April 9, 2007: 5th Bernese Easter March for Peace

Hello again

The weather turned gorgeous a few days ago and continues in this vein. Today I'd like to share some visual impressions of last Monday's Easter March for Peace, the fifth of its kind in Berne, and now the only such demo for Peace in Switzerland.

As you will see, it was a motley crowd -- some 500 old and young and very young people came together upriver of Berne, at the lovely Eichholz grounds.

Two young musicians -- a drummer and a saxophonist -- provided musical entertainment while the crowd waited patiently for everyone to arrive and a short introductory speech to begin.
We walked along the Aare river ...
She carried a Peace Dove on her backpack and held aloft the double Peace flag in Hebrew and Arabic.
The lady on the left wore a very stylish Palestinian scarf, and also carried the double Peace flag.

I have a feeling that a lot of Swiss are rooting for the Palestinian and Israeli people to get together and work out a truly viable peace between their two countries. Most western politicians have proven to be absolutely inadequate to the task.
The very first cherry blossoms! Wood anemones and other lovely flowering shrubs were an added delight along the walk.
The route along the river runs below the 1960s-built road bridge (Monbijoubrücke) that flings itself across the Marzili ...
... through the Marzili with its romantic bow bridge across the duck pond ...
... and on ...
... up the hill ...
... past a crate full of road builders' tools of the more primitive sort ...
... across Kirchenfeldbrücke and into the Medieval part of the city. One of the slogans was "Frieden heisst genug für alle" -- "Peace means a sufficiency for everyone". Sounds simple, really!
PACE, Peace, Shalom, Salaam!
If only it was always so easy to unite nationalities...

We ended up on Berne's cathedral square, aka Münsterplatz ...
... where some info and refreshment stalls awaited us.
This original bird cage -- its door open -- called for Peace Doves rather than soldiers!
We listened to some speeches by journalists, peace workers and people opposed to the Swiss weapons industry, which is Europe's biggest supplier of small arms.

Let me quote Arnold Hottinger, ca. 83, a much-admired (radio) journalist and specialist on the Middle East,*) who said during his address on Monday: "The Swiss government defines neutrality to mean that we can supply weapons to both sides equally." Our foreign minister, Ms Micheline Calmy-Rey, would disagree. But she's been getting a hard time from her colleagues.

Ever the optimist, I'd like to end on a humorous note. Among the cobblestones on Münsterplatz I found this fragment of a smiley button:
PEACE and happiness to you all!


*) http://www.nybooks.com/authors/4188 has three very perspicacious essays by Arnold Hottinger on the Middle East. They date from the 1980s but still contain extremely valid analyses. Well worth a visit and a read!
Another taste of Arnold Hottinger's analyses can be found at http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/index.html -- just type "Arnold Hottinger" into the search field. You will find an article entitled "Expert says no need for Swiss to fear Muslims" (November 24, 2006), and a few more.