Tom M. Wilson

A snow white swan cruises the fast flowing river that courses through the centre of Geneva. I’m used to seeing black swans in Australia, so the snowy feathers are a novelty for this rambling tourist at least.

Walking home you cross the river and look down at veins and eddies of silver and black. You are reminded in a salutory manner that this river has run through here for much longer than this quite old city has stood.

The sleeping sword in the hand of a forefather of the city…

One thing I didn’t mention in my previous remarks on Switzerland is that they are gun mad. Well not quite, but let us just say that every adult male has a machine gun locked in a box in his cellar. They don’t have a professional army, and the Swiss are all prepared for immediate mobilization in case of an invasion. The problem is guys, nobody is coming. Italy is in a cafe drinking a latte! France has a croissant to deal with!

(Need I add that easy access to fire arms is bad news when it comes to the issue of suicide.)

In summer in Geneva you can get a bike for four hours for free. I left my $20 deposit and rolled out along the lake. Why doesn’t every city have this kind of scheme?

By the way, that is the famous ‘jet d’eau’ of Geneva in the background of the previous photo, the tallest fountain in the world at 140 metres.

The sight of a summer evening in mid-flow. May there be many more for all of us.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to Paris, then Tuesday I’m going to Stockholm.

This is the view I see looking out of my friend Ben’s apartment window. That area of buildings in the back is Old Geneva. The other day I was sitting in the park around the corner and I kept hearing people speaking different languages, often English. This city may only have the population as Hobart, Tasmania (around 200 thousand), but it is much more cosmopolitan, and feels much larger because of the more densely spaced living quarters.

Today I walked, through extensive security checks, into the Palais des Nations, a central building of the United Nations here in Geneva. The big HQ of the UN is in New York City, but the second largest centre for the UN is here in Geneva.

The 192 states which have membership in the UN each get a vote in the General Assembly, the most important forum in the UN (this bit is actually in New York). But it doesn’t sound very democratic to me. I was in Samoa a while ago and there are only about 200 thousand of them. Why should they get the same vote as China with over a billion people? As our tour guide continued to talk about the comprehensive membership coverage in the UN I found myself wondering if Tibet or West Papua are two of the 192 nations that get a voice in this international talk shop. Get real Tom: of course they don’t.

The view from the softly padded diplomat’s chair… I have to admit that the idea of day long sittings in such places, arguing fine points of language in shared declarations, would send this citoyen running screaming into Lac Leman. But they do good stuff. To use an example you might not expect, a committee of the UNESCO World Heritage program is currently looking into the evils of logging practices on the edge of a world heritage area in south-west Tasmania. I hope they shame Australia on the international stage on that point.

In a week or so I’ll be in France, and not too long after that, back in Western Australia.

I arrived in this country last Wednesday evening.  The approach from England and from the west emphasised the space and rolling patchwork of forests around here.  26% of this country is forested, a big contrast after England, and it really showed as I looked down out of my plane window.  People and their settlements were being almost shrugged off by the massive geology, the ridges and the hills, and large areas of trees stood all around.  Ah, what a relief.

As soon as I arrived at the airport I could see that this was a rich country.  One thinks that once one is in the first world that is it, first world means first world.  But no, think again.  This place is even richer than England.  The public transport is excellent.  The dirt of Bethnel Green Road seems a distant memory.  The country has very little crime and almost zero unemployment.  They have hydro and nuclear energy which means their electricity produces no CO2 pollution, and recycling is very, very advanced here.   They also have direct democracy, and referenda are held a few times each year on different topics.   Good place eh?  On Thursday I was swimming with my friend Ben in Lake Geneva in warm water, with the French-looking hotel fronts of the six story stone buildings that surround the lake edge in the background.  I thought it was a pretty nice place.

But what of the opaque banking system here?  In this country a corrupt, third world dictator or mafioso crime boss from eastern Europe, can have an account with a number on.   Some of the wealth in this very wealthy place comes from rich banks who operate in shonky ways.  And did I mention the price of a sandwhich?!  Think $10 Australian.  I honestly don’t know how tourists manage to come here without leaving all their savings in the hands of the Swiss.Today I walked in the centre of the country, in Grindelwald.  Walking up the Alps I heard a strange disembodied tinkling sound, as though metallic wind chimes were ringing out there in the grey space before me. What could it be I thought? On the other side of the steep ravine was another slope, and so it wasn’t coming from mid air at two thousand metres, this much I knew. From the preternatural to the prosaic, in a few steps, bovine reality loomed out of the mist.

The mist wraps the mountains like swaddling. The cauldron is a space of obscurity…

The Eiger, a well known mountain, has a glacier on one of its sides.

Last night I dreamt of a valley whose sides only could be seen. In the morning I saw one such outline.

As beautiful as the Alps can be, I do realise now why Australians flock to London, despite its flawed nature. It is the shared cultural background of the place for English speakers of the Commonwealth. We are able to speak a common language, allowing utter transparency of communication. And we know much of English literature, with its consequent common points of reference. Going through German speaking Switzerland I sometimes remembered walking through London with my friend Danny…

Despite Switzerland being a good society, I don’t want to live here. But what of Geneva, a city where 45% of people are from elsewhere and where English is heard on the streets often? More in my next blog entry.