Day Two. Saturday, 16 January 2016

The more I know, the less I understand

All the things I’d figured out

I have to learn again

(Don Henley)

Murten, where we are putting up, is a German majority town in the French majority canton (state). Every place we visit, signs are written in 3 languages: German, French and English. Why, it even has a French name, Morat (pronounced Moha, so I’m told).

Nationwide, German is spoken by 63.7% of the population, French 20.3%, Italian 6.5% and Romansch (which descends from Latin used by the Romans) 0.9%. So why don’t they make German the official language, like the Burmese government has done with the Burmese language?

I put this question to Mr Roland Salisberg, head of the Peace Policy Section of the Foreign Ministry, who has come to receive us at the lunch reception.  “The answer is simple: forcing German to be used by all won’t help with our national unity,” he says. “It may, on the contrary, even serve to divide us, and pull us apart.”

So, why don’t the Swiss Germans join their cousins in Austria and Germany to form a bigger nation instead? (What’s on my mind when I ask this question? Probably a vague thought that Shans, who call themselves Tai,have also cousins in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and even China.) “It would be difficult for us to enjoy the same rights as we do now if we are united with these countries, as Switzerland is geographically partitioned from them.”

Murten, where we had arrived by bus from Geneva at noon, is 30.9 km from Bern, the country’s administrative capital, a 24 minute drive away.

The whole town is quiet, as if deserted. (It is Saturday) Few people are seen in the streets. During the 5 days we are there, I don’t even remember seeing the sun. And it is cold, so cold I have to change into a thick pair of socks, pull down my woolen cap so it covers both my nose (and ears but not my eyes), when I’m outside. But inside the buildings, there is heating, so that you are warm and, at times, even stuffy.

As night falls at 18:00, the whole town comes to life. We learn later that they are holding a 10-day light festival, which began 3 days ago. They even float lighted receptacles in the town’s Morat Lake, 8.2 km x 2.8 km, one of the more than 100 lakes in the country, just like the Loi Krathong festival in Thailand.

By SAI KHUENSAI / Director of Pyidaungsu Institute and Founder of Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N)

All views expressed are the author’s own.