Minaret vote reflects Swiss ‘semi-openness’, expert says

The decision by Swiss voters to ban the construction of minarets reflects an ambivalent attitude toward foreigners, says a University of Neuchâtel geography professor who has studied the issue.

The result from Sunday’s referendum – 57 percent of citizens cast ballots in support of an initiative prohibiting new mosque towers – accords with an image some may have of Switzerland being narrow-minded about immigrants.

But Etienne Piguet, who has just published a book covering a 60-year history of immigration in Switzerland, said the country remains more welcoming than many outsiders may think.

“The first really simple argument of the country’s openness is, of course, the volume of immigration,” Piguet said in an interview with Swisster.

Foreigners account for 23 percent of the population, proportionately higher than nations commonly thought of as immigrant countries, such as Canada, Australia and the US, he said.

Piguet’s 152-page book covers the post-war period and is subtitled 60 years of “semi-openness.”

“Switzerland is a paradoxical country of immigration that is open and closed at the same time,” he said.

“I try to challenge two very common interpretations about migration to Switzerland,” Piguet said.

“On the left side (of the political spectrum) people believe Switzerland is a very closed country with a restrictive immigration policy and a high level of zenophobia, which is expressed in such initiatives as the minaret ban,” he said.

“On the other side are the nationalists who believe the country is too open.”

Piguet said he was surprised by the outcome of the referendum on minarets, which he called a “bad example of direct democracy” and a “vote of fear.”

Supporters of the initiative played on the false idea “that there is a clearly identified Muslim community that could ask for special privileges – such as building minarets.”

But Piguet said it is a mistake to identify the 300,000 to 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland as a uniform group or community.

Most of them come from former Yugoslav countries such as Kosovo and Turkey, including Kurdish asylum seekers, rather than from the Middle East, he noted.

Many of them do not actively practice religion and “they just don’t care about building minarets.”

The federal government opposed the minaret ban but if may have been mistaken in its campaign, which referred to the “Muslim community” rather than acknowledging the “plurality” of the Muslim population in Switzerland, Piguet said.

Historically, Switzerland has relied on foreign workers to sustain its economy, although they have not always been welcome to establish roots in the country.

Between 1948 and 2002, the country invited seasonal workers who were able to stay for nine months at a time, largely men without their families.

In the 1960s and 1970s between 100,000 and up to almost 250,000 workers entered the country on such short-term permits until the programme was abolished.

The oil crisis of the mdi-1970s led Switzerland to be less welcoming. “Thousands of people were forced to leave,” Piguet said.

But since the 1990s, immigration levels have jumped significantly.

Piguet does not expect the current economic downturn will lead to a reduction in Switzerland’s immigrants this time round.

For one thing, holders of B permits can stay in Switzerland for a much longer period, even if they lose their jobs, he said.

Unemployment insurance was not mandatory in Switzerland in the 1970s as it is now. Another factor, is the fact that immigration to Switzerland is now less tied to the job market, Piguet said.

Between 1998 and 2007, work accounted for just a quarter of the people who immigrated to Switzerland. Forty percent of immigrants moved to the country to reunite with their families, while 13 percent came for educational reasons and 5.1 percent were asylum seekers.

Piguet acknowledged that when economic times turn worse, immigrants tend to lose their jobs at a higher rate than Swiss.

According to the latest statistics (from October), 2.9 percent of Swiss are unemployed while 6.9 percent of foreigners are without work.

“There is a difference in unemployment but that doesn’t mean foreigners will have to leave.”

Piguet will be giving a lecture on his immigration research at the University of Geneva on Thursday at 6.30 pm, at room R070, Unimail, Boulevard Pont d’Arve.

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