It’s Europe Europe Europe here at the Bureau Abroad. But can you really blame us? Yesterday the Swiss people overwhelmingly (57.5% in favor) passed a referendum introduced by the far-right SVP, or Swiss People’s Party, banning the construction of minarets on mosques throughout the country.
A Poster in Switzerland Supporting the Referendum Banning Minarets
The move was no doubt one fueled by by illegitimate fears, considering the relatively small number of Muslims in the country and their similarity to the native Swiss population. According to the NYT:
Of 150 mosques or prayer rooms in Switzerland, only 4 have minarets, and only 2 more minarets are planned. None conduct the call to prayer. There are about 400,000 Muslims in a population of some 7.5 million people. Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, said Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Switzerland.
When the Referendum was first introduced no one outside the SVP thought there was even a slim chance of it being passed. Influential Swiss business leaders, many of whom have substantial financial interests in the Gulf, vociferously voiced their opposition to the minaret ban, citing Switzerland’s proud history of religious toleration, and the media dismissed the referendum as a publicity stunt. The result has left analysts and politicians stunned as they are having a hard time understanding exactly how the referendum garnered enough support. Apparently, mainstream elements underestimated exactly how much anxiety about Muslim immigration lay underneath the surface.
Europe is no stranger to these kinds of controversies, however. France, a nation where the tension between the state and its Muslim residents has a long history, has been considering a ban on the Hijab, a veil worn by Muslim women, supposedly in order to suppress extremist elements, and Denmark was the target of vitriolic backlash from the Muslim world after it officially sanctioned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist.
That the Swiss government did not take the vote seriously, presumably because it thought would only be popular only among the 23% of voters who support of the SVP, reflects the same myopic tendencies of countries mentioned above, where generous cradle to grave welfare policies have encouraged immigrant populations to collect money from the state while living in crowded urban housing projects. These projects, which in essence enforce a sort of de facto segregation, isolate immigrant populations from society at large, thereby reducing their incentive to learn the language and cultures of the host nation. In his new book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, Weekly Standard Editor and Financial Times columnist Christopher Caldwell argues that many of the problems Europe is now facing are very much self-generated. What follows is an excerpt from a review of Caldwell’s book published in the City Journal:
In their shortsighted focus on the economic fruits of foreign labor, they never developed an effective strategy to integrate immigrants into society. Instead, they drove them apart with flawed public policy. Welfare is one example; the segregation of immigrant communities is another. In a fascinating chapter exploring the emergence of “ethnic colonies” in Europe, Caldwell considers the case of Bergsjön, a suburb of Gothenburg in western Sweden. Built in the sixties as a vacation retreat for working-class Swedish families, it had by 2006 become a dumping ground for immigrants from countries like Somalia. Cut off from the country at large, and with few job prospects in their area, 40 percent of Bergsjön’s families are on welfare. Caldwell sees this as part of a destructive tendency in European countries to “warehouse immigrants” in places rejected by their own citizens. [emphasis mine]
The widespread support among the Swiss for the referendum should serve as a wake-up call, not a call to arms. Economies across the continent depend on immigrant labor to keep their economies afloat, and it would serve statesmen and citizens well to look within and find what exactly what about immigration, and Muslim immigration in particular, they find so threatening. I suspect that they will find that the issue does not lie so much with headscarves and minarets, but with misguided social policy and uncertainty about the values they are claiming to defend.
image courtesy of Pierre Tristam
I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the view of 58% of the voting public. Maybe it’s a sign that the Swiss (or Europeans in general) are once more learning to appreciate the value of cultural uniformity. Surely, no one in Riyadh would want a grand cathedral in the middle of their city. And of course, there is a segment of the Muslim population that sees the construction of new mosques and the fecundity of Muslims in Europe as part of the strategy of global jihad. Even if a minority, they are the only ones speaking loudly enough.
word vishal, this is a dope argument; i.e., the fears are illegitimate.
But in regards to Goutham, just because they are speaking loudly does not mean they are positing something valid, and as a result, a vote founded on an unsound and logically fallacious conclusion is invalid and problematic. I argue, as vishal has, the vote is based on an illegitimate fear/premise. Also, just because the majority believes something, does not necessarily validate it.
From a deontological perspective, singling out human beings for being different (which i think is the case here, and in Riyadh) is morally wrong. From a utilitarian perspective, i think more harm is done in terms of human rights, pluralism, formation of a cohesive society, creating an opposition/stirring up violence, etc, than more good. On scale, this was a bad decision.
Well, I would hesitate to go even that far, Abbas. While I certainly believe the decision was immoral and based on illegitimate fears, that does not change the fact that it was the result of the direct democratic process. This question is separate from any moral judgments we may have regarding the minaret ban. My main argument is that the powers that be in Europe have been blinded to the concerns of their people for too long, seeing the world as they want to see it instead of seeing it as it is. The fact that the Swiss government did not take the referendum seriously reflects this fact.
Goutham, I think I may have given the wrong impression in my post, but my fears stem from the fact that vote actually was, democratically, very legitimate. My problem lies more with the Swiss government wanting it both ways. On the one hand they depend on immigrant labor to fuel economic growth, but on the other hand they have social policies that make it difficult for these immigrants to assimilate into Swiss society. To use fear (see poster, where the minarets look like missiles) in order to encourage the populace to stymy cultural or religious expression among a minority group for fear of extremism is a purely symptomatic approach to the problem that ignores the role of social policy in creating the conditions for extremism. Though they may wish it were not the case, it will be difficult for the Swiss to have their cake and eat it, too.
Thanks for the comments, expect another post on this very topic soon.