In a referendum this sunday Swiss voters supportedan initiative that bans minarets from being built in Switzerland by 57,5,% to 42,5%. In the parlance of US constitutional law, this is a "bill of attainder", i.e. a law that selectively disenfranchises a specifically trageted social group. It is, in other words, a discriminatory law. It can also be used, by Islamist fundamenalist recruiters, as the final proof that Western democracy is indeed, as they have always claimed, fundamentally anti-Islamic. Just when you thought Obama was closing down Guantanamo and robbing Al Qaeda of their primary recruiting tool, the Swiss step in and help the Islamists out.
Since 1848 Switzerland has had a system of government partly modelled on the American system, with two chambers of parliament, the Nationalrat (200 members, the equivalent of the house of representatives) and the Ständerat (46 members, two each for each canton and one each for so-called half-cantons like Basel Land and Basel Stadt). The executive branch is the Bundesrat, a seven-member cabinet whose members take annual turns in presiding over the government. Since the late 19th century the Bundesrat has been a coalition government, first through a power-sharing of the liberal (in the European sense) party and the catholic party, and then later through the strategic inclusion of the socialist party in the 1950ties. While most laws are made by the two chambers of parliament, citizens have the right to propose laws through what is called an "initiative". If you manage to collect one hundred thousand valid signatures from Swiss citizens eligible to vote, you can basically force the voting population to vote on anything. Thus in 1989 the Swiss became the first nation in the world to hold a referendum on the question whether or not their country should have an army at all. At the time, every eligible Swiss male from ages twenty to fifty was a member of the army, and the Swiss could mobilize 600'000 fully armed combattants within two days. Switzerland, as a popular saying went at the time, did not have an army, it was an army. Yet 36% of voters supported the law that would have barred their country from having an army at all. On the other hand, Switzerland has hat is share of outright xenophobic and discriminatory initiatives, such as the notorious "Schwarzenbach" initiative, named after a xenophobic politician of the 1960ties, who tried to capitalize on popular resentment against Italian migrant workers to establish a ban on immigration in 1973. Usually in these cases the Swiss let economic pragmatism prevail over resentment and xenophobic instincts and rejected the law in question. Outright xenophobia became more of a political force, however, in the wake of the collapse of the Sovjet empire. A steadfastly anti-communist country for decades and always willing to welcome and integrate refugees from Central European countries under soviet domination such as Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Switzerland experienced the void the earstwhile communist threat left perhaps more profoundly than other European countries. With the uniting threat of communism gone, a void at the right flank of the political spectrum opened up which was quickly filled by the nationalist-populist Schweizerische Volkspartei. Originally the farmer's party, the SVP was hijacked and turned into a right-wing political movement by industrialist and billionaire Christoph Blocher in the late 1980ties. Despite electoral successes at the state (canton) and federal level, the SVP was never very good at governing (which makes them a lot like post-Eisenhower republicans), and usually their initiatives were rejected by a majority of Swiss voters.
Until now.
Taking advantage of the global fear of Islamist terrorists and exploiting a deep-seated resentement against non-christian immigrants, the SVP launched an initiative to ban the building of minarets in Switzerland trough a law that would effectively become part of the constitution. Their goal was, in other words, to make Switzerland the first constitutionally anti-Islamic democracy in the Western world, and by a popular vote.
As I wrote in the intro, this is the equivalent of a bill of attainder, i.e. of a law that selectively disenfrachises specific social groups. It would be unconstitutional in the US, and it is in open conflict with a number of international agreements of which Switzerland, now also a UN member (there was a vote on that membership, too, as you may have guessed), is a signatary. It is also in open contradiction with the spirit and the letter of the Swiss constitution, which grants freedom of religion to all citizens and certainly does not support the selective withdrawal of such rights from specific groups. Or at least nominally it does not. To the lasting shame of modern Switzerland, the Swiss constitution includes a provision against kosher butchering, which was imposed as a direct reaction to the emancipation of the Swiss jews in the second half of the 19th century. While this law is openly discriminatory no one has so far bothered to remove it, not even the country's 16000 jews, for fear of what ghosts they might awake.
But if the Jews have had their very own Swiss bill of retainder for more than a hundred years, the Muslim citizens of this country have now just joined them.
To pretty much everyone's surprise - only 37% of the people polled indicated that they would support the law, which points to a major case of Bradley effect for anyone interested in that old chestnut of polling history - and to the lasting embarassment of the government, a majority of 57,5% of Swiss voters said yes to the SVP's "Minarett-Initiative."
What went wrong?
Among others things, the SVP managed to make the Swiss vote on their resentment and forget about their economic pragmatism. Where in the case of the "Schwarzenbach" initiative they knew that the social and economic cost of such a law would be excessive and held back with their resentment, in this case they thought that hate would come cheap and that they were free to express it without having to pay for it.
There will be high price to pay for this, and not just for the Swiss. Having one of the oldest European democracies vote a ban on minartes into law provides Islamist fundamenalist recruiters with an excellent that Western democracy is indeed, as they have always claimed, fundamentally anti-Islamic. Just when you thought Obama was closing down Guantanamo and robbing Al Qaeda of their primary recruiting tool, the Swiss step in and help the Islamists out.
It is important to note that a protest movement against this law is forming in Switzerland right now.
Within hours, a facebook group with the title "Ich schäme mich für das Resultat der Minarett-Initiative!" was organized by group of academics and political activists. As of this writing (two hours after the group was first published) more than 25000 people have joined the group.
Futhermore, the law will not hold up in front of the European Court, to which human rights organizations are certain to bring this.
But the damage is done.
Full disclosure: I am myself a Swiss citizen. I am deeply ashamed by this outcome.