Black Sheep, Politics and Dark Times
September 27th, 2007 by Anindita Sengupta
The latest Newsweek carries a report on how xenophobia is thriving among the Alps. Peaceful Switzerland is not so peaceful, it seems, and there is trouble brewing under that pristine exterior. What’s triggered this off is a contentious election campaign poster put up by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). The poster features three white sheep on a background of the Swiss flag — with one black sheep being kicked out. The symbolism is unmistakable.
The party claims that the poster merely promotes its plan to deport foreigners convicted of crimes. But many are not convinced and are questioning the deeper racist imagery and messaging. According to Newsweek:
The black-sheep campaign has drawn condemnation from the United Nations’ special rapporteur on racism, who says it “provokes racial and religious hatred” and should be withdrawn to restore “the image of Switzerland as a country respectful of human rights.”
The Swiss People’s Party (the Schweizerische Volkspartei or SVP) has the largest number of seats in the Swiss parliament and is a member of the country’s coalition government. This makes anything they condone or endorse a matter to be taken seriously. This Independent article questions whether Switzerland has become Europe’s heart of darkness and emphasizes SVP’s role in this.
The party has launched a campaign to raise the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to reintroduce into the penal code a measure to allow judges to deport foreigners who commit serious crimes once they have served their jail sentence.
But far more dramatically, it has announced its intention to lay before parliament a law allowing the entire family of a criminal under the age of 18 to be deported as soon as sentence is passed.
It will be the first such law in Europe since the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft – kin liability – whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for their crimes and punished equally.
The party has also launched a campaign for a referendum to ban the building of Muslim minarets, which has raised hackles.
Traditionally, Switzerland has been known for its stable political structure. But according to political expert Wof Linder, the run-up to the parliamentary elections on October 21 have been more aggressive than ever before and decidedly “un-Swiss”.
The tone has become harsher, but also rougher. I’m thinking here of the People’s Party, which has overstepped over the mark with its posters where the [white] sheep throw the black sheep out of Switzerland.
But it’s a similar story with the [centre-left] Social Democrats as one of their posters shows a plane crashing into a nuclear power plant. These are examples of things which have really overstepped the mark compared with the usual political style.
The SVP’s hard-line, anti-immigrant tactics garnered 26.2 per cent of the vote four years ago and latest polls show that it may achieve the same this time around. But the issues symbolized by a black sheep on a poster are much larger than one election campaign. They’re about identity, fear and belonging. As the Independent points out:
What is at stake here in Switzerland is not merely a dislike of foreigners or a distrust of Islam but something far more fundamental. It is a clash that goes to the heart of an identity crisis which is there throughout Europe and the US. It is about how we live in a world that has changed radically since the end of the Cold War with the growth of a globalised economy, increased immigration flows, the rise of Islam as an international force and the terrorism of 9/11. Switzerland only illustrates it more graphically than elsewhere.