There has been much discussion on the recent decision by the Swiss people to ban the construction of new minarets. The principal concern to me is that this was done in the name of The Swiss People who, against the Federal Council’s wishes, used the direct democracy system to rewrite their own constitution.
For those unfamiliar with the Swiss system: any citizen may put forward a “people’s initiative” for universal referendum if they gain over 100,000 supporting signatures in an 18-month period. Most other nationalities buckle in disbelief on hearing this and it certainly does seem like a utopian dream where true people-power is possible. Surely this form of democracy in its truest sense can only be a force for good?
Sadly, to believe this you also have to believe that people are always unemotional, rational, strong-willed and deeply educated in a wide range of abstract topics.
The first weakness is that politically-charged issues are vulnerable to highjacking by extremist groups. It only takes a cleverly-targeted propaganda campaign to quite literally bypass government and international treaties, and access the constitution.
The second weakness, hopefully the one that can be addressed first, is that some Swiss appear to dogmatically cling to their current system of direct democracy as an immutable, unquestionable, force for good—”it’s better to have it sometimes produce results like this, than not to have it at all.”
Being appalled by the minaret result, but not questioning and challenging the system is unfair. It’s time to admit that a) populations can be brainwashed by extremist propaganda, b) despite its noble intentions, direct democracy is very vulnerable to being exploited by extremist groups and c) steps need to be taken now to stop this from happening again.
If you’re still questioning why the system is so vulnerable and unjust, just consider how flawed the logic is that allows an open vote on whether a majority should take away a minority’s human right. In a historically peaceful country like Switzerland—supposedly full of neutral and thoughtful people—this shouldn’t be a problem, right? A reliance on shared cultural beliefs is toxic. When a cultural shift happens, usually via exploitation and propaganda by an extremist organisation, the system collapses.
While the wording of the minaret initiative focused only on the construction of specific architectural towers, the surrounding far-right campaign pitched it as a chance to clamp down on the encroachment of political Islam in Switzerland, which was neither the subject of the vote nor a concern backed up by fact.
So here we have a 95% non-Muslim majority voting on an issue that takes away a fundamental right of a 5% minority—all based on ugly, warped logic.
The Swiss People’s Party—the largest political party in the country—directly stated voting “no” on the minaret ban could eventually lead to the Islamification of Switzerland with all women being forced to wear burkas on the street and endure genital mutilation. Of course the illogical misuse of women’s rights here is made all the more unnerving by the fact that Switzerland only gave women universal suffrage in 1990—another catastrophic example of a majority sytematically suppressing a minority.
In a court-of-law great lengths are taken to stop the decisive jury from being exposed to this sort of scaremongering and bias. But it’s somehow possible to have a nationwide court of 7,400,000 decide the fate of 400,000 people, while their fears are built and played upon with non-factual evidence. I saw many people being interviewed who believed that minarets were allowed to broadcast the call to prayer in Switzerland (they’re not) or had no idea about the size of the perceived ‘threat to their country’ (the majority of Muslims living in Switzerland are from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey, are secular, well integrated into society and do not practise any of the “faith characteristics” the far-right’s campaign was built on.)
As with most things, the integration of different peoples and cultures is a very complicated task, but leaving it up to what is essentially misguided mob rule is a shocking, shocking tragedy. Just as the initiative for building regulations was symbolic for a whole lot more, Switzerland cannot expect their decision to be viewed as an architectural preference alone. They have sent out a clear message that even the well-integrated Muslims in their country are being treated with suspicion and, far more worryingly, they have helped to legitimise the mobilisation of other far-right campaigns in countries like the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK.
57% of the 53% that voted, plus the 47% who didn’t vote at all (I’m sorry, but non-participation when given a vote on human rights issues is deplorable) have set the scene for a nasty turn in European politics.
A population can easily be manipulated into suppressing minorities when given a legal framework to do so, and it’s time to admit that direct democracy on this scale is a prime target for such exploitation. There’s a reason right-wing groups in other countries haven’t had the same success yet on similar initiatives.
There are, of course, still many differences between this situation and the legally legitimate rise of the National Socialist Party that formed Nazi Germany, but a country even putting one foot on that ladder is something that needs to be battled against and quickly stamped out.
The emboldened Swiss People’s Party is now proposing that the country withdraws from its European Human Rights obligations, while they try to tighten the grip on other Muslim customs. I firmly believe that the Swiss people in general do not want this to happen, but refusing to examine how to make direct democracy more robust and immune from highjacking is only going to make things worse. An investigation into the failings of the system should be presented to the international community as quickly as possible.
