The Greenfield Report with Henry R. Greenfield

Episode 34- Guns, No Drama: Switzerland’s Wild Plot Twist. Switzerland Part 3

• Henry R. Greenfield • Season 1 • Episode 34

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Doors left unlocked. Three national languages in daily use. Half the households owning long guns—and still, one of the lowest homicide rates in the developed world. We went to a small village in the Swiss Alps to understand how Switzerland turns this paradox into a durable way of life, and what the rest of us can learn from it.

We walk through the mechanics of direct democracy and why frequent local votes tie decisions to duties in a way that builds trust rather than fatigue. You’ll hear how unwritten norms—politeness, brevity, and firm boundaries—do more to prevent conflict than performative politics or heavy-handed policing. We compare Switzerland’s culture of responsibility with systems that centralize power or outsource safety to slogans, and we explore why a country comfortable with firearms still treats escalation as a social failure, not a right to be performed.

Along the way, we unpack the role of language diversity, community enforcement, and the Swiss habit of keeping national politics out of casual conversation. Education and healthcare emerge as pillars of reciprocity, while neutrality and finance are framed as context rather than causes. An on-the-ground anecdote captures the tone: clear lines, direct eye contact, and a commitment to help—minus the ideological theater. The takeaway is practical and hopeful: freedom paired with obligations, enforced locally and lived daily, can make a society both safe and genuinely free.

If this lens on safety, trust, and local power resonates, follow the show, share this episode with someone who loves civic ideas, and leave a quick review to tell us what your city could borrow from the Swiss model.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Greenfield Report with Henry R. Greenfield, your gateway to understanding today's geopolitical landscape. With 50 years of experience across 10 countries, Henry shares expert insights on world affairs, offering practical solutions and engaging guest perspectives. Dive into the Greenfield Report for lively discussions on the issues that matter.

SPEAKER_01:

This is Henry R. Greenfield reporting from Art, a small village in the Swiss Alps, with our third installment in our series of why is Switzerland the safest country in the world? And can anyone learn or take anything away from this small but amazing country that could be usable for the rest of us, seven other billion or more people around the world? As we kick this off with our tour and quest last week, we noted that the Swiss seem to have solved a multitude of issues that are bedeviling the rest of the world, bringing down governments and installing so-called populist regimes. Even in Europe, which remains quite safe, a number of countries have been swaying towards Viktor Orban, now the so-called Trumpian model of controlling the press, limiting rights, and expanding some rights, such as those relating to guns, and cutting benefits and payments to a wide variety of groups, especially immigrants. And of course, attacking your foes as non-patriotic and saying they are doing what in fact you are doing. Classic propaganda techniques and supported mightily by the press and a weak opposition, which you can clearly see now is happening in the United States. So what is the so-called Swiss difference? As none of that seems to be happening in Switzerland. None of it at all. They wouldn't even know what the heck you are talking about. Seriously, none of this is happening in Switzerland, and it isn't just because it is a small place. In fact, the population in the land of the Swiss is almost exactly the same as the 9.2 million people in Hungary. To take the absurdity and oddity of the Swiss success even further, it is a land of three national languages, Swiss German, Italian, and French, plus a fourth, English, which is spoken by just about everyone under the age of 30, and most of those up to the age of 60, meaning it is among the most diverse in the use of languages in the world. Yes, Singapore is similar, and I've lived there, as you know, seven different times with English, Mandarin, Chinese. Remember Liquan Yu's famous idea of Mandarin in and dialects out, and the much smaller Tamil Indian population, a remnant of the British Empire. Still smaller, though, and not like the Swiss, who have been doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years. Let's break this down. Will we be covering in the next three episodes of Henry R. Greenfield in Switzerland? How do the Swiss actually achieve democracy, a high standard of living, amongst the highest in the world, and a social cohesion in a landlocked mountainous space where it is cold, rocky, and seemingly minimal prospects for success, especially with a defederalized system surrounded by powerful neighbors using three, not four languages. We will not get into today, of course, one of the primary things that Singapore and Switzerland are good at, which is international banking and international finance, which has given, to be fair to everybody else, a real leg up for Switzerland when it comes to the key point of money in the world. Of course, the United States has the biggest place of money, which is New York, but it never should be discounted that Switzerland does have a fantastic financial arm. And it also must be said that until that happened around 1900 when it began, the Swiss were actually a poor landlocked country. However, that does not change at all with who Switzerland is and who they remain to this very day. It seems like an impossible situation, but the Swiss not only do it, they thrive. They thrive like no other society in Europe and perhaps the world. Again, Singapore, its little cousin, is perhaps the only other one in the world. And in Singapore, it is what, let's be honest, is called a controlled democracy, while Switzerland is completely the opposite. A total and open and powerful localized democracy with a federal government that does not make all the rules. And it is not a one-party state like Singapore, or for that matter, all of the authoritarian states which Hungary is rapidly becoming, or Russia or China, or what Trump wants to achieve. Yes, he does. This is what he wants to achieve in the United States. Where to begin, and please note, I am not the expert on Switzerland. I am but an observer. I speak to the Swiss and to foreigners, and I travel around as I always do to try to get some sense of what are the underlying reasons for a country's success or their failures. In Switzerland, while you may find it a bit constraining, in the end, it is all about success. And that means everyone's success. Many people say it begins with education and then it extends out to health care, then a common defense, and of course, a democracy in its purest, almost Athenian model, which this time includes women, and not to digress, and the men don't have to run around naked like they did back in those days. Ah, Socrates had something going on. There are other pieces, of course, including an amazing micro approach to agriculture, which we will talk about in our next episode, to a civic and personal trust, to safety and security, to an adherence to rules and regulations. And speaking of trust, and believe me, while you have freedoms in Switzerland, you also have obligations and a lot of rules in order to gain their trust. Trump supporters, of course, would note that many, if not most of them, are not written down in Switzerland, which means you could flout them just as Trump does in the United States. But if you do, you will find out very quickly when you visit Switzerland that a rule is to be observed, written or not, by everyone, from the richest to the poorest. And if you do not, you will, as my Swiss friends put it, be told off in no uncertain terms. And God forbid if you tried to push back, it would not go very well for you. I have seen the collective Swiss spirit surround anything that looks like it is moving towards a confrontation and quickly move to squelch it. The Swiss believe you can say what you want, but only if it is polite to the point, and then it must always be over. Well you would not have a punch up, and of course no one would take out their gun, even though half of the households of Switzerland have one, but you would take on the collective wrath of all of Switzerland, and if you are a resident, you would be reminded of your transgression over and over and over until you regretted it far more than a mere fine or a punch up might have indicated, or even being thrown in jail, as would be the case in the United States or even in a place like Australia. For the Swiss may forgive, but they never forget. And that's really important for you to know. They don't forget when you do something stupid. They will be thinking about it, they will be watching you, and they will make sure that you know not to do it again. The first core principle in Switzerland is one that so many countries cannot deal with, which is personal responsibility. Everyone, absolutely everyone, has it, and I must say they love it. It is said that human beings cannot be controlled unless it is through a harsh, powerful measures, especially from the federal level. Even in Singapore, people wear the legendary fines of Singapore t-shirts, which show you all the fines you will get if you spit or chew gum or throw paper or drive incorrectly, or God forbid, have a weapon on you that is not allowed in Singapore, and just about no weapons are allowed. Again, in Switzerland, you can have any kind of weapon. They love weapons. They think their guns, especially long guns, are fantastic. As we noted in our first episode on Switzerland, over half of the households have long guns, rifles, including AR-15s. And they do not have several, however, like those in the U.S., where there could be up to dozens and dozens, to the point where the United States now has over 400 million guns for a population of 340 million people, with a gun ownership percentage that is lower than the Swiss, around 40%. It seems in America that it is not about the militia or actually the right to bear arms. It is the proliferation of guns to those who are mentally unstable and seem to have the right to shoot each other, or at least that is their opinion, and they keep moving down those negative directions until they go off the rails. In Switzerland, that rarely, if ever, happens. But for today, let us concentrate on the core principle and the reason why Switzerland has the lowest homicide rate for a developed country and is rated as always the safest country in the world. Well, how safe? I kept locking the front door and was finally told off by my Swiss friends who do not carry their keys with them unless they are going on a long trip, certainly not down to the corner shop. Everywhere else I've lived, definitely in the United States, I lock the door if I'm in the backyard and want to make sure no one comes through the front door while I'm not watching it all. How many times have we seen or heard of the tragedy of a doorbell ringing in the United States, leading to some poor 12-year-old kid being shot in the back by an enraged man? Always, yes, always, always, always, men and usually older men who just couldn't handle that, and somehow they were afraid of a couple of kids disturbing their watching Fox News. Again, we have to ask, why not in Switzerland? Let's take the boys ringing the doorbells as an example. First of all, it would normally never or not be done in Switzerland. You'd have you would be seen by the neighbors as they are watching collectively, watching out for each other. If it happened, everyone would know who did it, especially if they were somehow harassing an old man or a woman, as the Swiss not only revere their oldies, but they definitely look after them and their right to live in their homes free of harassment. Someone would call up the kids' mom straight away and say, hey, your kids need to be disciplined. This is unacceptable. The mom of the perp would apologize and sit her boys down, not always, but usually boys again, and cut their privileges, whatever they are. When the boys went through the neighborhood in the future, they would be stared at, and surely some oldies would scold them. If they barked back, it would be the last time, as the ring would get tighter and tighter until they got the message. Back off, boys, this is not acceptable. It is not funny, it is not interesting, and find something else to do. And that does not really mean video games, which we won't get into, but no, the Swiss are not addicted to that. If they are addicted to anything, they are addicted to the outdoors. Now, what if the old man decided to grab that long gun and shoot them in the back while they were running? It would be seen, and I'm very serious about this now, as a national tragedy. The outpouring of grief and soul searching would go on for weeks, if not for months. A devastating look at Swiss society would proceed and how it needs to change to avoid this type of tragedy in the future. There would be no thoughts and prayers, and definitely no talk about the rights of the old man who shot them, no stand your ground, rather a collective feeling of remorse, of shame, and guilt to have lost a child over such nonsense. For you see, in a society where the norms are high, the freedoms are seemingly wide, open, there's also a sense of collective and individual of always do the right thing. A willingness to talk about anything local, argue about it if you must, that's not a problem at all. But almost never national and absolutely forboten is to speak about international politics outside your own family. I will end this with a short anecdote which illustrates it all. I was speaking to our landlord, a wonderful woman named Sylvia, in a small village that I noted above, not far from Zurich. She was originally German and talked about a lot about how amazing it is to live in Switzerland and her goals, of course, is to what else? To fit in. She said, Please talk to my husband. He is Swiss and he can tell you more if you want to know what the real Switzerland is like. Up came Vincent, standing ramrod straight, a perfect posture, an international businessman who works in Zurich. After some pleasantries which always include looking you straight in the eye and holding the gaze for three seconds, I'm serious about this now, not longer or less, while you have a firm yet fair, no pulling like Trump, handshake. He asked, How could I be of assistance? In English, of course, which he was fluent in, though with a heavy Swiss German accent. I told him I wanted to learn about the real Switzerland and the people beyond the obvious natural beauty and what is seemingly an endless series of villages stretching across every valley up and down the mountainsides and every part of this rugged, mountainous country. He looked at me once again straight in the eye and said, Of course, I would be happy to help and be of assistance however I can. But and he paused, I will not speak about politics. It had an element of finality that left no doubt. Politics are personal. Politics are best kept to yourself. Politics are local as far as he was concerned, as the Swiss locally pay for everything. More on that in the next episode, which is an amazing way to fund your government in one which really, really works. I was a bit taken aback and said, Well, I hadn't even thought about speaking about politics, but of course, no worries. Well, between you and I, I was a bit shocked, not because I wanted to speak about politics, but by the strict lines that he had instantly established. It was clear that he was ready and willing to talk to me and provide me with any information that I would like. But he was not about to be drawn into a debate on the state of the world. Not with me at least. The Swiss are not insular, but they are not fools. They survived two world wars by being at least nominally neutral, perhaps far too neutral by laundering German money, among other transgressions, especially in World War II. But they are fiercely independent, yet totally Western, totally and fantastically democratic, right down to their multiple elections every year as they decide everything locally, and I mean that's the school budget, that's whether you want to put in a new playground, they vote on it. And they always do the right thing, not because someone tells them per se, but because it is inbred into their society. A society that prizes independence and freedoms, but also once a decision is made, a collective action and support. Like so many virtues in Switzerland, all of us could learn to be more like the Swiss and understand with freedom comes responsibilities, not out of the goodness of our heart, but out of the belief that it is what is right and just and truly must be done to have a high, functioning, successful society. This is Henry R. Greenfield, signing off from the village of art, while not far from the capital of Zurich, seemingly a million miles away from the rest of the world. A village where everyone, as they say, knows your name, and for the Swiss, that is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for joining us on the Greenfield Report with Henry R. Greenfield. We hope today's insights into the ever shifting geopolitical landscape have sparked your curiosity and broadened your perspective. Stay connected with us for more in depth discussions and expert solutions. Until next time, keep exploring the world beyond the headlines.