A Swiss lesson
From The Christian Science Monitor:
In that nonsensical statement lies this little country’s big challenge. Swiss voters appear to have been caught up in the general European fear – some real, some imagined, and some manufactured – of Islamic extremism and culture clash. What makes this particularly tough for the Swiss government, which opposed the ban, is how to tackle a vague fear.The Swiss minister of justice said that the ban would likely be struck down in court because it’s incompatible with the Swiss Constitution and international human rights law. Illegal or not, it certainly steps on the idea of religious freedom and looks like discrimination.
Still, even if the ban, which is effective immediately, were struck down, how to root out that vague fear expressed in the vote?
Perhaps the answer lies less with the government, and more with individuals. In a response befitting one of the world’s major religions, the imam of Switzerland’s biggest mosque cautioned against a Muslim backlash.
“The Muslim world must respect, without accepting the decision. But it must respect the Swiss decision. Otherwise, we would be the first victims,” Youssef Ibram, imam at the Geneva mosque, told Agence France-Press.
The issue is the recent ban on minarets passed by Swiss referendum. That’s the “nonsensical statement” made by the Swiss electorate. But I’m going to argue that there’s a bigger statement being made, and it’s a lesson worth learning.
First, the point has to be made that a majority of Swiss voters indicated that they did not favor the ban. The logical question is: How can a majority oppose the ban and yet it passes? The answer is one of two things – either the polls were simply wrong (always a possibility) or something happened on the way to the polls.
I’m going to go with the second explanation (and say that an unpredictable turnout gives pollsters a fit). Switzerland’s direct democracy makes it easy to get things on a referendum ballot (only a hundred thousand signatures are needed in a country of roughly five million voters). There are also roughly two million people who are of voting age, but who are not allowed to cast a vote. Many of these people are considered immigrants, even though they may have been born in Switzerland. Moves to ease citizenship requirements were previously targeted by right-wing parties.
So to understand the results of Switzerland’s vote, it is first necessary to concede that the people most directly impacted by it – immigrants who are Muslims – were not allowed to vote at all. This is not democracy in action at all.
The second thing to understand is that Switzerland generally has low turnout – and this time was no exception. About 2.7 million votes were cast this past week, which is not that much more than the 2.6 million votes cast in February of this year. But nearly half of the Swiss voters chose not to cast a vote at all. This may be democracy, but it is a sad excuse for it.
These two points make it easy to understand how an unpopular measure could get passed on a popular vote. First, you don’t let those directly involved have a voice. Second, you have half of registered voters deciding that they will depend on someone else to do what is right. The result is fairly easy to predict.
There is a lesson in this for American activists. Hate and fear are strong motivators, while voting for someone else’s rights is not. While the proponents of the action focused on a grassroots campaign aimed at motivating their base, opponents relied on elites being able to mobilize support. The outcome is entirely predictable.
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