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Sonntagsblick reporter Tobias Marti on the declining Swiss clout at the end of the year.
Tobias MartiEditor Sunday view
Early in the morning, just before the year ended, I took my punching bag down to the basement. The stairwell was deserted, my settlement as if deserted. Everyone had gone to the mountains.
One of the shortest days of the year seemed like the right time to perhaps explore the really big questions again.
Who are we? Where are we from? Where do we go?
Personally, I came out of my apartment, where my punching bag had been gathering dust for a long time and was casting a somewhat eerie shadow. I puffed on him tiredly for two minutes, and that was the end of my boxing career. My children later clung to it briefly. Later the dark thing just hung behind the door like a drunken burglar.
The old year’s week offered to get rid of this birthday present, a nice misunderstanding. In the basement I met my neighbor, the only person far and wide. He pointed to the sack, smiled knowingly, and recommended the internet.
Why all the punching bags?
Unfortunately, there is nothing more superfluous than such a leather monster. Hundreds – I found out – are auctioned off on online exchanges. Factory new goods. In all variants. For a sandwich. Replenishments are coming in daily these days from people like me sifting through old and new presents after Christmas.
The way the punching bag market seems to be developing, I’ll soon have to pay extra for someone to take this 31-kilo ballast from me.
So everything is going sub-optimal for me. And there are questions: Why do people get so many punching bags that they then want to get rid of in a hurry? Towards the end of the year, do we feel the need to urgently vent? But do we lack the necessary punch for this?
Cast the devil out of the old year
If you are looking for a sport that embodies the opposite of the Helvetic nature, it would be boxing. You stand half-naked in the ring, one-on-one, with little to nothing to lose. Muhammad Ali, the greatest man of all time, also had the greatest mouth of all time.
And in the most famous boxing film of all time, Sylvester Stallone plays an underdog who beats bloody sides of beef: even less Swiss is “Buzkaschi”, a horseman’s game from the steppes of Central Asia, in which everything is allowed, including the use of riding crops, and in which It’s about fighting each other at a gallop over a goat carcass.
Although: On closer inspection, there is definitely a robust component that lies dormant in the character of the Swiss people. For example, when it comes to driving the devil out of the old year.
Everything runs in parallel
In our country, for example, there are pagan customs that are primarily about distribution. In order to drive away evil spirits, people in Schwarzenbur BE passionately thrash the old donkey (not a real animal, just costumed misfortunes). And the Interlaken midsummer celebrations degenerated into such unchristian brawls that the authorities had to use force to restore public order.
Of course, the internet hasn’t responded to my punching bag yet. Maybe there’s just too much going on. Lots of things are happening at the same time. Between the Ukraine war and the energy crisis, between the deaths of Vivienne Westwood, that of Pelé and that of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. And then these bizarre subtropical winter temperatures on New Year’s Eve. In addition, Cristiano Ronaldo moves to the desert. But Boris Becker is back. Everything runs in parallel.
Goodbye Tobias!
With this article, reporter Tobias Marti (37) says goodbye to Sunday Blick. He has written almost 400 articles for SoBli in the last five years, especially reports and features. Whether in Chemnitz in Germany (“East Germany’s struggle with neo-Nazis, economic misery and Merkel’s welcoming culture”), at the trucker festival in Interlaken BE or when attending the hotel management school (“Where snots become hosts”) – he always hit his own note with his sharp pen . Unforgotten are Tobias Marti’s report from the kitchen of the Gstaad Palace and his text from April 2020 about his own corona disease.
We would like to thank him for his commitment and wish him all the best for the future!
Gieri Cavelty, Editor-in-Chief
With this article, reporter Tobias Marti (37) says goodbye to Sunday Blick. He has written almost 400 articles for SoBli in the last five years, especially reports and features. Whether in Chemnitz in Germany (“East Germany’s struggle with neo-Nazis, economic misery and Merkel’s welcoming culture”), at the trucker festival in Interlaken BE or when attending the hotel management school (“Where snots become hosts”) – he always hit his own note with his sharp pen . Unforgotten are Tobias Marti’s report from the kitchen of the Gstaad Palace and his text from April 2020 about his own corona disease.
We would like to thank him for his commitment and wish him all the best for the future!
Gieri Cavelty, Editor-in-Chief
As soon as I wrote this sentence, Vitali Klitschko declared between the rubble in Ukraine: “In life, nothing comes for free. You have to fight.” It is the annual balance sheet of the mayor of Kyiv, who has been steering his city through the war for the past ten months.
We live in a dangerous, hectic, confusing world. You don’t even have to box.