The sociologist and famous Swiss left-winger Jean Ziegler died on Wednesday June 10 at the age of 92 from Parkinson’s disease, his family announced to the Keystone-ATS agency.
Jean Ziegler was one of the most notable intellectual and political figures of the Swiss left. Sociologist, writer, professor at the University of Geneva, and even UN diplomat, he distinguished himself by his denunciation of “cannibalistic” capitalism, inequalities and the sometimes controversial role of the Swiss financial center.
Born in Thun in German-speaking Switzerland into a conservative Protestant family, he became radicalized during his studies in Paris, where he met Jean-Paul Sartre in particular. A decisive meeting with Che Guevara in Geneva convinced him to lead his fight from Switzerland, which he considered one of the centers of the world economic system.
His works, translated into many languages, brought him international fame. Among the most famous are “A Switzerland above suspicion”, which attacks banking secrecy and the power of multinationals, “Switzerland washes whiter” and “Switzerland, gold and the dead”, which denounces Switzerland’s attitude during the Second World War. These publications earned him as many admirers as detractors, and costly legal proceedings.
Often controversial personality
Alongside his academic career, he sat in the Swiss Parliament as a socialist deputy from 1967 to 1983 and then from 1987 to 1999. From 2000 to 2008, he was United Nations special rapporteur for the right to food, a position from which he campaigned strongly against world hunger as well as against the policies of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). He was also professor of sociology at the University of Geneva between 1977 and 2002.
An often controversial personality, Jean Ziegler has been criticized for contacts established with certain leaders of the South such as the Libyan Muammar Gaddafi and the Cuban Fidel Castro, or his support for certain revolutionary regimes such as that of Pol Pot in Cambodia or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Its defenders then saw it as the consequence of its Third World commitment, while its adversaries criticized it for a lack of critical distance.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk praised Wednesday at Keystone-ATS a “fighter especially for vulnerable populations”, referring to a “champion for the human rights ecosystem and an extremely strong personality”.
In France, the leader of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon estimated on His lesson is that of courage and determination.”
