Xenophobic Swiss? No, but realistic when it comes to immigration

Unpublished article - Marco Polli

On the RTS set, on January 13th, the French sociologist Ugo Palheta suggested that the «xenophobic» initiatives accepted in Switzerland were contributing to the return of fascism in Europe. More broadly, and beyond the question of Islam and Islamism, it is not uncommon for Helvetians to be accused of hostility - at least political hostility - towards immigration. This misunderstands the will of this people, who have given their country a genuine policy of welcoming foreigners. How did they do this? By rejecting six xenophobic initiatives over the past 50 years, and more recently, by accepting the conditions required to prevent Switzerland from becoming a Spanish hostel.

With 28% foreigners living within its walls, Switzerland has twice as many as its European neighbors. There are undoubtedly xenophobes in Switzerland, as in all countries. But no nation has given its people the opportunity to reject xenophobia by universal suffrage; Switzerland did so six times, from 1970 to 1988, with significant majorities. This is to its credit.

Racism«, of which xenophobia is a variant, consists in labelling a group of people with condemnable defects based on particularities such as race, nationality, gender or sexual practice. The four initiatives launched by James Schwarzenbach's Action nationale between 1970 and 1977, and the SVP's 1988 initiative, were unequivocally xenophobic. They portrayed foreigners globally as a threat to the country's identity. The first initiative in 1970 particularly targeted foreign workers, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese. Max Frisch ironically wrote: »A little people of masters feels in danger; we called for manpower, and men are arriving«. Yet these workers from Latin Europe had made the effort to integrate into local societies. We welcomed their children into our schools and can testify that, at the same socio-cultural level, they were just as, if not more, assiduous in their studies, because they received from their families the message that integration was an opportunity that came through success at school. The Swiss people understood this.

Switzerland and the reception of foreigners

What makes Switzerland so special is its «direct democracy, one of the primary forms of democracy in which the people exercise political power directly, whereas in a representative democracy it is exercised indirectly». In other words, it's the people who decide on matters drawn up by elected representatives, political parties or circumstantial groups of citizens, and it's the people who have the final say. In this way, over the decades, it has provided Switzerland with a policy of ’detailed reception« of foreigners, framed by conditions. It has done so in three stages: two that have prepared the ground, and a third that has defined the modalities for welcoming foreigners:

1. On December 6, 1992, by rejecting membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Swiss people preserved the country's sovereignty over its national territory;
2. In six successive votes, five of them unanimous, and at rates ranging from 54 to 84%, it condemned xenophobia;
3. Finally, on November 28, 2010, it decided to refer the foreign criminals under certain conditions, and on February 9, 2014, it regulated their reception by quotas according to its integration capacity.

It is these last two popular decisions, enshrined in art. 121 and 121a of the Federal Constitution, which define the Swiss Confederation's policy for welcoming foreigners:

• Art 121 Aliens and asylum legislation states in its 1^er paragraph that «the entry into Switzerland, exit, residence and establishment of foreigners and the granting of asylum are the responsibility of the Confederation». Paragraphs 3 to 6 specify the procedures for expelling «foreigners who threaten the security of the country», in accordance with the rule of law. These are no trifles. 
• Art 121a Immigration management puts into shape the vote of February 9, 2014. Note its first paragraph: «Switzerland manages the immigration of foreigners autonomously» completed, in case anyone has misunderstood, by the 4^thNo international treaty contrary to the present article shall be concluded«.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

It's an inescapable fact of life: good politics isn't made with good feelings, but with arguments, values and laws. The left experienced this bitterly with its «Etre solidaire» initiative of April 5, 1981, which, with arguments dripping with good intentions, presented a foreigner as good by nature. Rejected by 83.8%, it received the slap in the face it deserved.

In 1989, when the debate over the reception of refugees was raging in France, Michel Rocard, Prime Minister of the Mitterrand government, said: «France cannot welcome all the world's misery, but it must faithfully take its share of it», a statement that caused an uproar on the left. She had carefully omitted the second part of the sentence, «elle doit en prendre fidèlement sa part» ("France must faithfully take its share").», disregarding what is political and not moral, namely the prerogatives of the government of a sovereign country according to its capacity to receive immigrants. Over the years, Michel Rocard has repeatedly tried to make this second part of his argument heard, to no avail.

Well, no, the ’stranger« is neither bad nor good by virtue of the Holy Spirit. That's not the point. The November 28, 2010 initiative «Pour le renvoi des étrangers criminels» («For the deportation of criminal foreigners») was aimed at the minority who abuse our hospitality to commit crimes. The popular majority confirmed this evidence by accepting it. The wording "criminal foreigners" could be interpreted in two ways: on the one hand, objectively, targeting foreigners who have committed serious crimes, which corresponded to the wording of the text put to the vote; on the other, in terms of identity, stigmatizing foreigners in general as criminals. The people made no mistake. They accepted the initiative submitted to them, not because they agreed with the rhetoric of its promoters, the SVP, but because of its wording. In a nutshell. There is no reason to keep criminals in Switzerland to the detriment of other foreigners who respect its laws and customs, whose place they take, just as we must preserve suitable reception conditions in line with the country's capacities.

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C’est à la double majorité des voix et des cantons, et contre l’unanimité des médias, qu’il dira également OUI, le 9 février 2014, à l’initiative populaire fixant des «quotas annuels [d’immigration] selon les besoins de l’économie dans le respect du principe de la préférence nationale», inscrits désormais dans la Constitution fédérale. L’écrasante majorité des élites politiques, les partis gouvernementaux (sauf l’UDC), les syndicats, plus un grand nombre de regroupements occasionnels avaient mené campagne contre l’initiative au nom de la tolérance envers les étrangers. Le syndicat Unia avait stigmatisé une «forme d’apartheid inhumaine et discriminatoire», «mauvaise pour l’économie». Une étrange contre-vérité au vu d’une politique qui vise précisément à engager une main d’œuvre étrangère qualifiée répondant aux besoins de notre économie. Quant à l’«inhumanité», on en reparlera dans les banlieues sinistrées, que ne fréquentent pas les élites, bien entendu.

Civil peace requires integration

Welcoming foreigners is not just a matter of the constitutional provisions on which our policy is based. We also need to ensure that they are well received and encouraged to integrate. To this end, Switzerland has a number of assets at its disposal, the two most important of which are a dense network of civil society associations of all kinds, with strong integrating powers, and public education. Every inhabitant of our country belongs to one or more associations, sharing a common sporting, cultural, artistic, social or scientific activity. They are so familiar to us that we forget that they were a conquest, sometimes painful, that occupied the entire 19th century.^th siècle, présidant à l’avènement de la démocratie. Quant à l’Instruction publique, elle forme actuellement 800’000 élèves de 4 à 15 ans en scolarité obligatoire, et le 80% de 16 à 18 ans. Au total, 1,5 millions de jeunes représentant le 18% de la population, dont un tiers d’étrangers.

In the second half of the 20th century^th siècle, la Suisse a absorbé l’arrivée massive de Hongrois en 1956, puis de Tchèques en 1968, de Chiliens en 1973, de l’ex-Yougoslavie, d’autres encore. Ils ont vécu successivement l’espoir du retour, la dualité entre leur pays d’origine et celui qui les accueillait. Mais il ne faut pas se payer de mots: l’intégration passe obligatoirement par le partage d’un même désir. Si l’intégration des étrangers des pays précités s’est faite sans heurts en une génération, c’est par une double rencontre, bienveillante de la population avec des nouveaux arrivants disposés à s’intégrer.

However, since the turn of the century, powerful subversive organizations have been carrying out intense propaganda aimed at young people born in Switzerland, to put them in a conflict of loyalties between their parents' foreign origins and assimilation in the host country. Now more than ever, we need to be clear and strict if we are to preserve our conditions of welcome and safeguard civil peace at the same time. There are undoubtedly xenophobes in our country, as elsewhere, but only Switzerland has given its citizens six opportunities to reject their essentialization. We must firmly remind those who, by inverting cause and effect, try to pass off identity-based delinquents as victims.

Marco Polli is an actor and director. A retired teacher, he was also president of the Union du corps enseignant secondaire genevois and of the Commission Langues Vivantes.