3 October 2017 No 24 ISSN 1664-7963 Current Concerns PO Box CH-8044 Zurich Current Concerns Switzerland The international journal for independent thought, ethical standards, moral responsibility, Phone: +41 44 350 65 50 Fax: +41 44 350 65 51 and for the promotion and respect of public international law, human rights and humanitarian law E-Mail:
[email protected] Website: www.currentconcerns.ch English Edition of Zeit-Fragen Niklaus von Flüe: patron saint of non-intervention by Paul Widmer* Brother Klaus as sprung from the ideas of Brother Klaus. form the essential features for a whole con- the apical ancestor And in the early 1980s, Secretary of State text of meaning. Just because something is of Swiss Neutrality? Albert Weitnauer wrote in his memoirs: not yet conceptually comprehensible, this School historians do “Neutrality is the living expression of does not mean that there are not already not admit it. They are what the Swiss National Saint Niklaus von facts that anticipate the concept. Conse- doubly mistaken: the Flüe already expressed in the time of the quently, we must ask ourselves: did Broth- National Saint has, in Burgundian wars, with his well-known er Klaus really have no idea of what we call the course of history, warning, ‘Don’t get involved in other peo- neutrality today, simply because he neither coined the foreign pol- ple’s affairs!’” used the word nor knew the term? Let us Paul Widmer icy of the Confedera- But beware! This is supposedly past his- look more closely at these objections. (picture ma) tion by his words and tory now.