Re: CHAT: Nov 11th

>>The one European country that escaped the vicissitudes of war this century
>>is Switzerland, which has four official languages.  The peoples of that
>>country seem to get along fine with feeling any urge to slaughter one
>>another.
>
I read somewhere that, at some point in its history, Switzerland _did_ have
a civil war, but not many people know this.  In the same place, I read that,
in the 1970's, Switzerland created a new Francophone canton to appease the
demands of  Francophone Swiss terrorists.  But the problem there was not
misunderstanding, or lack of a common second language, but, rather, the
presence of different first languages.   If history shows us anything, it is
that multi-linguistic or multi-cultural states are inherently fragile--eg,
Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia.  On
the other hand, Japan and Iceland will probably be around, if not forever,
at least until the next ice age makes them uninhabitable.

I believe the reason for Helvetia's (Switzerland's) policy of neutrality has
been to prevent itself from being torn apart by civil war in the event of
war between two or more of its larger neighbors--Germany, France, and Italy.
In that case, some of its citizens would probably side with one power (the
one it shared a common tongue with) and some with its enemy.  I wonder, too,
how different the 20th century might have been if the mother tongue of the
USA had been, say, German rather than English.  Just a thought.  ~alypius