at their admittedly very well-organised demonstrations? Or lush meadows and grazing cows? Or an agrarian theme: a tractor with a plough tracing a precise line through the field, with the Alpine mountain range as a backdrop? Or should we show farmers threatening to administer lethal injections? Perhaps the Alpine cattle drive with herds of cows adorned with flowers? Or an industrial pig-fattening farm? Our struggles to find the right picture are symptomatic. In Switzerland, we all see ourselves a little bit as farmers. We are also very familiar with the beautiful landscapes of picture postcard Switzerland. Some of us even have our own personal four-wheel-drive vehicles packed with horsepower, as though we had to be able to drop everything and drive out to the fields at any moment. At the same time, we no longer have a clear image of who Swiss farmers actually are. Or what exactly they do. They might be the public face of Switzerland, but there are no longer very many of them. Barely two per cent of Swiss people today live on a farm. Our Focus on page 4 investigates the current mood amongst farmers. We have made our decision: the “Review” cover will show a farm boy pushing determinedly to get a massive hay bale moving. On the one hand, it is a good illustration of the sheer hard work involved in farming. The picture also shows the extent to which the 98 percent of us who are not farmers romanticise the profession these days: we like to look at it that way, because it still reminds us a little of the way things once were. But today’s Swiss farmers no longer move their hay bales by hand. They drive powerful tractors. Through their fields. And sometimes, also – in protest – right through town. MARC LETTAU, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 4 Focus Swiss farmers feel powerless in spite of their strong lobby in parliament 9 News Controversy following the ECHR verdict: Climate Seniors are delighted, politicians are angry 11 Swiss Figures Runner Dominic Lobalu smashes a 40-year-old Swiss record 12 Culture Nemo wins the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest for Switzerland 14 Images The monastery village of Einsiedeln gripped by theatre fever – for a hundred years 18 Politics Voters resoundingly reject two proposals for Swiss healthcare policy 20 Housekeeping The big “Swiss Review” survey: tell us what you think. The “Swiss Review” is in celebratory mood: the magazine is 50! 25 Literature Robert de Traz created the legend of the Swiss Abroad 26 Report Campo (TI): a once-thriving spot has become a ghost town 33 From the Federal Palace The Swiss Guard exemplifies the relationship between the Vatican and Switzerland 35 Swiss Community News We, the farmers Cover photo: taken from the book “Landwirtschaft Schweiz”, 2014, published by AS-Verlag, by Zurich photographer Markus Bühler. “Swiss Review”, the information magazine for the “Fifth Switzerland”, is published by the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad. Swiss Review / July 2024 / No.4 3 Editorial Contents Photo: Keystone
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYwNzMx