August 1: why I love my country
Opinion
Posted today at 10:55 p.m.
MAGALI GIRARDIN
Geneva, July 25
Monday, August 1, 2022, throughout Switzerland, our various political authorities will compel themselves, according to their sensitivity, to discuss their vision of our homeland. A delicate task at a time when for some it is fashionable to privilege “the duty of memory”, disregarding the constant duty, in democracy, of lucidity on the state of the latter.
How to celebrate this Switzerland, if not by simply letting your heart speak. This is why I say that I love my country not only because God made it beautiful; there are many other equally beautiful lands elsewhere. I love my country not only because it is democratic; there are still other democracies. I love my country not only because the essential freedoms are guaranteed to us there; this is also true elsewhere. I love my country not only because there are many people in this country who can freely develop mutual respect and a feeling of freedom.
No, it is not only for all these priceless benefits that I love my country, but because if everything is not perfect there are still possibilities of improving its lot without giving in to totalitarianism of any kind; because there are still a lot of people here who know very well that when you walk with the current, it goes faster but it’s always downhill; because there are citizens in this Switzerland who dare to go against the tide and can say publicly what they consider to be fair, true and beneficial for this country.
I love this country because I believe that it is only in appearance that the greatest number seem to want to enjoy everything and immediately, to claim more rights than duties. Duties in freedom from which we all benefit, isn’t this what those who are ideologically, religiously and economically under guardianship would wish for in the world?
Wouldn’t they like to shout, all these oppressed. Cheerfully and clearly, as befits a free man: “I love my Country.”
Jacques Hammerli
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