March 7, 2014

The President at lunch - vive la différence!

Micheline Calmy-Rey (part 1)

It was a lunch and book launch.
Brother Jeff sent me an invitation to the Forum Suisse de Politique Internationale, a sort of lunch club with monthly speakers. 
The date was February 28th, and the speaker was Micheline Calmy-Rey - the twice former president of Switzerland. So I cancelled gym that day.
One of the things I love about Switzerland, and one of the reasons celebrities love it here (besides certain tax advantages), is the utter naturalness that the Swiss have around celebrity. 
People here do not gawk at stars, they are rarely sycophants. And there is seldom need for a (showy) security detail. 
The Swiss may be less reactive as well as less passionate than the French (generalization), but there is virtue in this restraint.
A president or ex-president can circulate without hoo-ha, do what protocol requires, but still be an ordinary citizen. The president is elected from the Conseil Fédéral, who rotate the presidency - a full term is just one year. Not enough time to acquire illusions or delusions of power. A president represents, but in no way runs the country as such. 
Calmy-Rey was was a conseillère on the Conseil Fédéral from 2003 to 2011, head of the department of foregin affairs,  and president of the Swiss Confederation in both 2007 and 2011.
What is interesting about Calmy-Rey is her active, vocal involvement in foreign affairs, at times controversial at home and abroad. Despite being a woman, Switzerland's second woman president--Ruth Dreyfuss was the first -  and a socialist, she successfully navigated the waters up in Berne. 
(More about her politics in part 2).

The US president is a form of elected royalty. Americans love inaugurations -- the quasi-regal grandeur and the huge publicity. We tend to congratulate ourselves on how (US) democracy is such a success, on the fact that our presidents are not dictators (no they are not) and that we've somehow re-validated America. We vote therefore we are.
Americans love or hate the president, often changing opinion over the four years (or more). We sustain the belief that a president can truly make a difference, and are passionate, driven and more than a tad unrealistic in our view of what a newly elected official can do.
The Swiss president may be a calm diplomat for a neutral country, or as was Micheline Calmy-Rey and outspoken diplomat with a world vision -- the rotating Swiss presidency is a fine institution. 


* La Suisse que je souhaite by Micheline Calmy Rey, Editions Favre S.A., Lausanne