Images of America
Contribution to the panel discussion, International Writing Program
Iowa City, 11/11/98
Paradise
For my ancestors, America was the Promised Land. They left our
poor mountain valley for good in search of a better life. They
left the unhealthy and overcrowded factories and the shabby farms
to settle in the wide plains under the bright sky of the Wild
West. Many members of my own family were among the emigrants and
wherever you open a phone book in the United States there’s a
chance you find my family name.
I live in the Glarus valley in Switzerland. Settlers from Glarus
founded a town in Wisconsin in 1845 called New Glarus. The community
of New Glarus still keeps alive the traditions of yodeling, alpenhorn
blowing, Swiss sausages and pastry. And every Labor Day weekend
the entire population is involved in playing Schiller’s drama
«William Tell». In summertime citizens of New Glarus as well as
many other US tourists visit the Glarus valley in Switzerland
in search of their roots.
Roots
The root of the relation of our two countries is the emigration
due to the poverty following the early industrialization of Switzerland.
Emigration to the United States is the topic of many novels of
Swiss writers, among them Juerg Federspiel’s «Ballad of Typhoid
Mary» or Eveline Hasler’s «Ibicaba». Her famous novel is subtitled
«The Paradise in their Heads». That means: The emigrants set off
with the image of the Paradise in their heads. Maybe a few of
them reached it, but quite a few died of disease and starvation
before getting off the ship in New York’s Ellis Island. Some of
them built their own Paradise like the Amish settlers in Iowa,
many of them of Swiss origin, who live still nowadays with horses
and buggies and religious sermons in German language.
The relation between our countries is a one way road. Only a few
of the emigrants ever turned back. The Promised Land swallowed
a part of our culture, mingled it with other cultures to the universal
cake called the American Way of Life. It’s something new, but
many ingredients, like Puritanism, individualism and punctuality
have their origins in our own culture. Do hard work, fear God
and save money is the way on which the Puritan pastors lead their
herd. For them America «was to be heaven itself» – as Joseph Roth
writes in his novel «American Pastoral». The myth of the dishwasher
becoming a millionaire on the other side of the Atlantic is still
alive today, incarnated by winners like Microsoft’s Bill Gates
or Intel’s Andrew Grove, a Hungarian emigrant.
Fritz Zwicky, a great scientist and in the fifties director of
the Pasadena space labs, was an emigrant from my Glarus valley.
One of his books is entitled: «Everybody is a genius.»
The Myth
That’s the American dream as we dream it. The dream of the poor
and powerless who triumphs over the rich and powerful with his
skills. It’s the subconscious dream of my country which in history
has always been surrounded and threatened by much bigger and powerful
nations: ancient Rome, the Austrian monarchy, the great nation
of France and, of course, Germany. Today we are surrounded by
the European Union which we didn’t join. The expression of this
feeling is our national myth, the myth of the simple mountain
peasant who kills the bailiff, the executor of power. It’s the
myth of William Tell. Many foreigners believe that William Tell
was a historic figure but it’s far from being true. William Tell
is a literary character, set on stage by the German romantic writer
Friedrich Schiller. Perhaps Switzerland is the only country in
the world with a literary character as a national myth. Tell is
the romantic version of the biblical myth of David and Goliath.
David killed Goliath with the precise shot of a stone, Tell killed
the bailiff Gessler with the precise shot of an arrow.
The Change
A typical character in Swiss literature has always been the powerless
person, the weak one who stands against the powerful. Swiss literature
in general has always been on the side of the powerless and has
confronted the abuse of big power. And therefore the Image of
America among the writers and intellectuals changed in the sixties
and seventies when the US rose to be the biggest power in the
world and the Vietnam war was going on.
In the Vietcong movement we recognized a powerless nation fighting
for independence against the world’s heaviest war machinery. Rice
farmers on bicycles fighting tanks and bombers, that was like
Tells arrow against the bailiff Gessler. Yet Switzerland’s official
policy was in accord with US policy and therefore a gap opened
between political Switzerland and cultural Switzerland. The Swiss
government invited the US General Westmoreland to an official
visit while the most important writers signed manifestos against
the US bombings in Vietnam.
In the center of Zurich you can find a monument with am engraved
poem. It’s by Max Frisch, who was one of the greatest Swiss writers
of this century. The poem ends with the stanza:
This stone
which is silent
was erected during the time
of the war in
VIETNAM
The monument is the symbol of a dramatic change of the Image of
America among Swiss intellectuals.
Literary Love
On the other hand, Max Frisch was also a great friend of America.
He lived for many years in New York and many of his novels are
set in the USA, e.g. «Montauk», an autobiographical novel set
in Montauk on Long Island. It’s a love story between the elderly
writer and a young American woman. Despite being critical against
US power policy for the Swiss cultural elite America still remained
a main destination, a way out of the narrow mountain valleys and
the small country. And recently many of the younger writers have
set novels in the USA, especially in New York.
E.g. Daniel de Roulet, a former computer scientist who lived for
many years in New York and writes fluently in English, French
and German. I consider his novel «The blue line» about a Swiss
leftist who recalls the major political events of the last 30
years while running the New York Marathon as one of the most interesting
works of modern Swiss literature discussing our Image of America.
One Way Road
For literature, as for the emigrants, the way between the US and
our country is a one way road. The first novel I ever heard about
was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s «Uncle Tom’s Cabin» which was read
out in Sunday school when I was 5. In elementary school we read
Tom Sawyer’s and Huckleberry Finns adventures on the Mississippi.
Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow,
Norman Mailer and John Updike became our great favorites. Most
of our writers read and speak English and have a profound knowledge
of the American literature. But only few books of Swiss writers
get translated and published in English. I don’t remember any
American novel set in Switzerland with the exception of Mark Twain’s
adventure on the Rigi mountain or the end of Hemingway’s «A Farewell
to Arms». In Philip Roth’s novel «American pastoral» I found a
few lines about a Swiss town called Zug. He writes Zug was a center
of Simmenthal cows, but that’s more than bullshit. Zug is a center
of electronics industry and multinational companies. But who cares?
We a small country, we are «quantity negligible» in the eyes of
the Americans who often mistake Switzerland for Sweden.
The Shock
During the last two years US politicians lead by New York’s Senator
Alfonse D’Amato suddenly discovered Switzerland, Swiss history
and especially the behavior of the Swiss Banks during World War
II, the gold trade of our National Bank with the Nazis, the sealing
of the Swiss borders against Jewish refugees, the collaboration
of the Swiss industry with the German war machinery. Swiss writers
had published many books about all these topics, but in the rest
of the world, especially in the US, only a few people read these
works. As long as Switzerland had been a reliable partner in the
cold war against the Soviet block, questioning the role of Switzerland
during World War II was almost like treason.
For the average Swiss, unaffected by intellectual and political
discussions, since the end of World War II America had been the
great friend on the other side of the Atlantic. I never forget
my father weeping when President Kennedy was killed. With the
drop of the Dollar the USA became also a major tourist destination.
For the ordinary Swiss banker the Dow Jones index was more interesting
than Swiss fiction and non-fiction. It was a shock for the average
Swiss when Senator D’Amato set off his campaign against Swiss
banks and government. The majority couldn’t understand why our
great friend and supporter in the cold war against communism suddenly
behaved like an enemy, demanding reparations for a war which hadn’t
been ours and discussing a boycott against Swiss banks, chocolate
and cheese. The average Swiss suddenly found himself in the role
of William Tell confronted with a fierce foreign power. The Image
of America dramatically changed in the head of the majority of
the Swiss. The expression «bashing the Swiss» was reported to
be in fashion in the US. Senator D’Amato became the incarnation
of bailiff Gessler, bashing poor William Tell. But finally D’Amato
was toppled.
The Mirror
But the enemy were not only Senator D’Amato and the American Jews.
The enemy who wanted to destroy the nation was also to be found
among the intellectuals and writers who had ever since the sixties
proved to be anti-governmental. It was badly received when the
Swiss writer and left wing politician Jean Ziegler was invited
to the D’Amato hearings in Washington while the Swiss government
decided to stay apart. Like him many other writers had a hard
time being suspected of siding with America. Some of them were
even blackmailed.
And so the Image of America among the Swiss has changed in history
many times. Sometimes it was heaven, sometimes the opposite. But
always it has been reflecting the relation between the big and
powerful and the small and weak. It was the mirror our national
myth, the drama of Gessler and Tell.