Did someone say racism? - Haaretz

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Sun., November 18, 2007 Kislev 8, 5768

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Did someone say racism?

By Jonas Attenhofer

tags: Switzerland, Israel, racism

BERN - Swiss voters went to the polls last month to elect a new National Council, the country's parliament. The election's results elicited a great deal of hand-wringing among the international media. The focus of the spotlight was the Swiss People's Party, which received 29 percent of the vote, taking 62 seats in the 200-seat National Council, an increase of seven. In a parliament that has delegates from 13 different parties, such a performance constitutes a near-landslide.

Many people, both inside and outside of Switzerland, view the People's Party as racist, even anti-Semitic. The party has indeed called for dropping a code in Swiss criminal law that prohibits racist speech. Party leaders claim that the law could be interpreted by courts in a very broad manner and therefore risks severely impairing free speech. At the same time, the party is intent on retaining a clause that prohibits public denial of the Holocaust.

During the recent campaign, the party took a lot of heat for a poster with a cartoon depicting a white sheep kicking a black sheep off Swiss territory. Party officials insisted that no racial connotation was intended, explaining that it simply reflected a plank in their platform that calls for alien residents who commit crimes to be deported after they finish serving their sentences. The campaign appeared to tap into the Swiss people's anxiety about violent crime, in which aliens, who made up more than 20 percent of the country's population in 2005 (the highest proportion in Europe), frequently figure. Federal police statistics published by the party suggest that that same year, foreigners accounted for more than 50 percent of violent acts and murders, and 85 percent of rapes.

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The poster, insisted party leaders, was just about criminals - that is, society's black sheep. This explanation, however, did not convince the UN's Special Rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diene, of Senegal, who called on the party to drop the poster. The New York Times went further, publishing a caricature of a man attempting to transform the white cross of the Swiss flag into a swastika. Singled out for special censure was Christoph Blocher, the leader of the People's Party and Swiss minister of justice in the most recent seven-member Federal Council, the country's cabinet. Blocher has been likened to Mussolini by fellow politicians, and to Hitler by Al Jazeera.

What did the international media fail to consider when they likened a key player in Swiss politics to the worst dictators in modern history? The People's Party has had great success with its use of the so-called public initiative, a tool of direct democracy whereby any interest group obtaining the signature of 100,000 voters can force a national referendum on a proposed law, as long as it does not violate the state constitution. The sheep campaign was part of the party's efforts to pass a law that would allow the deportation of convicted criminals.

The party works within the system, and within the law, and despite its alleged xenophobia, it has been rewarded with good results across the Swiss Confederation, in which four different languages are spoken. Do its initiatives seem populistic? They won't become law unless a majority supports them in a national poll. Such are the workings of direct democracy.

And Switzerland remains a democracy. Even if the People's Party, with the help of the country's peasants, won 62 seats in the National Council, this still leaves the Swiss political system very balanced, with two centrist parties of 31 seats each (the Free Democrats and the Christian Democrats), as well as two parties on the political left (the Green Party and the Social Democrats), with 20 and 43 seats, respectively. So, when The Independent, in Britain, asks: "Is Switzerland Europe's heart of darkness?" - the answer is surely no.

Switzerland is not the first democracy that has been tarred with the brush of racism and labeled a sponsor of apartheid by the international media. Israel is used to it. And while we are on this subject, considering the comparisons to Hitler and the Third Reich, should Israel be worried about its own relations with Switzerland and its biggest legislative faction, the People's Party?

Certainly, the party is tough on terrorism. Ulrich Schluer, a member of parliament from the party, has proposed the addition of a new protocol to the Geneva Conventions, of which Switzerland is the depositary state, with the goal of holding states legally responsible for the actions of terrorists operating from their territory. He also wants to prosecute those who distribute footage of executions of hostages to the media with the goal of terrorizing the civilian population.

And which party came to Israel's defense during last year's conflict with Hezbollah, while the Swiss foreign ministry was condemning only Israel's actions? Yes, the People's Party, whose leader, Justice Minister Blocher, is said to have been the one who convinced the cabinet at the time to push the ministry's statements back on a more neutral track.

That ministry is headed by Micheline Calmy-Rey, a Social Democrat, one of the People's Party's most vocal opponents. The two parties strongly disagree over the definition of the country's historic neutrality. The People's Party wants no explicit Swiss interference in other states' affairs that do not directly affect the small Alpine country, while Calmy-Rey has put a variety of international affairs on her agenda. It was she who invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Switzerland. The Social Democrats lost nine seats in October's vote, and now have only 43 seats in the National Council. Interestingly, one member who lost her seat was the president of the Switzerland-Israel Association, Vreni Mueller-Hemmi. The leader of Swiss Jewry's umbrella organization, Alfred Donath, hinted at the possibility that her party's voters were punishing her for her commitment to Israel.

A member of parliament who did get reelected was Daniel Vischer, the president of the Switzerland-Palestine Association and a member of the Green Party. Vischer recently announced his intention to host a Switzerland visit by senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh. He is certainly walking a thin line between neutrality and appeasement.

It pays to take a closer look at political parties before believing all the hype. People (and the media) have a habit of accusing each other of anti-Semitism and racism while only few seem to have the ability to deal with Israel on normal terms.

Jonas Attenhofer is a graduate student of international law at the University of Bern.

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