They are also incredibly xenophobic (i.e. Japanese levels).
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=troll%20effects%20by:dang&date...
In particular, please don't stoke nationalistic flamewars on HN, regardless of which countries are under discussion.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26378562.)
Also, the biggest party (SVP) often uses very controversial advertisement, which I can easily imagine to be interpreted as xenophobic by foreigners (I'm Swiss myself).
Glad to hear your positive experience in Switzerland - especially now with the passing of the 'Burka ban', seeing Switzerland as xenophobic isn't something that would surprise me too much.
To dismiss a whole people as xenophobic as OP did I think is very much an overgeneralization, but I think a large part of Swiss culture is certainly more xenophobic than even nearby European countries - accepting that is an ugly part of the situation does not mean the Swiss people should be any less proud of what they've built over the years.
Current day exceptions like Donbas, Hong Kong, and Gaza (to name just a few) certainly exist, and there is room for discussion there. There is also an argument that can be held regarding the human and economic cost of getting to a place where the culture fits you.
But to call all attempts to maintain a culture "xenophobic" and therefore associated with a negative... I don't think this is the right way to be.
The Swiss are xenophobic? Eh?
They welcome people from all over the world to come together to work towards peace and humanitarianism in their country. They host the only truly international humanitarian organisation in the world. They helped build many of the institutions that try to reduce conflict.
Calling them xenophobic is bizarre.
Here's an article from 2000 about the referendum on the migrant quota. You can read about the SVP's initiative and reaction here: https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/18-prozent-initiative-deutlich-...
Here's another article from 2000 comparing different right-wing parties in Western Europe (including the SVP) and also mentioning xenophobia as part of their make-up: https://monde-diplomatique.de/artikel/!1243322
Here's an article from 2002 about then SVP-president Oskar Freysinger and his infamous poetry. Please read what he wrote and explain how it's not xenophobic: https://www.nzz.ch/article8J5AD-1.443107
Here's an article from 1999 about a thank-you letter written by SVP-cantonal president Christoph Blocher to the holocaust-denier Jürgen Graf: https://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/vermischtes/kontro...
It really doesn't take a lot of digging to understand what the SVP stands for. I mean today their initiative for a ban on burqas/niqab went through with 52% of the vote despite there only being around 20-30 burqa/niqab wearers in all of Switzerland.
I often do see this take that whatever Twitter might currently be mad at is supposedly a hysterical view on things, yet it seems this automatic opposite view is never seen for the hyperbole it is.
You don't think the referendums on banning minarets and burqas are... Xenophobic in any form?
If you present a question as a falsifiable test to whether people are consistent in calling out discrimination, I would hope you would be open to changing your mind on the issue rather than simply convince yourself there is instead a conspiracy when new evidence is presented...
You don't think those constitutional referendums which ban those historically Muslim traditions could be interpreted as xenophobic?
You don't seem intent on actually answering my question or even directly addressing it, so I assume you are just gaslighting in bad faith. Good luck.
What do you think a referendum is, if not a poll of the population's opinion on something?
My answer to your question is to look at their actual positive impact all around the world, including for Islamic countries, not their opinions on architecture or dress.
I literally don't think there's a more peaceful, welcoming, open-to-others' cultures anywhere in the world than the Swiss. If you think they're xenophobic then everyone else is 10x more xenophobic.
The fact that some Swiss were able to contribute immensely to a "positive impact all around the world" doesn't magically turn us into a nice and warm population, open to other people's cultures. A large part of the population hates foreigners, considers them as opportunists and job stealers, if not criminals. This is not a "Swiss", it's the same everywhere in the world.
The difference is that Swiss are educated and law abiding xenophobes: a foreigner will rarely feel insecure in Switzerland and discrimination will mostly be silent. As opposed to a country like the USA where racists are empowered with a low likelihood of criminal charges.
But that doesn't mean in any way that a foreigner is more welcome in Switzerland than elsewhere. If you sincerely believe this, it could only indicate you don't share a significant part of your life with foreigners who actually visually look like foreigners.
Same language, same education. Now add a different skin color to that and lack of speaking the language to that, then you might be able to grasp how these people felt there.
Of course there are some die hard open minded people there, not enough, though.
Sounds like I have nothing good to say about Switzerland? There are good aspects, I just blow a head gasket every time a person who has not lived there from early on and dealt with the institutions or does not have relatives there thinks it is a nation of innocence , milk(this is true, though) and honey. People are less likely to be beat up by a racist mob, that is not how it is done in Switzerland. The Swiss are silent sufferers and more sophisticated than that.
I simply think that classist amd racists are the blindest people walking earth.
Plenty of those in Switzerland. Ps even that direct democracy is a crock of manure.
A wise man once told me, the Nazis the communists amd other such opportunists ....in Switzerland they will have a smile and wear a suit.
If you think everyone's a xenophobe and it's just that the Swiss are the best at not acting on it... then yeah they're the best aren't they? Beats acting on it with violence like every other country surely?
Everyone always thinks the worst of their own country and holds their own to higher standards.
Both initiatives are targeted to a specific extremely tiny population of citizens (most of the trouble is with « converted » Swiss that embrace Islamist views, most of Muslim of foreign origin are pretty well integrated and many even supported the recent burka ban because they know very well what that means) that tries to exploit the democratic system to promote their totalitarian ideology. You have to nip that in the bud. There is for sure some collateral damage as not all people that would like to build a minaret are necessarily islamists but there are prices to pay so that everybody can live peacefully together. The sacrifices will be compensated when the times come.
FYI, back when that was source of troubles Jesuits were banned in the constitution (ban lifted in the 70ties) and some cantons were forbidding to build bell towers for Catholic churches till last century, etc. When the tensions tapered out all the bans were lifted. I’m pretty sure in 50 years if we get rid of Islamism the minaret ban can be lifted with no troubles.
As a side note, by the way it is constructed, essentially everybody in Switzerland is part of some minority and is both paying a bit and getting back a lot in terms of freedom and respect. Everybody depends on the goodwill of the majority so it is in general wary of stomping on other minorities but react strongly when somebody want to destroy the system or doesn’t respect it (most of the sparse cases of real xenophobic behavior, which btw I don’t condone, you may encounter in Switzerland often boils down normal human narrow minds and that).
Or is Democracy suddenly not okay if the will of the people is misaligned with the "greater" society's views? Which, I would also argue, isn't conclusively in the camp that "xenophobia = bad". If anything, it's held by a minority of countries, and even then, not shared by all in those countries. But of course, xenophobia is a loaded term, so we could be talking about completely different things that fall under that umbrella.
Yes exactly this. One of Democracy's greatest flaws is that is is often misaligned with the greater good. Almost every example of expanded civil rights that have occurred in recent memory was wildly unpopular at one point and was delayed by democratic mob rule until persistent effort was able to eventually turn the tide of public opinion.
Sure, but they are what we define as unambiguously xenophobic policies, even if it is a broad term which can include much more than that and were democratically enacted.
Whether xenophobia is bad is another story - I'm not really sure anyone would find much insight from a discussion about it.
Banning building minarets has no such justification; just blatant xenophobia.
Making 'can't build minarets' part of your constitution isn't some local law building code thing; it's motivated by xenophobia.
They have come around a bit in the new millennium, but do not be naive. All the humanitarian projects are either tax evasion schemes or a PR job. Bit like when a horrible employer declares himself a philanthropist.
They are not saints, make no mistake, your view is a bit blurry, that is the effect when you swallow the Swiss PR pill.
So I don't think there's any comparison at all to Japan (2%).
Each of those countries was made by a mix of native, European, African and Asian peoples of different kinds, in different proportions, at different times. Europe is made of just Europeans, and immigration is a very recent thing.
So why were non-white populations in Europe negligible until about 60 years ago? Statistics are hard to come by, but do these pictures of London shortly after the fall of the British colonial empire look like a capital that "gladly took in and integrated foreigners"? https://www.vintag.es/2012/12/london-in-color-photographs-in...
Or Paris? https://flashbak.com/24-color-photographs-of-paris-from-may-...
Or if you don't like to go by random photos: "Historical migration into or within Europe has mostly taken the form of military invasion" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe
> Is this what American education sounds like?
Having been educated in Europe myself, there was no hint of this "gladly took in and integrated foreigners" you speak of in the curriculum. May I ask where you got this idea?
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/migration-series-part-1...
However: There are twice as many Asians in Switzerland as there are people from the Americas. There are also more Africans than there are Americans. The fifth largest immigrant group are from Kosovo (almost as many as France and way more than Spain or Austria). There have been multiple waves of immigration and the country is actually very diverse.
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/population/m...
Very few countries are ahead of this. Even Australia is only 30%, and Canada (which has often led the world in immigration statistics) is 21.3%.
Perhaps you can provide some evidence for your statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland
For Canada, the top ten breakdown of immigrants are: 8.9% from India, 8.6% from China, 7.8% from Philippines, 6.6% from UK, 3.3% from US, 3% from Italy, 2.8% from Hong Kong, 2.7% from Pakistan, 2.2% from Vietnam, 2.1% from Iran. Add those up, and you're only up to about 50%; there's a long tail out from there.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada#Sources_...
A lot more of a mosaic/melting pot in Canada than Switzerland.
However, the corporate culture that is much more liberal in Geneva is very different than the vast majority of the country as well. I felt more welcome there than in a few places I visited in nearby Germany.
Of course, they are also very polite about it. I’m not talking about US-redneck-tier xenophobia.
But it's the same in many countries. I don't necessarily see a problem with that. Do you view this issue as problematic and if so, why?
I live in Thailand and Thai people will never consider me a Thai, even if I would speak fluent Thai and would conform to all societal norms. I've moved to Thailand and decided that regardless of this, it's a decent place for me to stay, better than The Netherlands where I came from.
There are certainly some xenophobic people in Switzerland, and the SVP is certainly a party that uses xenophobic rhetoric to get attention, but our economy is the opposite of xenophobic.