Swiss National Day: a photo journal for August 1

I've been in Switzerland for only a few weeks now and, quite apart from the mass totality of daily impressions and new expressions, I've had just enough time to anticipate the Bundesfeiertag, Swiss National Day of August 1. How do the Swiss celebrate their country? What public displays and private sentiments are observable? Are Swiss like Germans? Americans? Neither nor? One thing about being in Zürich (and environs) is how evident history is; one can't help but notice the Middle Ages here, and ask questions about entire expanses of time that are here confronting you on the street. In Basel the Roman ruins of Kaiseraugst are not the slightest bit out of place from the farm land and towns surrounding them. The continuity makes these links through time seem fresh, and the uniqueness of Switzerland makes them conspicuous. It is nearly impossible to imagine Switzerland producing a writer like Patrick Modiano, writing sentences like “... I fear that, as in all suburbs, houses and streets will have changed beyond recognition,” as Switzerland has a claim to an extraordinary record of uninterruptedness, and growth of the very slow sort. Such self-assured stability could lead to any number of expressions of national identity. National days can bend towards pride and prejudice, or p.c. pomp, or shoulder-shrugging barbecues. What dominates in Switzerland in 2015, to a new set of eyes?

We decided to leave Zürich and followed a tip to have brunch on a farm in a tent – a great tip, as the ride was short (from Zürich to Aargau, the neighboring canton), the weather was damp, and the tone was familial. The rail links in this country are extraordinary. It took about 30 minutes to travel about 50 kilometers on a holiday, with trains leaving every half an hour. We made an early start. The meal, in a town near Aarau called Distelberg, was expensive – 28 Franks for access to the food, which was simple and fine: Rösti und Spiegeleier, sliced meats, Müesli, and terrific cheeses. Milk came with a strainer, straight from the neighboring farm. A band of old men played soft folk music. The farm had elaborate, expensive machinery for tasks like churning manure.

With a few minutes to spare until the next excellent rail link – from Aarau to Bern – we walked briefly through old Aarau. It's a city with roughly 20,000 people and its own S-Bahn line. (Aargau Canton has a comparable GDP to Ho Chi Minh City, so why not.) For a city with no historical Zünfte (guilds), the main stretch of Aarau was bürgerlich-resplendent. Through it ran a covered canal, open here and there for a view of the civil engineering, a lovely statement. In a local bookstore we saw a 400-some-odd page book on the said Stadtbach, though it was hard to tell if all 400 pages relate to the canal itself or whether the book uses the canal as a story-telling mechanism to show the history of the city and area. Either way, Germanic thoroughness indeed.

The main street through Aarau, with the Stadtbach in the center

From Aarau to Bern. 84 kilometers in 45 minutes. Going to Bern on the First of August is really not the same as going to the National Mall on the Fourth of July. The scale of little Switzerland would appear to be the first reason for this – Bern is a city of only about 130,000 inhabitants, whereas Washington, D.C. boasts closer to 600,000. The other decisive difference between Switzerland and other countries is how sharply its federalism tilts away from the central and towards the local, cantonal. August 1 is in fact the only national holiday of pan-Switzerland – all other official holidays are set at the cantonal level. I suppose this will mean I won't get both Protestant and Catholic holy days off of work, as would otherwise be necessary. Oh well. Schaffe schaffe Häusle baue, as kindred spirit Swabians might say.

I was warned by a close Swiss friend that Bern had a lovely old town, and I at first wondered if her idea of 'lovely' matched my own, whether it was a disguised description of staid and static kitsch. Bern is, at least for those who have the great luck of visiting it for the first time on August 1, the very definition of lovely. I was reminded that Hanoi has its own shade of ochre for all government buildings. Paris has its exquisite ash-gray. D.C. has kitchen-sink brutalism, Berlin graffiti. To the list must be added Bern, where a tint of deep, lithic green covers each and every edifice, an effect of the area's sandstone (the Aare river running through has its own marvelous turquoise). In the misty gray of an August day such the one that received us, the buildings have the essence of a vigorous old man in a sturdy hunter's coat. The Jura Mountains skirt the city. The roofs are all the same, tiled. Chimneys. Instead of Zürich's watches, the stores sell more modest wares. The central avenue of the old city's peninsula is a single, long, wide cobbled streetcar route, with arcades on either side. On the holiday, with little open, and people spilling into the wet street, it was pure joy to deeply breathe.

Bern opens its national parliament, the Bundeshaus (built in 1902), to the public on August 1. The Verband Schweizerischer Schokoladefabrikanten (Chocosuisse) gives away Lindt and Toblerone in a reverent hand-over to those who queued. We did, and entered the terrific halls of the two houses of parliament, the lower Nationalrat and the upper Ständerat. The lower house a massive painting of a mountain valley and a perfect blue lake (the Urnersee) as its centerpiece, the clouds twisting to reveal a nameless peace-goddess of suspended nephological majesty. Even the artist of this painting couldn't keep a straight face: I read that he snuck in a fish to his painting as an inside joke. In the upper house, we chanced upon a bagpipe concert, and another central painting, this one of greater finesse – a cast of characters of Swiss direct democracy. We read that the deliberations of the upper house are only in French and German, and without translation; each member must be adept at both. The German-language copy of the constitution we passed came with a Petit Robert, a Langenscheidt German-French dictionary, and a similarly huge Italian one. The multilingualism of Switzerland is as impressive as its mountains.

The Bundesplatz in front of parliament in Bern on August 1

The Nationalrat or lower house of Swiss parliament, with the painting "Die Wiege der Eidgenossenschaft" (the cradle of the confederacy) by Charles Giron in the background.

The Ständerat or upper house of Swiss parliament on August 1, with a bagpipe troupe from French-Switzerland

Looking down on Bundesplatz

A copy of the Swiss constitution, with three dictionaries at the ready.

A gift of the Vietnamese government from Hanoi to the Swiss government.

A gift of the Swiss Viet Kieu community to the Swiss government.

The chamber of the president of the Swiss national council.

From the parliament we watched the elaborate clock tower (Zytglogge) change hours, with a cock's crow that warns of mortality and a jester who mocks it. We passed Einstein's residence, where he lived for the two most densely productive years of his imagination. It is fun to think about Einstein's having had singular insights into the nature of time while living steps away from a grandly bizarre medieval clock. We were on our way to vespers at the Berner Münster cathedral, the tallest cathedral in the country. I'd never been to a vespers service before and can only smile contentedly at the serendipity of this one.

The Zytglogge seen during the Lampionenumzug

"In diesem Hause schuf Albert Einstein in den Jahren 1903-1905 seine grundlegende Abhandlung über die Relativitätstheorie."

The entrance to Fraumünster cathedral in Bern.

The pastor of this Swiss Reformed church, a kind-faced man with the deliriously Swiss-German name of Beat Allemand, having read from Paul's Epistle to the Philippians about putting others before yourself, spoke of humility and modesty (Demut), and stated that August 2 is a better date for him than August 1 for its lack of bold and boastful ritual, and that the very act of speaking of humility in our age goes against the grain. We live, he said, in an era of self-fulfillment and self-actualization. The self is at the center. “Ein Nebeneinanderleben, aber kein Zusammenleben,” as Dürrenmatt said, in a different context. The word 'humility' has a connotation of servility and degradation, he argued, and is of course linked with 'humiliation'. His message, neither scornful nor naïve, brought the reading of Paul to the current day: just as Jesus washed the feet of others, we in 2015 should not boast of our greatness but should instead seek to use our strengths to help others. In the setting of the Swiss capital city, in the center of a Europe aiming to settle 40,000 refugees and only managing 33,000, and with Greece teetering, these were powerful words. You don't need to believe in God to find meaning in a church.

The words and notes we sang, written less than 50 years ago, were so crisp and genuine, so elegantly of a piece with the reading and the sermon, that I am compelled here to quote them entirely (the translation is mine):

Hilf, Herr meines Lebens, dass ich nicht vergebens hier auf Erden bin.

Hilf, Herr meiner Tage, dass ich nie zur Plage meinem Nächsten bin.

Hilf, Herr meiner Stunden, dass ich nicht gebunden an mich selber bin.

Hilf, Herr meiner Seele, dass ich niemals fehle, wo ich nötig bin.

Hilf, Herr meines Lebens, dass ich nicht vergebens hier auf Erden bin.

Help, Lord of my life, that I am not on earth in vain.

Help, Lord of my days, that I may never be a burden on my neighbor.

Help, Lord of my hours, that I am not stuck in myself.

Help, Lord of my soul, that I am never missing where I am needed.

Help, Lord of my life, that I am not on earth in vain.

It was drizzling gently. We played Nine Men's Morris in the park next to the cathedral, walked on a suspended rope set out for the holiday, overlooked the river, toured the fortifications, and found dinner in a Tibetan restaurant with a very kind waiter. He was not young, was flustered and stretched thin, a long day for diners and staff alike. He took too much time to do simple things, like pour a proper Pils, and was oblivious to important ones like bringing the check. He made us check his math twice. He thanked us in the end for our Wagnis, our having ventured, eating Tibetan food! We'd had a perfectly bland noodle and beef soup. Any impatience, any eye-rolling against the disarray of the restaurant, withered at his kindness. It was the rare sort of day when you are quiet and bright-eyed and where a steady, persistent energy comes pouring out of you at moments that make you feel sound and good.

It was dark and fully raining after dinner, and we wanted to catch a lantern procession with children carrying candles for a charity, not knowing if it would even be held in the dour weather. We asked and indeed found it, being led through the rain by a Swiss military band playing Sousa-like music and nearly outnumbering the children with lanterns. The German tradition of honoring St. Martin's goodness towards a beggar, with children singing and lighting up the streets, is a treasure. And here of all places, on the Swiss National Day, were children with lanterns. We watched for the minute it took them to pass. And with the width of the street, the rain and the dusk, and the sentiment of the hour, my husband and I looked at each other and silently joined the procession. A New Orleans second line, umbrellas and all, in the silent fervor of Bern. By the time the band entered the city tent, they'd already struck up “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

We entered the small tent, filled with maybe 300 souls, and enjoyed the rest of the music, actual Sousa tunes and some more continental marches. It crested at the Swiss national anthem, lyrics to which we had been given by a volunteer while standing in line hours earlier at the parliament. We sang along. Trittst im Morgenrot daher. The second verse was the most fitting:

Kommst im Augenglühn daher,

Find'ich dich im Sternenheer

Dich, du Menschenfreundlicher, Liebender!

The people really were friendly, there was a goodness in the air, I can't describe it. For the first time in a long time I felt in equal measure light-hearted and sincere. Heiter.

There followed what must be the first political speech, the first address by an elected official, that I've ever actually seen. IRL. From movies we know the mayor waving in the parade, from Munich we know O'zapft is!, from Huey P. Long we know about soapboxes and stump speeches, and the risk of empty demagoguery all of these entail. How paltry the democracy in Louisiana that its own son had never been spoken to directly by his own representatives! And that in a country where leading presidential candidates à la Hillary Clinton speak to “focus groups” with pre-screened decoys instead of mere citizens. How real and direct in comparison this Swiss democracy felt, a literally civil society hearing over beer and ambiance the words of the president of its city council!

The speaker was Claude Grosjean, Stadtratspräsident for 2015 (it appears that Bern, like Switzerland as a whole, rotates key offices for one-year terms in order to share power and build consensus). A younger politician, t-shirt and suit, he spoke at a laughably fast clip – a smart decision if you consider that he was addressing beer drinkers at 10 at night on their sole national holiday with a ten-minute political Plädoyer. The Fourth of July equivalent – Mitch Landrieu in Jackson Square, say, sharing his political vision for the American South – is a bit arduous to even imagine. Grojean's delivery was nevertheless clear, and the crowd indeed listened. His rhetoric was as elegant as the pastor's had been at vespers, albeit with more pride (English 'pride'; not the deadly sin of Hochmut). In essence, he argued that Switzerland must be both selbstbewusst and weltoffen – self-assured and open to the world. For Grosjean, these two traits go hand in hand. A country that is sure of itself and confident enough to take bold stances need not fear the rest of the world. And a country that works in concert with Europe and the world will be stronger at home by virtue of that work. Whatever happens in other places will affect what comes to pass in Switzerland – this is unavoidable in the globe of 2015 – and accepting this will enable Switzerland to meet the challenges of the future – global warming and population growth among them – head-on.

The applause was sincere but polite, neither heckling nor cheering. I introduced myself to Mr. Grosjean and told him that as a German-speaking American living in Switzerland I was a little unsure what to expect for its National Day. I told him that after a day like the one I'd had in Bern, I was more excited than ever to get to know Switzerland and Swiss people. As if I needed another feather in my cap, he told me my German was better than his (Swiss Germans don't always feel fully at home in Standard German, it seems), and thanked me for coming. I'm not used to politicians who plead for something in their speeches but who listen sincerely and without agenda when speaking eye-to-eye. Yet here I was talking to one.

Inside the Bern Münsterplatz tent on August 1.

The speech by Claude Grosjean of the Green Liberal Party.

We took a late train from Bern back to Zürich – an hour. Zürich had a different atmosphere than Bern when we arrived at midnight – younger, far more open spaces, dressed in fashion, the fireworks all do-it-yourself in this deeply decentralized country. In the wet weather the wan shades of the gunpowder shone through. From the Seefeldquai, where we saw our first Swiss disorder of revellers, spent fireworks strewn in the streets, we walked the four minutes home and settled in. Too animated after this tri-cantonal Swiss rail adventure, we took out our free Lindt bar from Chocosuisse, opened the housewarming Cremant d'Alsace waiting in the fridge, and played Jass until well into the morning. Eager to start our new curious lives.