Over a year after Swiss voters’ banning the construction of minarets and thus sending a shockwave throughout Europe, the small Alpine nation is back to business as usual. The minaret ban has all but disappeared from public discourse and the nationalist political parties advocating it went on to another anti-foreigner campaign.
The calm may seem surprising given the thunderstorm of international condemnation that descended onto Switzerland after the November 2009 referendum. UN human rights officials called the ban discriminatory, Muslim countries and the Council of Europe asked the Swiss government to lift the ban, and even neighboring governments did not spare criticism of what they said was an expression of intolerance.
The 57.5 percent approval of the minaret ban tarnished Switzerland's image of tolerance and liberalism and was a slap in the face of the government, which had campaigned against it.
But after a few weeks of heated public debate, including small street protests in Switzerland condemning the vote, the fire has come down to a small flame of discussions among Muslim associations and academics.
The minaret ban is now enshrined in the Swiss Constitution and will probably remain there, although the European Court of Human Rights has yet to rule on around half a dozen complaints against the ban. That can easily take years and even if the court orders Switzerland to lift the minaret ban, it lacks enforcement powers.
But the ban has so far had little practical implications on the ground.
Switzerland, a nation of 7.5 million inhabitants, has four minarets and they remain untouched because the referendum only banned the construction of new ones.
One dispute about the construction of a new minaret is pending before court in the town of Langenthal. But the case dates back to the time prior to the referendum. A lower court had ruled last September that the construction can go ahead because town authorities had authorized it before. Opponents have since appealed to the next higher court.
But in general, minarets in Switzerland have attracted little public attention before some nationalist parties decided to join a European-wide anti-Islam discourse and exploit the topic to boost constituency.
Three years ago, most ordinary Swiss people would not have known how many minarets there are in the country and where they are located.
An estimated 400,000 Muslims live in Switzerland, mostly in the cities. The majority of them come from former Yougoslavia and Turkey who live peacefully here, respecting law and order.
Beyond minarets
Despite these facts, nationalist parties led by the Swiss People's Party managed to paint a picture of massive Muslim immigration and instill fear upon a majority of Swiss voters. The negative stereotyping of Muslims since Sept. 11, 2001, made it easy for those politicians to sell the minaret as a symbol of Islamist power threatening the secular Alpine nation. Hence the debate was not about minarets per se, but about Islam in Switzerland, including the integration of Muslim immigrants and potential Islamism.
It became clear that Islam has a negative image in Switzerland, similar to trends observed in other Western European countries, where debates about Islam have been reduced to the focus on a potential security risk.
Among the supporters of a minaret ban were not just right-wing voters, but also many women who apparently wanted to protest against a religion they perceived as discriminatory toward women and were upset seeing women wearing niqabs in Switzerland. The fact that the minaret itself had nothing to do with gender discrimination got lost in the emotional discussion.
With an all-encompassing debate about Islam in Switzerland, the outcome of the referendum was of high symbolic value. The Swiss, traditionally considered as peaceful and tolerant, suddenly appeared intolerant, expressing unease and distrust toward Muslims. What had happened with this nation proud of its long humanitarian tradition, home to the European headquarters of the United Nations and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights? Swiss are a nation known for its multiculturalism, where people from different origins have been peacefully living together for decades.
The same referendum would probably produce similar results in other Western European countries if their citizens had the chance cast their ballots. Switzerland is the only country where citizens can easily enact constitutional amendments through a referendum. The collection of 100,000 signatures is enough to force a nation-wide referendum on almost anything.
But another decisive aspect in the Swiss voting behavior may well have been the search for Swiss identity at a time when globalization blurs national boundaries and questions traditional values. Surrounded by Germany, Italy, France and Austria, the Swiss share three languages with their neighboring countries, receive large numbers of their citizens for work every day and share many cultural aspects of life with them. The Swiss have always been keen to show that they are not German or French despite sharing so much with their neighbors.
The constant effort to assert their own national identity brings a certain distrust against anything perceived as foreign or “un-Swiss”, such as the minarets or Islam itself. In a nationalist political narrative, what is foreign becomes negative.
Being fully part of Western societies
Muslims are not the first immigrants to face distrust and hostility in Switzerland. In the 1960s, Italian laborers were the unpopular immigrants in Switzerland and the target of anti-foreigner campaigns. Now, Italians are fully part of Swiss society. The Italians were followed by large numbers of refugees from the Balkan wars in the 1990s, many of whom stayed in Switzerland. The Swiss often referred to them as „Yougos“, a disrespectful term referring to their origin. The fact that most of them were Muslims did not matter at the time. That changed with Sept. 11, 2001. Religion has since become the predominant criteria for identifying immigrants.
Western Europeans through debates about Islam implicitly acknowledge that Muslims are now fully part of their societies, says Dr. Samuel M. Behloul, an expert on Islam in Switzerland with the University of Lucerne.
But in order to live together in peace and find common grounds amid ambivalence of certain cultural differences, Western Europeans have to become aware of the fact that Muslims are part of their societies. Public debates are useful if they are balanced and not just hijacked by political players, because they help all participants to identify the real problems and allow people to learn and eventually leave their prejudice behind.
Moderate Muslims in Switzerland should take part in these debates and not remain silent, as was largely the case during the minaret campaign. Progressive Muslim voices are essential to improve the image of Islam in Western societies and show something different to the public than media stories of terrorist attacks and women hidden under full-body veils.
Without moderate Muslims speaking out, public space can be occupied by groups like the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland, an organization of young Muslims that spreads radical Islamist ideas and has drawn public attention through extremist speeches and niqab-clad women defending its views on Swiss TV talk shows. The fact that a number of progressive Muslim associations have begun to openly distance themselves from that group is an encouraging sign of stir among the large majority of Switzerland's Muslims. They have an important role to play in the much needed cultural education and understanding among Muslims in Switzerland and the Swiss.
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