A Letter From Syria

Tags

Kurds, Syria, The Syria Campaign, White Helmets

Today I received this mail from Laila Kiki, The Syria Campaign (they are connected to the “White Helmets” who have done a lot of great work in Syria rescuing people). I would like to share this with all of you.

Dear friends,

Many times over the past years we Syrians have dared to hope that the worst of the conflict may have passed. On so many occasions we have been wrong, and the conflict took a new, darker turn.

The latest disaster to befall us came after a phone call last weekend between US President Trump and the Turkish President Erdogan, after which Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the northeast of Syria. A few days after, Turkey advanced across the border and started its military operation to establish a buffer zone along the border and drive out the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led Syrian militia that has been in control of the area.

International attention has focused on Trump’s betrayal of the SDF, which was the main partner of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and lost thousands of men and women in the fight. But behind those headlines there are civilians whose lives, rights, and aspirations are being ignored.

Already we have seen horrific losses: civilians killed, homes destroyed, executions, serious human rights violations by Turkish backed forces, and more than 160,000 civilians displaced. The people of northeast Syria–Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Chaldeans–have suffered tremendously since 2011 and it’s heartbreaking to see them subjected to further displacement and bombardment.

One of the worst fears for the area materialized only a few days later when Putin took the opportunity to broker a deal for the SDF to hand over control of the region to Assad in a bid to protect itself against Turkey. Assad forces, backed by Russia, advanced across the northeast and started seizing control of towns and villages there.

Syrians know well that Assad’s rule means total oppression and punishment for communities that have opposed him. Journalists and activists, many of whom resisted ISIS and its ideology at huge personal risk, will face detention and disappearance in Assad’s torture dungeons. Civil society groups that have received US support are particularly at risk, and the US has a responsibility to ensure they’re protected.

People in the area and across the country are living in fear and uncertainty about what will come next. The northeast has been thrown into chaos by the US withdrawal and the Turkish operation, and the ripples of these events will affect all parts of the country. Many fear that Turkey will forcibly resettle Syrian refugees to the buffer zone that it’s aiming to establish, which would constitute a further violation of Turkey’s obligations under international law. And while the world’s attention is on the northeast, the 3 million civilians in Idlib are terrified that Assad will use the opportunity to further escalate the attacks on them.

So, what’s next?

The situation is likely to get worse, and more complicated, and the dream we share with millions of Syrians of a free and democratic country may seem more distant than ever before. But we will not accept an international community that stands by while Trump, Putin, and Erdogan make decisions that will impact millions of Syrians. And we will continue to support Syria’s heroic civil society activists in their demands for a nationwide ceasefire, accountability for war crimes, and a Syria for all Syrians without Assad, without extremists, and without foreign forces. I hope you will too.

In solidarity,
Laila

Here you find the Web site of The Syria Campaign.

I am totally at a loss about what to do. Shame on Trump. But also shame on Europe who have not accepted their responsibility. And I wonder if there is not anything we can do except sharing posts and emails?

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The deplorables ain’t gonna do it any more

Tags

Bannon, deploravles, populist nationalist movement, roger köppel, Steve Bannon, Weltwoche

Last Wednesday I experienced the first speech by Steve Bannon after being ousted from Trump and later Breitbart, and his first big stage event in Europe. It was organized by Christoph Blocher’s special stalwart Roger Köppel, editor-in-chief of ‘Weltwoche’, a partisan right-wing Swiss weekly, and member of parliament for the far-right-populist SVP. (You can watch the complete 1:22h show here)

A lot has been written about Bannon, especially in the early months of Trump’s presidency, where Bannon was depicted as the ideological force behind Trump and an extremely dangerous man. Lately he played a strong and notorious role in Wolff’s book ‘Fire and Fury’.

Rather than joining the one hundred or so people who formed a rally through Zurich, chanting that Bannon was not welcome in Switzerland, I decided to attend the event and get a first-hand impression of the man and what he has to say (some of my friends gasped at the idea).

The event hall in Oerlikon was mostly packed and estimates range from 1000 to 1500 attendees. Security at the entrance was ostentatively tough. I was impressed by the civilized, friendly and calm mood of the Swiss audience. It was overwhelmingly (maybe 90%) male of mixed age. From the applause Bannon received, which was more polite and friendly than frenetic, I concluded that maybe a bit more than half of the audience consisted of dedicated supporters of SVP and Weltwoche, the others of people like me, who went in there for curiosity.

Köppel made the introduction and presented this event as the first of a series („Weltwoche Free Speech Summit“) – alluding to the rightwing proposition that mainstream media and elites suppress free speech and only the populists promote it. In the introduction as well as in his “critical” questions after Bannon’s speech, Köppel’s sympathy for Bannon was quite apparent, and Bannon during his talk weaved in several courteous compliments to the Swiss, and Blocher in particular (he was „Trump before Trump“ and acted as a lone fighter before the rise of the “populist nationalist movement”, which Bannon sees as a global force. Blocher’s intention was that “we’re simply going to have a souvereign country” – and this was the moment of the strongest applause in the room.

What I positively can say about Bannon’s appearance and talk is that he put forth a coherent and reasoned (at least from his perspective – more later) string of arguments, and challenged his listeners to think, rather than – what I have seen on TV from Trump events – inciting discord and inflaming hate.

Obviously it was the world according to Bannon. He presented his own contribution to Trump’s victory and the programmatic essence of the Trump campaign (Stick to three essentials: 1. Elimit illegal immigration, 2. Bring back manufacturing jobs, 3. Get out of the pointless wars). He echoed some of the campaign mantras against the Clintons as „the most corrupt politicians we ever had“ (that was the only really vitriolic moment of his speech) and „mainstream media“ as „the opposition party“. But all these things were to be expected. He also gave no insight of other than a few tactical differences to Trump’s government actions (he would not have offered any compromise on the ‘Dreamers’). Trump to him is “an armor-piercing shell”. He did not mention ‘Fire and Fury’ nor his Breitbart layoff or what he would be doing on the dole.

What I found more interesting was how he tried to give a grand strategy of the worldwide populist nationalist movement (which, as he elaborated, takes on different shapes and priorities in countries like Hungary, Poland, Holland, France and now Italy), but works as one global force that – despite occasional backlash – is still growing. Just a side note: Bannon sees this movement at work and welcomes it in all liberal western democracies. He has no interest in any such movement in countries like Russia, China, Turkey. Where the strongmen are in power, the countries seem to be doing fine. When asked, which foreign politicians Trump respects, Xi and Putin were the first that came to Bannon’s mind.

And now to the core of the Bannon-strategy. Three factors he sees at work: The elites destroy citizen’s work income by trade agreements and admitting unlimited cheap workforce via immigration; the banks destroy citizen’s savings by debasing the currencies with debt; and the internet giants steal citizen’s data, thus enslaving us all in the end.

From this analysis follows a very anti-establishment, anti-central-banks and anti-internet-platforms strategy in the name of the “deplorables”, which sounds very leftist to me, except that the beneficiary is not the international working class of olden times, but the ‘citizens’ – sovereign country by sovereign country.

“We have heard over and over again the slogan of maximizing shareholder value. Now it is about maximizing citizen value”.

Obviously it can be argued that the populist movements never live up to their populist promises. They weaken democratic checks and balances, and as soon as their strongmen are installed, they betray the “deplorables”, funnel money away from social programs and give it to donors, family members and business tycoons. It is also clear that for number three of the listed focus points – stealing citizen’s data through Facebook and others – Bannon has not the slightest concept to offer, and for number two – his battle against the central banks – he puts hope on blockchain and crypto currencies, which I find quite bizzare.

But I see the challenge, Bannon poses: His story of the exploitation of the deplorables (“The deplorables ain’t gonna do it any more”) is compelling and strong, and so far the counter story of liberal democrats pales against it, and therefore I don’t think it can be dismissed so easily that the nationalist tide in the western democracies is still on the rise.

By demonizing or ridiculing, this challenge can not be answered.

I think we can do better. Can I have a million, please?

Tags

Syria, White Helmets

Today I received this nice letter from the “White Helmets”.

Your generous donation

Bissan Fakih – The Syria Campaign

An Hajo von Kracht

Dear Hajo,

Thank you for your incredible generosity in supporting the White Helmets – you are one of the White Helmets’ top 500 supporters worldwide. I am writing to let you know that your donation is changing lives — it is helping the amazing heroes on the ground working around the clock to save lives amid all the violence in Syria. Here’s a message from Majd, a White Helmet volunteer:

“Thank you to every person who donated to our injured volunteers, our martyrs and their families. The Hero Fund is supporting those who give everything, who sacrifice what is precious to them, sometimes even a limb, in order to save as many lives as possible. You have helped treat our injured and supported the families of our fallen volunteers and this in turn is saving lives and bringing back hope.”

Many injured White Helmets treated by the Hero Fund have now gone back to saving lives. Hassan from Hama got a prosthetic leg after surviving a cluster bomb explosion on a rescue mission in his city of Kafr Zeit. He is now back to work with his team. Mohammad, a father of four, received an injury to the head and shoulder back in February. He underwent two surgeries paid for by the Hero Fund. He hasn’t fully recovered yet but insisted on going back to work in the service of the White Helmets, helping his team in Maarat Al Atik in Aleppo.

Dozens of other volunteers have been helped by the Hero Fund since it was established in the summer of 2015 and sustained since by your generosity. Yours was a crucial act of solidarity — the costs of treating wounded volunteers and helping the families of the fallen were not covered by donor governments. Before the Hero Fund existed, the teams struggled to pool together whatever money each volunteer had, calling their friends and relatives to raise enough cash to treat a teammate or provide help to the spouses and children of a White Helmet who had died. This was was never going to be enough, particularly as the rescue workers became a greater target for Russian and Syrian regime airstrikes.

The number of fallen White Helmets has tragically risen to 147. Two volunteers were killed just last week in separate attacks. Mohammad Osama Hawa was killed in the town of Anadan in regime shelling. Two years ago we mourned his father together, Osama Hawa, when he died in an attack while saving lives with the White Helmets. Another volunteer, Bassam Hadleh, was killed last week in an attack on a civil defence centre in Idlib. Five of his colleagues were injured.
Currently there are about 400 wounded White Helmet volunteers, 80 of them with serious injuries like loss of eyesight, amputations and deep shrapnel wounds. The most common injuries now are loss of limb – hands and arms, and amputations below the knee. A few of the most urgent cases have had to be moved from Syria to Turkey where the Fund has paid for hospital stays, surgeries, prosthetic limbs and medicine.

Your contributions and your solidarity have gotten wounded White Helmets back on their feet and helped families of the fallen through the worst of times. You haven given these teams the comfort of having a safety net, and you have shown them that people around the world are standing with them.

We want to continue sustaining the Hero Fund but also pay for new rescue equipment to replace the ambulances and diggers that were destroyed in airstrikes. Days ago we launched an urgent crowdfunder to get the White Helmets these funds. If you wish to make another contribution, the People’s Million fundraiser can be found here. We’re already almost halfway to our goal.
peoplesmillion.whitehelmets.org/donate/peoples-million

Together we’re determined to support the White Helmets and their call for real action to stop the bombs in Syria. Thank you for all your incredible efforts.

Yours,
Bissan

Digital Natives on the Move – Globalization Come Home

Tags

Digital natives, globalization, Refugee crisis, refugees

Some unstructured thoughts on Digital Revolution and the current Refugee Crisis.

1. Digital technologies are overlaying traditional culture with a global information network. Smartphones and Network access spread fast and wide. Flow of information is limited by language only, not by country borders.
2. Members of local traditional communities turn into participants in a global infrastructure. This comes in a single step, short-cutting intermediate phases (the age of land lines etc.). At best, they are turned into active participants in a global economy.
3. Traditional, conservative, segregative values co-exist with the availability of high-tech communication. It would be an illusion to believe that traditional values cease to exist with the availability of more information. Instead, the new information will be understood and utilized in the framework of existing cultural biases.
4. Young people in troubled regions live in two worlds at once: a local miserable life, dominated by strong segregative values, and – simultaneously – apparent global availability of options, wealth, freedom.
5. We see the advent of a new social group: Third-world digital natives.
   [Note: The term “digital native” does not mean high competence in use and development of software, but growing up in a world in which the presence of Web and digital devices is a fact of life and taken for granted; naturally making use of all the things you can do with them.]
6. The new third-world digital natives are highly mobile; they understand there is life beyond their borders. Their decision to migrate is an individual one. By starting to move they don’t follow orders.
7. Information about the chances and risks of migration, travel routes, tips and tricks on how to handle obstacles, how to treat (and cheat) foreign authorities, is readily available to the new third-world digital natives. Foreign law is not perceived as moral authority but as obstacle to deal with. Breaking foreign law is not a matter of feeling guilty, but an act of civil disobedience, by which the risk will be calculated.
8. Social media are also used to recruit people. In particular by appealing to traditional values (or some perversion thereof), some digital-native emigrants, feeling culturally displaced, can be pulled via digital channels to join radical traditionalist movements.
9. It takes more than some videos and messages to make people migrate. But if some local dire situation arises (war, repression, famine), determination and willingness will grow to travel all around the globe to find a better life.

Attempted conclusion: The number of digital natives willing to take risks and migrate from war, disaster and poverty will grow substantially and for a long time. Informationally, they are part of the digital age, culturally they are not part of the western life style. It is unlikely that fence-building will effectively stop them. And they bring their culture with them. Culturally, it may take a generation for them to adapt.

A Remarkable Message from our CEO

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Bill McDermott, SAP

On the first working day of the new year I found in my inbox a message from our CEO, Bill McDermott to all 75’000 employees. This fact in itself wasn’t a big surprise. But when I started reading (how many of the 75’000 will actually read this message?) I thought: Wait, this is different.

A quick excursion: Years ago – many years in fact – I was on a business trip at the SAP headquarters in Philadelphia. I had some meetings and at some time I noticed employees gathering in the hallway. It was Mid-December and I was told that this was the office Christmas event, conducted by the new sales director for North America, a man by the name of Bill McDermott. Then Bill had his speech. He was going up and down about how we would get at the throat of our largest competitor, defeat them deal by deal, be merciless and win. End of Christmas event, pretzels included.

Here we are, a dozen years later. And now please read closely.

“First and foremost, SAP should be a company that helps us all do well for our families and loved ones. Always remember that the most significant titles in life won’t appear on our business cards. Mother, father, daughter, son, friend – these are the identities that make us who we are. Don’t miss the birthdays or the family vacations or the nights out with old friends. Treasure these moments. Prioritizing family will make us more fulfilled and more inspired to be successful in our work.

“Second, we should be a company of inclusion and collaboration. One thing you all showed me last year was the deep professional courtesy of being human with each other. You supported each other’s personal causes and rallied around the families of colleagues we lost too soon. I also experienced this personally in your heartfelt notes of support. Let’s make this a hallmark of everything we do together. Whether we’re designing software or supporting customers, let’s let each other in with openness and honesty. This idea of mutual respect – for our skills, our talents and our differences – is a truly fitting aspiration for a great company like SAP.

“Finally, even as we remain humble, let’s stay hungry to make a big difference in this world. We are one of the largest, most respected technology companies on Earth. This obligates us to go beyond our own success and to leave footprints for others to follow. Ask yourself – what kind of footprints will we leave? Are we ready to honor the legacy of SAP by continuing to think about the world’s biggest challenges as our greatest opportunities?”

Sure, we are in it for success. We want our paycheck and we want our bonus. This hasn’t changed from 12 years ago. But I think Bill has found the right context for what makes a company successful. Motivation rises from “serving a purpose bigger than ourselves”.

If we can let this view shed some light on our daily decisions, I think we’re onto something good.

Leading When You’re Not the Boss

Tags

Buchbesprechung, leadership, management, strathausen

This book presents a case for questioning, and effectively abolishing, hierarchical structures in business and moving into a “post-management area”. (The book is more than that. It is also a piece of edutainment, giving the author’s personal mix of insights and project experiences, circling around the topic of why management often is so bad. To a very limited extent it may even be read as a how-to manual for wannabe “Leaders-from-behind” – as the subtitle suggests – but I guess this was more the editor trying to widen the addressable market.)

Abolishing management might sound radical at first, but Strathausen presents good logic and reasoning, showing that “management” is a very limited paradigm, separating work execution from control, focusing the actual “workers” away from pleasing clients and toward pleasing their bosses, creating siloes, inefficiencies and stagnation, where flexibility, invention and dynamic adaptation to customer needs are really needed.

How revolutionary is this book? I am not sure. The storytelling, interwoven with the main text, features a typical matrix-type task manager (in this case a global account manager) who needs to lead people not reporting to him and pursuing clearly their own interests. The story feels real, and it shows that “situational leadership” as advocated by Strathausen, already takes place in many organizations. We are already there.

But the book does give this informal leadership a language and a reference, when in most cases today the informal leadership is hidden and treated as an exception, and the good old hierarchical organization chart is visible, seen as necessity and norm.

Maybe – depending on industry and type of work – this should actually be turned around and what are now the bosses should be seen as nothing more than an HR function. Now that would be revolutionary indeed.

To get started thinking about these questions, Strathausen’s book is a great contribution and valuable to all who want to set up and work in the agile and customer-driven business organizations of the future.

Full disclosure: I have known Roger for about 15 years, and have worked with him on various projects (I even remember some of the examples he used in the book). He is the type of thinker who can step back from a specific request to understand the full context, and he is the type of worker to then dig deep into the task at hand and craft results guided by his insights.

Environmental Sustainability at SAP Switzerland

Tags

environmental, SAP, sustainability

At the occasion of SAP Switzerland’s 30th anniversary, in an email to all employees, the Employee Communications team gave an overview across environmentally relevant achievements and a look at future projects. The list is quite impressive, I must say.

• SAP Switzerland offers employees a half-fare travel card for all public transport throughout Switzerland to help making the switch to public transportation.
• SAP Switzerland employees have reduced printing by 24% since 2009. They saved more paper by printing double-sided by default. In 2009, 48% of printouts were double-sided; in 2014 65%. A new “badge printing” process should reduce paper consumption further, eliminating print jobs that are never picked up.
• In 2013, SAP launched its own carpooling application TwoGo.
• Office supplies are mandated to collect and recycle the packaging of their shipped products.
• All offices are equipped with sophisticated state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities to hold virtual meetings, meaning less business travel, more time and fewer emissions.
• Server rooms at the various locations have been redesigned with the effect of reducing energy consumption by up to 70%.
• SAP’s premises in Regensdorf are one of the first office buildings to meet Switzerland’s Minergie energy efficiency standards.  Energy efficiency of the old headquarter in Biel was considerably increased by bringing the metal cladding, windows, roof, and insulation up to the latest standards, replacing lights with energy-efficient LED lighting, resulting in energy savings of up to 70%. Air-conditioning was replaced with a chilled-ceiling system: Water-cooling is much more energy-efficient than cooling with power. Most locations will implement the ISO 14001 environmental management standard from 2015. This standard applies to companies who are looking to continuously improve their environmental performance and is the starting point for a long-term sustainability strategy.
• In 2009 SAP joined the Swiss Climate Foundation, an alliance of companies that support the climate protection projects of SMEs in Switzerland. Such projects aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency in Switzerland. Since joining the foundation, SAP has donated 379,000 Swiss Francs from its CO2 rebates.
• Since 2014, SAP’s data centers and facilities have been powered by 100% renewable electricity, bringing their carbon emissions to zero. By 2020, electric cars will comprise 20% of the company’s vehicle fleet. SAP has been recognized as sector leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for seven consecutive years.
• The CO2 emission of the company car fleet was reduced by 20% from 2008 to 2014 (a value which obviously still is too high).

These are all internal accomplishments which will be continued. As a provider of business software, SAP supports customers to become more energy-efficient, to protect their workforce, and to mitigate risk. Being herself a champion in environmental sustainability plays a growing role in shaping SAP’s perception as a trusted and leading vendor.

Unwinding Lopud

Tags

croatia, dalmatia, dubrovnik, lopud, unwinding

Lopud is a small island off the Dalmatian coast with some 200 permanent inhabitants, two beaches, modest tourism, and a few daily ferries to Dubrovnik. On this island, while reading George Packer’s The Unwinding, I discovered the truth: I am history.

I am spending a week on this island with my wife, determined to slow down, avoid sightseeing, and get our heads off the treadmill. (The latter intention was greatly supported by some IT folks, who replaced my sturdy old Blackberry just in time with a device containing – as it turned out – a defunct battery that unloads within an hour. Leaving the power socket in the hotel room now means getting truly offline.)

I have been to this island before, thirty years ago, in an earlier life, and before the Balkan wars. Last week, on the day before our departure I skimmed through a stack of old travel brochures and discovered that I booked the same hotel again. On the Web it looked brand new. In fact it was opened in the early eighties.

By the seafront of Lopud village, in the Obala Restaurant, we chatted with the old waiter. He lived on the island all his life, and when I mentioned that I stayed at the Lafodia hotel for the second time in thirty years, he told us with tears in his eyes that he used to work there at about that time. But now all had changed for worse and the place was owned by some Italian investor.

The Lafodia looks brand new. It sits – multistoreyed, shining white – in the bay of Lopud like a pair of huge passenger ships, driven by force into the mountain in this quiet backwater bay. Our hotel room adheres to the latest standards, is big and comfortable; nothing reminds me of my former stay, and we have a splendid view over the bay. From here we look out from the Lafodia, not at it.

The clerk at the reception had seen my old flyer before. An old British couple had shown him a copy. Of the three “Hoteli Lopud” featured in this flyer, only the Lafodia survived – duly renovated and under new ownership. Being just 31 years old, the receptionist had no memories of those days, but he knew that it was the golden time of Dalmatian tourism, gone forever.

On the sea front we were greeted by a weathered billboard with information about the island in so many languages, written in 2010. Quite unusual for such a board, it includes this passage about the latest history of Lopud and the enterprise that ran the local hotels in the eighties: “Due to aggression against the Republic of Croatia from 1991-1995 business was operated in war conditions, the enterprise going bankrupt as a consequence. The so-called privatization, the sell-off of the hotels and real estates, as well as devastation, unemployment and job insecurity led to population decrease, and young Lopud people had to look for life opportunities elsewhere. Despite the natural resources and potentiality of comfortable life, since 1992 Lopud has been passing the saddest period in its long history. Despite everything, let’s hope for better times.”

Barbara is a slim and energetic lady from Germany, maybe in her sixties. She has lived on the island for 38 years, summer and winter. She runs a restaurant a few hundred meters off the coast together with her local husband, drawing tourists with “Hausmannskost” and “Filterkaffee”. The restaurant looks like a time capsule straight out of the seventies. She stayed when things got bad and witnessed the exodus of the youth. Too few kids attend the local village school and as a result the school might be closed. “When you close the school you wipe out the soul of the village.” On her daily walk to the seafront to feed stray cats she passes the decaying relics of the Grand Hotel where she once dwelled as a guest.

This idyllic island displays a fair share of unwinding, just like Packer’s America. In many facets he describes the fate of ordinary and not so ordinary Americans in the last decades, starting in 1978 (In this year I happened to do a lot of hitchhiking through the US.) To Packer this is a story of loss and decline. I was thrilled by his stories and highly recommend the book. However …

I came to Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia) a few times before the war. Now – after a gap of thirty years I feel like a time traveler, missing the time between two flashlights, and the sense of unwinding – the whining on the billboard – feels odd.

The tourist audio guide available for rent talks about Kaštio, the old castle on top of the mountain, built after Ottoman raiders attacked the Elaphite islands and took most inhabitants away into slavery. In Worldwar II Lopud was occupied by German troops. And still the time since 1992 is perceived as the saddest period the island’s long history?

For one day we abandoned our plan not to do sightseeing and went on a day trip to Dubrovnik. We visited a great photo exhibition where the photographer documented atrocities committed by the Croatian militia against the (Muslim) population of Mostar, just a few kilometers away. Which puts the “aggression against the Republic of Croatia” a bit into perspective.

And what about “the so-called privatization, the sell-off”? Around us are souvenir shops, restaurants, boat rentals, all operated by people from Croatia. The investor from Italy has started work on the restoration of the decayed Grand Hotel. The cheerful young lady working as a waiter in the restaurant Dubrovnik comes from Zagreb and works for six months during the tourist season. The other six months she spends on relaxing and “just having fun”.

When I was here 30 years ago, there was only one party, Marshal Tito was in power, and hotels like other corporations were state-owned. Many things were unavailable, or not allowed. “For a socialist country, things could be worse”, we thought. We booked only brand new hotels, built by the government with good standards. When one returned to the same facility a few years later, it was run down and uncomfortable, because nobody cared about them, maintained them. There was no sense of ownership.

As a time traveler, coming straight out of history, I see change. Some unwinding, some missed chances, some terrible losses. But that’s only one side of the story. I also see buzzing life, people finding new ways and a beautiful island greeting visitors like me, who just want to unwind.

Winkelwiese (en)

Tags

Frank Binder, Villa Landolt, Villa Winkelwiese, Zürifäscht

Last weekend, we celebrated „zürifäscht“.

Once in three years, Zurich is having a blast. On two consecutive nights there is a spectacular display of fireworks on the lake, with classical music on one evening, and popular songs on the other. The fireworks are world class. 2.3 million people – half of Switzerland and droves of visitors from the near abroad – crowd the streets, drawn into town by food stands, Ferris wheels, high-wire artists between the highest church towers, a Hong Kong dragon boat race on the Limmat river, orchestra stages and bands on every corner. When the fireworks are over around midnight, masses almost trample each other to death on the narrow bridges across the river.

This year we enjoyed a special perspective on the fireworks of Friday night.

On our trip to China we met Magi, a well-known cartoonist from Zurich. She has a studio mid-town, at Winkelwiese #10. There we met for some Chinese soup (with Mediterranean add-ons), wallowed in China travel memories, and clambered up through a dark and winding attic staircase to a tiny open terrace on top of Villa Winkelwiese. From there, all of downtown Zurich was at our feet and we watched the gigantic fireworks from above.

Villa Winkelwiese is located at one of the most privileged spots within the most expensive city on earth. Its big stately rooms on three floors – more than three meters high, with parquet floor, a manorial central staircase, surrounded by a large idyllic wild green garden – is inhabited by a colorful apartment-sharing community of youngsters, about ten of them. Students, as far as I can tell: Easy-going, all in a tumble. Feels like a dormitory. And Magi has her studio here.

To Chinese soup and Tsingtao beer, Magi told us about the villa’s history. My memories have been dimmed by “zürifäscht” but enhanced by some internet browsing, and this is the story that unfolds.

In October 1929 – just before the Black Friday crash that turned into the Great Depression – a Swiss bank director by the name of Ernst Gross was on a business trip in New York. He smelled that something really bad was brewing up – he saw the crash coming – and he cabled home per Morse code, as it was used then, to his co-directors: “Sell at once, stop” followed by a long list of stock titles to be sold, mainly US stock. The immediate answer from Zurich was: “Makes no sense, stop, will certainly not sell, stop”. So he cabled back and ordered to immediately sell at least his private share of all these titles and cash them in.

This happened, the crash came, and while his bank – like all others – suffered monstrous losses, bank director Gross was sitting on a huge pile of cash, knowing that it would become worthless sooner than later.

That’s when he purchased – in one of Zurich’s most privileged locations – “Zur Schönau”, a residential house built in 1836 by music teacher Heinrich Arter. He had it torn down and in 1932 – when nobody else had any money – he built a villa in the latest style of the time – with knobs on, big electrical foldaway windows to his garden, walk-through safe in the basement (for all his money), wine cellar, a service elevator to transport prepared food from the kitchen to the upper floors, and so on and so forth.

The villa has two faces. Toward the small road – the Winkelwiese – it looks chunky, repellent, showing small windows and a lot of gray stone. It shows its charm to the other side, toward the large secluded garden, and in particular on the inside.

Ernst Gross, the banker, died in 1952 and left behind two daughters. One of them, Dr. Vera Susanna Gross – lived after her father’s death in the top floor apartment – unmarried and childless. The two lower floors were let in 1969 to the most famous citizen of Zurich – the former mayor Landolt and his wife. Both tenants were granted life estate by the Gross family, and it is one of the peculiar twists of this story that both tenants enjoyed their life estate until they passed away at the age of 100.

Meanwhile Vera Groß had died without relatives, and she bequeathed the villa to a charismatic sect. That’s when the city government stepped in and purchased the building in 1974 for 3.9 million Swiss Francs, without a clear concept of what to do with it. (Maybe they even had a concept, certainly some officials might have loved to move in there, but the last tenant with life estate didn’t consent to die for another 30 years).

In 2003 the ex-major’s widow, Frau Landolt, finally passed away at the age of 100, and the city put out to tender the lot and premise for a building lease of 62 years.

300 applicants moved forward and 31 elaborate project offers came in. The running was made by Frank Binder, heir to the German pharmaceutical corporation of Merck, who proposed to take the old villa down and erect a brand new big residence in its place. The price was 4.5 Million Swiss Francs plus a yearly payment of 210’000 for the 62 years of the lease.

Now a whole range of protests and objections was raised – from political parties, the neighbors, and just about anybody. The plans have been on hold now for 10 years and the villa is in a state of in-between. The student apartment-sharers – just as Magi with her studio – have temporary leases that are extended by quarter. Mr. Binder has a signed contract. As soon as his plans get official blessing, which could last another ten years or happen tomorrow, it will be torn down, and until then from its roof top terrace the villa allows for the most beautiful views on the fireworks of Zurich.