Chocolate, Cheese and Racial Profiling: Swiss – Care to Explain?!
Yodel-ee-aa-who are the Swiss trying to keep out? Apparently immigrants. The above poster is a campaign promise from the Schweizerische Volkspartei (Swiss People’s Party) who currently hold more seats than any other political party in Switzerland (55 out of 200 in case you’re keeping count).
According to the Daily Mail:
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.
My first thoughts after seeing the poster and reading the story were pretty much ones of shock and horror. This is going on in Western Europe? Yikes!
This could be out of context. Perhaps this is one right-wing party in a liberal country that is going about things the wrong way – trying to find someone to blame for rising crime in an otherwise peaceful society. Of course North Americans wouldn’t know what it’s like to have foreign policy and domestic decisions made by an ultra conservative portion of the population.
Consider:
- perhaps it’s a coincidence they chose white and black sheep
- maybe it’s a coincidence they have Nazi-like crime control ideas
- Roger Federer is a scholar and a gentleman
- they make fantastic knives, watches, chocolate and cheese (although my Swiss Army watch is currently broken)
Weigh that with the fact that:
- Switzerland was a moderately poor country before the world wars began
- After declaring neutrality in 2 world wars (wars which were fought in their immediate neighbourhood), they held folks’ money. Thousands of those people died and now Switzerland is fabulously wealthy.
ViennaGeneva is considered one of the best cities to live in – in the world (unless you’re a black….sheep) - Switzerland declared neutrality – twice (how can you be neutral when it comes to the Nazis. I mean, you’re either on board with the whole ethnic cleansing, world-domination idea, or you’re strongly opposed.
I may be looking at this very simplistically. I don’t think all Swiss are racist, I’m not saying that Switzerland is an evil nation. They’ve probably done wonderful things too. (They were instrumental in starting the International Committee of the Red Cross in the late 1800’s. That alone may help balance this whole situation out.)
If you have information I should consider, please drop me a comment
I’m sorry to report you that Vienna isn’t a swiss city, but an austrian one.
D’oh! I knew that. Oops. Thanks for picking up on that. Now I have one less positive thing to say about Switzerland.
Geneva…is what you meant as a great city to live in…Bankers there will only consider your business if you are willing to deposit one 1.4 million us dollars.
Now that we have your informed opinion on Switzerland, I have a few questions:
Where did you get the idea that Switzerland was “fabulously wealthy”? There are many rich people that live there, but using that to say that the country is rich is like when the majority of the world thought the US was peopled by gangsters and cowboys because of the movies.
Switzerland did not “declare neutrality” twice. It declared itself to be neutral in international affairs on a permanent basis. Mainly because of all the wars happening in their immediate neighborhood. Have you looked at a map? What would be your choice if all the countries around you were Axis powers or conquered nations?
Remember,during the WWII, the US is the country that jailed it’s own citizens and effectively conficated their property because of national heritage, something that the rest of the world managed to avoid by and large.
Do you have any notion of Swiss politics? Do you know the name of the President and political parities? Do you know it’s immigration and labor laws?
Or did you just read an article somewhere that offended your sensibilities? I am reminded of Tommy Smothers’ line, “I’m an American. I don’t need to know anything to have an opinion.”
Americans have always looked at the world from a myopic point of view. While seeing themselves at the saviors of the world in the last century, much of Europe saw them as sitting of their asses until the world had exhausted it’s youth and material and then stepping in to wipe up. With earlier involvement by the US, perhaps Germany and Japan wouldn’t have been able to conquer so much of the world and perpetrate some of the horrors of that war.
You have a right to your opinion, but, please be aware that there is more to Switzerland’s struggle that to maintain its national identity than supplying you with watches and chocolate.
The poster has vanished from your post. I’d really like to see it… you have my email as part of this note, right? Hope you have the time and the willingness to send me a copy; thanks for posting this sad news, either way. I expect this sort of thing from the too-powerful far right in France, but I didn’t ever expect Switzerland to develop a hate party of its own.
And, the USA went from a middling nation to a world power after both World Wars… A lot of nations benefited from the World Wars. And in this day in age maybe its nice to know that the Swiss wont be invading anyone else like the Americans soon. When 70% of their jailed population is foreign you have to see their side.
I am extremely dissapointed in you. If the US would be brave enough to deport dangerous criminals perhaps an innocent victim would be alive and living well. I am ashamed in you pointing that out as “horrific” …it is an EXCELLENT idea. ALL western countries should take up the Swiss philosophy…I am behind them 100%.
~Carolyn
I’m a proud Canadian with middle Eastern back ground and did read the article about the Switzerland cartoon and political parties and their campaign this morning, honestly it shocked me at the first glance and I put more attention on the article and tried to make sure it can be any where except Swiss but unfortunately it was Switzerland!
I just remembered my sweet Canada and the way all the white and black sheep are living together in peace!!!!
Some times politicians need to learn from the history!
Wow. I went away for a few days, and when I returned I had all of these new comments on my blog about the Swiss story. I feel I need to clear a few things up:
- I’m Canadian, not American
- I NEVER claimed to be an expert in this matter, I admitted to that more than once in my blog
- this is a blog post not a newspaper article. Of course I got my info from an article. That doesn’t mean I didn’t look into it.
- I have no working knowledge of Switzerland’s banking policies, immigration policies, government or chocolate making abilities
- frankly I don’t really care about the above mentioned things. I saw an article that surprised me and slightly offended me. The fact that it was happening in a civilized, westernized, democratic country was slightly alarming.
- I know the Americans have a terrible foreign policy, I’ve said that lots
Thanks for all of the comments!
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very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce