For Juliet Fall, Switzerland can learn something from the Italian garbage crisis

Juliet Fall, a professor at the University of Geneva, explains how refusing to take Naples' garbage contributed to reinforcing Swiss national identity. "We have apparently avoided the arrival of mountains of filth... . Between false announcements and real debates, the rumour of Naples' garbage was stoked most notably by the foreign nature of this refuse. If this rumour had so much success, it's because it plays not only on the symbolic register of nation as body, but also on our fear of a globalisation over which we are losing control. ... This portrayal of the threat, this repeated reference to dangerous foreign garbage, participates directly in the creation of the national identity: in presenting the other as dangerous, as an invader, we define ourselves. Thus, in describing Naples' garbage as a direct threat to Switzerland and its population, the different positions display who we are, and therefore, who the others are as well."

» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Domestic Policy, » Italy, » Switzerland