By Jennie Matthew
COULD Cyprus really be tomorrow’s Switzerland?
Treated to snow and an equally frosty reception last week, UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan suggested joint referendums to settle the issue once and for all.
If the leaders agree to Annan’s proposal in The Hague tomorrow and the referendums do go ahead, it will be the first time in history that Cypriots determine their own destiny.
No more lambs to the slaughter at the hands of Crusaders, Turks or British colonialists. Foreign powers are, of course, the ones that have drafted the settlement plan, and they will be turning the thumbscrews to the very last twist, but, come March 30, it will be the Cypriot people who will decide. Redundant will be the posturing of the elected elite. All that is left is the voter, his conscience and the cross on his ballot paper.
In other words, democracy Swiss-style.
Diplomatic terminology may (or may not) sweeten the pill of communal division between Greek and Turkish Cypriots; but 200 years ago this formula tamed warring cantons into the most stable country modern Europe has ever seen.
So with a similar background of civil strife, there’s no more tempting country to whet the appetite for a United Cyprus Republic.
It’s the nation where German efficiency, Italian glamour and French reason reign hand-in-hand to make one of the richest economies on earth.
Land of chocolate and clocks; chalets and cheese; banking capital of the world; home of the Calvinist work ethic, Einstein and Rousseau, of artists such as Holbein and Klee.
The most efficient rail system in the world separates German, French and Italian cantons by minutes, yet their worlds are wholly separate, carved up by some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe.
Lugano could be Italy with its crazy drivers, balmy weather, piazzas and espressos; in Basel you can hear a pin drop in the streets as the Swiss Germans go quietly about their night out while Lausanne has all the elegant-French disdain for anything Germanic.
Protestants and Catholics are educated separately, shop at different shops, eat in different restaurants and vote for different parties.
So if the Italians, French and Germans can live together, why not the Greeks and Turks, whose mutual animosity has been no more fierce over the centuries?
But it would be naïve to think the Swiss model can be dressed up and unwrapped elsewhere.
Dig deep into Swiss culture and there are important lessons that Cyprus would do well to learn if the problem is ever to move forward.
And you can kick off with mythology.
The Swiss manufactured the legend of William Tell to embody freedom, resistance to attack and warn against the sin of defeatism.
It taught the Swiss the art of putting mutual dislike on the back burner for the sake of the common good.
Cyprus is stuck with Aphrodite. She might sell holidays, but she’s not Turkish. Neither does she inspire nation- building.
What’s more, the Swiss have learnt, with spectacular success, that commerce is preferable to war.
Conquerors from Napoleon to Hitler have ingratiated themselves to the cantons, in order to safeguard the gateway for overland trade from the Mediterranean into northern Europe.
And surely there would be no more fertile ground for the healing power of business than Cyprus.
Greeks and Turks can agree on a passion for making money. And like her Alpine cousin, Cyprus too lies at the heart of vital trade routes.
How much easier to transform a united island into the much-vaunted regional educational and medical centre, not to mention a crucial location for multinationals, on the clichéd crossroads of the EU, Africa and Asia.
Alternatively, with barbed wire separating the haves from the have-nots, the future could be less Switzerland and more smuggling hotspot.
But it’s no easy option for a country unused to popular democracy.
The Zurich agreements that gave birth to the 1960 Republic were never put to the popular vote. Since then, the island has lived through intercommunal violence, invasion and ethnic cleansing. The Denktash regime that rests on the might of the Turkish army is hardly conducive to political freedoms, and while the system in the free areas is now a well-oiled democracy, it works more through cosy back-room deals between professional politicians than the Swiss form of constant popular election.
Neither is there a vocal “third party” in Cyprus, so important in the 10 per cent Italian Swiss.
Without them it’s not difficult to imagine the two-thirds German majority forcing the French into independence or union with Paris.
It’s hard to see the much smaller Armenians and Maronites providing a similar anchor in Cyprus.
And would Cypriots, particularly Greek Cypriots, be satisfied with communal autonomy at the expense of federation, in the way that the canton is the Swiss man’s priority over the confederation? The dislocation of war and mass emigration have fuzzed the lines of district identity and focused attention on the national in a way unimaginable to the Swiss.
Neither does no-nonsense Swiss government marry well with the Mediterranean passion for showing off.
In Basel top executives take the tram to work (rolling out the Mercedes only when foreign clients come to town).
Neither would the monstrous villas that clutter both sides of the Green Line ever be found in Switzerland.
In a country that drips money from every crevice, wealth is hidden away, understated and elegant.
Swiss leaders, perhaps more than any others given the sensitive balancing-act between cantons, are famed for their objectivity and practicality.
By the Swiss rules of rotating the presidency among the members of the Bundersrat (their equivalent of the cabinet) failed Presidential candidate Alecos Markides would have had his chance years ago.
Would, say, Tassos Papadopoulos be prepared to hand over the reigns to Serdar Denktash after just 10 months at the head of the executive presidential council, as provided by the Annan plan?
Interestingly, Switzerland voted against EU membership, refusing to prostrate its sovereignty to the bureaucrats of Brussels. Yet for a post-settlement Cyprus, the EU will perhaps be more safety-net than suffocation. With considerable power lying elsewhere, there are few real decisions left to argue about.
If the referendums go ahead (and it’s still a big if) and if a ‘yes’ vote sweeps to victory on both sides of the divide, it will be one of the most staggering events since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, another step in the reunification of Europe.
But for the Swiss success to work in Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriots need to accept that their political and economic fate lies with each other; not with Greece, or Turkey, or even Brussels.
The question is, has that acceptance taken root?
Swiss democracy, unlike Britain’s Westminster model, is based on the maxim that the people can think and decide for themselves by regularly putting specific issues to the vote. How will Cypriots react faced with that opportunity? And will they be allowed to?
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
