Football unites Switzerland's cultural divisions

Switzerland face Chile on Monday afternoon in football’s World Cup in South Africa. The last time the teams clashed, in 2007, the Swiss defeated the South Americans 2-1.

Fans are still reveling following the surprise win over favourites Spain last week, a result which could help propel the Swiss to the second round of the tournament.

Regarded as an underdog in international football tournaments, the Swiss hope to emulate – or outdo – the success of the 1994 team, which, under English manager Roy Hodgson, who now looks after Fulham FC in London, made it to the last 16 of the cup.

Sports journalists interviewed in the Sunday press think the team might make the quarter-finals this year, while business leaders interviewed in the Sonntagszeitung heaped praise on the current manager, Ottmar Hitzfeld.

While some outsiders perceive Switzerland as a concoction of smaller countries, with different languages and historical ties, the World Cup is showing that the country can rally around the team in unity.

"I think it probably does unite it," said British professor Clive Church, author of The Politics and Government of Switzerland.

"They got terribly excited when their under 17 team won the world championship," added Church, who has just spent two months in Fribourg researching a new book.

Paolo Dardanelli, director of the Centre for Swiss Politics at the University of Kent, recently revised Muti-lingual but mono-national: exploring and explaining Switzerland’s exceptionalism – which explains the longstanding sense of Swiss nationhood that emerged even before the creation of a federal state in 1848.

Traffic stood still in some cities after the team beat Spain last week, and the sound of horns blaring from flag-clad cars might even have drowned out a vuvuzela – the 65 centimetre plastic horn sold at stadia across South Africa.

"I’ve never come across an argument that we can’t support a national team because there are too many French or too many Germans or too many Italians," said Church.

Football enables a country that prides itself on its neutrality to prove its national unity.

"People assume that neutrality negates nationalism," said Church. But "the Swiss are much more nationally minded than people believe."

A string of parliamentary votes endorsed – eventually – an agreement last week to share bank account data between Switzerland and the USA, in a move which some Swiss felt ran contrary to their sovereign power to preserve banking secrecy.

It shows that "when the chips are down the Swiss will vote pragmatically," said Church.

In other areas the Swiss continue to maintain the right to determine their own course of action without outside interference.

The vote last year banning new minaret construction flew in the face of international opinion, and bothered many open-minded Swiss at home, but the country nonetheless supported the result of the referendum.

Church is "deeply skeptical of the assumption of many people that Switzerland is about to break up".

In the Swiss People’s Party – the largest party in the Federal Assembly in Bern – voters have a national party, for which support is no longer focused only on the German-speaking areas of the country, said Church.

Further glory at the World Cup could benefit the perception of Switzerland amongst the international community.

Gunning for a sports team is certainly a more accepted way of promoting self-interest than the controversial policies deployed in Switzerland’s recent diplomatic spat with Libya.

European neighbours reprimanded Switzerland for its conduct during the Gadaffi-Göldi affair, which showed signs of abating last week when the Swiss engineer was released from prison and repatriated.

Italy reacted angrily to Bern’s decision to restrict access for certain Libyans to the Schengen border-free area.

Confederation President Doris Leuthard said recently that mending damaged relations with Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was her number one priority.

On other foreign policy issues opinion has been divided across the country. "If you look at the question whether Switzerland should join the European Union there is huge disagreement," said Daniele Ganser of the University of Basel.

"If you look at NATO . . . or what the government says we should do with our military . . . there is disagreement," said Ganser.

On international issues a rural-urban rift often produces opposing views, while the German-speaking part of Switzerland is more isolationist than Romande, according to Ganser.