The Swiss Minaret Initiative: Assuming our Responsibilities

Even for the referendum’s backers, the result came as a shock. Advance polls had shown levels of support as high as 34%. But fully 57% of Swiss voters (with a high rate of participation) backed an initiative that speaks volumes about Swiss fear and mistrust of Islam and of Muslims. The SVP/UDC (Swiss Peoples Party) used the issue of minarets and of their visibility both as a symbol and a pretext for a campaign which saw the party claim that Islam “was intrinsically incompatible with Swiss values and culture” and depict Muslims as “intent on expanding, colonizing and, finally, Islamizing Switzerland.”

The language was often coarse, inaccurate, even xenophobic and racist, but the voice of the SVP/UDC (the only party to support the initiative against the opposition of all other Swiss political parties) was heard; a majority of my fellow citizens ultimately threw their support behind a shameful and blatantly discriminatory measure. It is by no means certain that the results will be approved by the European Court of Justice, but we must face the facts: a people, whose country counts all of four minarets, and which has been far less affected than its neighbors by social ills, has opted to call into question its millennium-old tradition of respect for religious freedom by discriminating against one specific religious community. Switzerland’s Muslims, most of whom are Bosnians, Kosovars and Turks, have never been a source of serious problems; the authorities could well have looked forward to a successful and mutually enriching process of integration.

So, what exactly has happened in Switzerland? The SVP/UDC ran a campaign based on fear, using posters that can only be described as scandalous in the images they displayed, particularly the one depicting minarets as missiles obscuring the Swiss flag, alongside a woman wearing a burqa: a perfect synthesis of the stereotypes that led to the success of the initiative. In the face of this heavy-handed, vulgar and dangerous operation, we must assume our responsibilities: how could such an initiative succeed against the opposition of the entire political establishment, with the exception of a single party.

Switzerland’s Muslim citizens must hear the message: their fellow citizens fear and mistrust them. Time has come for them to become more involved and more active in society, and to stop acting only in self-defense on issues related to Islam. It is time for all Swiss citizens of both sexes, as well as permanent residents, to participate in social questions (education, employment, the economy, politics, culture, ecology, etc.) in a positive, constructive manner. It is time for them to normalize their presence by their human, ethical, pluralist and citizenship-based contributions to all major social and political debates. It will take time, but perceptions change on contact with living beings, and not by simple declarations of good intentions.

Our political leaders must also accept responsibility for the catastrophic result of the referendum. Though almost all major parties opposed the SVP/UDC initiative, their own stance on the “Muslim question” has been anything but clear-cut. While they opposed the initiative, they systematically hedged their own position, seemingly obliged to add that Islam presented a problem in terms of violence against women, of “integration”, etc. It was precisely this message that the Swiss people heard: over and above minarets, Islam and Muslims are a problem! It is of vital importance that the country’s political parties clearly dissociate themselves from the politics of mistrust, from the rhetoric of “integration” after three generations, and, finally, from the reluctance to accept the fact that Islam is a Swiss (and a European) religion, and that the overwhelming majority of Muslim citizens and residents are and will be a positive force for the society’s future. It is time for Switzerland’s political parties to assume their responsibilities, to offer a courageous, constructive and inclusive vision; to reconcile the politics of equality with the management of diversity. They can hardly criticize the SVP/UDC for being populist when they have nothing to offer in terms of social policy, and when at election time they fall back on the same old reliable themes of insecurity, immigration, or even identity and “Swiss” (or European) values. The lack of vision and courage that afflicts all the traditional political parties in Switzerland, and throughout Europe, has opened a royal road to the most populist, farthest rightwing political forces.

The media, and the journalists who work for them, must begin to ask themselves serious questions about their own strategy, if it can be called that. For in the final analysis, in the name of “freedom of expression” driven by the popularity index, a climate has been created that leaps from controversy to controversy, feeding into a general sense of dissatisfaction, of insecurity. The proliferation of talk shows; the failure to explore questions thoroughly; the reduction of information to sound bites stripped of context: these are the factors that shape the feelings and emotions of the public, that incite people to fear, withdrawal and rejection of the “other.” Populism is always the victor whenever debate is absent or takes place in circumstances where simplistic and superficial claims inevitably overwhelm intelligent, reasoned discussion. Democracy is not simply a matter of all being able to express themselves, but of everyone being able to do so in circumstances that protect the critical spirit, and that resist manipulation of public instincts and emotions that may prove difficult to control. If we are not vigilant—let history be our witness—racism of the worst kind can instill itself democratically in a society that does not regulate mass media in an ethical, responsible manner. For journalists, ethical responsibility means freeing themselves from the dictatorship of ratings and quick profit; fear, controversy and stigmatizing the “other” means more readers, viewers or listeners. How easy it is for us to criticize the way our societies have evolved when populist parties have adopted the logic inherent in our contradictions.
Responsibility must be shared. The road will be a lengthy one. In my most recent book, “What I Believe”, I argue that at least two generations will need to pass before we can overcome today’s fears and tensions. At minimum, the citizens of Switzerland and of Europe must assume their responsibilities, and commit themselves to openness, to the attempt to better understand the “other” in all his complexity, his values and his hopes. This is a responsibility we share. To assume it fully, we must cease our lamentations and take up the struggle together, in the name of the new “we” that defines us, in defense of our acquired rights, of the equality of all human beings and of their dignity. This we must do in the name of a principled refusal of populism in all its forms, of rejection that offers us a future of racism and conflict we know all too well. This is our shared responsibility providing we choose not to remain silent and over-cautious; providing we refuse to accept the victim’s role.