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.
Dear Blogwriter (Sorry, I don’t know your name)
Thank you for this most interesting blog. Beeing a swiss and having read your Blog I must leave a comment to put some things right. First of all let me say that I voted against the initiative. So I agree with you that to ban the construction of new minarets by constitution is a step in the wrong direction.
However there are some topics I strongly disagree with you. You describe the decision of the swiss sovereign (the swiss people) as a “mob rule” of a 8′800′000 Majority against a Minority of 400′000. This statement sadly proves that you have not yet grasped the great achievement of direct democracy. If you lived in a tiny country like switzerland, with four different languages and 3 heavily different cultures, having the same historical background like we swiss have, I am sure you would understand, why we swiss people cling so much onto that system.
That you got the numbers wrong (the swiss population consists of 7.7 Million People INCLUDING the 400′000 Muslims) is only a detail. What I, as a swiss citizen, strongly oppose is your disrespectful description of the direct democracy, which in my opinion is the best possible political system.
The swiss people has the last word on every subject the government is taking a decision on and can, as you described correctly, take it’s own initiative by collecting votes of fellow citizens. The law system (at least in Switzerland) is the mirror of the society. The law system is made by the swiss people for the swiss people, so I don’t really see anything wrong when a majority of the society is voting in favor of a new law. You always find a minority opposing on whatever the majority is deciding.
You are right, when you are saying that people can be influenced by lobbying. But so can politicians. Do you really think whatever the politicians decide in your country is only for the good of yourself and the whole society? Well, I don’t want to take your believe away and I am happy if this works for you. But I, personally, prefer to delegate the daily tasks of law making and decision taking to our politicians but on the same time still having the last word on whatever these guys are deciding. With our system (direct democracy) you make sure that the decision the politicians are taking are for the good of the majority of the society. And again, I cannot see anything wrong in that.
Then again it can be that the majority of the swiss people are wrong and decide something which is against international human rights. Therefore we have the public international law, which Switzerland accepts as a superior law to the national law. Should this late initiative be against public international law, we’ll have in a couple of years a ruling by an international court saying that Switzerland must change its practice on that matter and the world is in order again.
That’s why modern society invented the separation of powers, which also, works in funny Switzerland.
Voltaire (a French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist of the 18th century) once said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This quote puts it quite perfectly and describes exactly how I feel about this decisions made by the swiss sovereign.
Best regards,
Beat Leiser
Hey Beat,
Thanks for the comments.
Firstly, thank you for spotting my two mistakes: a) I did indeed mistype the population of Switzerland as being 8,800,000 instead of 7,800,000 (2009 figures according to Wikipedia) and b) yes, I forgot to subtract the Muslim population from that figure! I have updated the blog post now with the correct information.
Secondly, it is very fair to proclaim the benefits of the Swiss political system as a whole. The democratisation of power is great. My point was never meant to be that the whole of direct democracy is flawed and should be scraped, just rather that it needs protecting against being exploited by fundamentalist groups. If even on this big issue only 53% of the population voted, then results are already skewed. The fact that public international law has to step in every now and again and reverse decisions can not be a good sign? Things that contravene international human rights should never reach the point when they become law for several years and garner the kind of international press that this case has.
Of course it is also true that leaving everything up to the politicians except voting for a political party once every x number of years is also open to huge abuse. I am British and deeply ashamed of the mess that my country’s political system is in right now and the limited choice I’m going to have as a voter at the next general election.
As for understanding the culture and history of Switzerland, I live in Zürich (although have no voting rights as I am not a Swiss citizen) and so I have a big interest in figuring out the mentality of the country.
This is why I’m shocked by the result and am trying to figure out the rational reasons for why it happened. I don’t really believe that 57% of Swiss people would vote for adding a line to the Swiss constitution that directly contravenes itself and also international law, without being misled and duped into it. If I thought they did, I’d be leaving very quickly.
I don’t blame the Swiss people in general, but therefore my conclusion has to be that the “people’s initiative” system, while also a great example of political engagement for the people, can in some situations be hijacked by groups with serious agendas. That seems to have been the case in this campaign.
As a Swiss who voted against said initiative, I’m nonetheless shocked about the negative intl. reaction to the results, that even question the superiority of direct democracy compared to any other form of political system. Let’s all cool down a bit and analyze things in half a year again. I bet people will be much more reasonable than now. Bregards Fred
Amazing, thanks Fred. There’s nothing better than writing a blog post questioning why the Swiss won’t scrutinise their political system in light of the worldwide outrage over the minaret decision, only to receive a reply saying lets all shut our eyes, calm down and not question anything. Onwards! Upwards! Whose human rights can we marginalise next?
Winston Churchill once said “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Totally agree with Russel.
Is this one of those cases that “everybody” voted against but then suddenly it won? (irony here to say that most of the people that voted in favour won’t stand out publicly for their vote).
47% of non-voters is outrageous on such a law. If there is such a law being voted either:
1) these non-voters should make the referendum non-valid since constitutional changes should be made around the voice of the majority (not around the voice of the silent)
2) or instead, everybody should vote (with whatever measure they can use to democratically assure that).
Constitution in your parliament is changed with large majorities right? Why shit it to the voice of the people, if the voice of the people wont decide in majority?
Disclaimer: I do think that allowing normal people to trigger referendums is awesome, and wish my country had that.
Dear Anibal
Thanks for contradicting yourself. See, that’s exactly the point. There is no perfect system, but direct democracy comes quite close.
Best regards,
Beat
Beat, It was never about ranking systems or saying that the Swiss one was terrible—it clearly isn’t—but rather that it’s hard to figure out ways to strengthen it when there are attitudes such as yours. Being an “almost perfect” system isn’t a reason not to have an open discussion about why abhorrent decisions such as the minaret one made it through. The way many Swiss cling to it without questioning how it can be improved is what I’m faced with every time I try and bring it up.
Russell, I am curious what improvements you have in mind.
Tell’em, I’ll be reading.
There are e.g. voices, demanding a commitee or something similar who decides on what subjects the people are allowed to vote on.
If you believe that the mass of the people is easyier “to hijack” than politicians are prone to corruption, then this makes sense. I believe the opposite.
Aha, OK, I guess that’s partly it. While I don’t think it makes sense comparing how easy it is to hijack a population’s opinion vs politicians being prone to corruption (they’re just two ways that things can go wrong), my view is that direct democracy is susceptible to the former.
Secondly I believe that over controversial, emotional issues, strong marketing *can* easily sway over enough of a population to get something passed. When powerful lobbyists apply their pressure, money and propaganda than a nation is of course as susceptible as it is to MacDonald’s adverts or cheap credit.
I would propose a good starting point is tighter control of advertising around political referendums, such that awareness that the referendum is happening is fine, but they must be politically neutral. In general political parties do a good job of offering differing views, which people may then choose to agree or disagree with, but it’s always easier to promote a radical view than it is to defend it.
Dear Sirs,
On the same ballot, one was able to vote if Switzerland should completely divest itself of its weapons industry, ie to forbid by constitutional amendment the export (and, by inference, the manufacture) of swiss weapons systems (oerlikon, sig sauer etc) to other countries. I find it amazingly wonderful that a people should be allowed to vote on such issues.
Interesting post. I heard about this a while back but nothing from in inside perspective. Good reading the discussion in the comments.