Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T07:39:12.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

125th anniversary of the Swiss Red Cross (1866–1991): Thoughts on past and future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Philippe Bender
Philippe Bender*
Affiliation:
Department of Health and Social Affairs, Swiss Red Cross
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Rather than serving as a pretext for noisy celebration and self-congratulation, the 125th anniversary of the founding of the Swiss Red Cross should be an occasion for reflection on our institution's development, its role within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its special situation as the National Society of Switzerland. This is a worthy undertaking, an attempt, as the historian Marc Ferro put it, “to capture time and make it intelligible to others”. But anyone who embarks on such a venture must be careful to avoid rewriting the past according to his own preferences and giving an idealized picture of this humanitarian organization, which has had its share of tensions, setbacks and contradictions, some of them still unresolved.

Type
Switzerland’s Humanitarian Tradition
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 31 , Issue 283 , August 1991 , pp. 359 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Ferro, Marc, L'Histoire sous surveillance, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1985, p. 177.Google Scholar

2 Haug, Hans, “Lignes directrices du développement de la Croix-Rouge suisse”, in 1866–1966, Centenaire de la Croix-Rouge suisse, offprint from La Croix-Rouge suisse, 75th year, No. 5, p. 14, Bern, 1966.Google Scholar

3 François, Alexis, Le Berceau de la Croix-Rouge, A. Jullien, Geneva, 1918, p. 196.Google Scholar

4 “Mémorial des vingt-cinq premières années de la Croix-Rouge”, in Bulletin international des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge, XIX, p. 149, Geneva, 1888.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Nouvelle Histoire de la Suisse et des Suisses, Vol. III, Payot, Lausanne, 1983, p. 57.Google Scholar

6 Bonjour, Edgar, La Neutralité suisse, synthèse de son histoire, A la Baconnière, Neuchâtel,” 1979, p. 71.Google Scholar

7 Bonjour, Edgar, op.cit., p. 228.Google Scholar

8 Favre, Alice, in La Croix-Rouge suisse, 1 05 1910.Google Scholar

9 Wahlen, F.T., Federal Councillor, in “La Croix-Rouge et la Confédération suisse”, offprint from La Croix-Rouge suisse, 72nd year, No. 5. p. 3, Bern, 1963.Google Scholar