Switzerland
Poreigners go home
Douglas Brown
Switzerland, by tradition, is the very model of racial and religious toleration, Her citizens do not form a cultural entity, but speak three different European languages and practise Without serious animosity both the Catholic and the Protestant faiths. It is the very opposite of Ulster.
Swiss patriotism, therefore, occupies a dirnension unfamiliar to the citizens of most Other nation-states. It is an intellectual concept, based first on an armed but purely defensive neutrality, and then on a fastidious disengagement from world conflicts combined with a peculiar willingness to contribute to the alleviation of their effects. This view of nationhood is also associated with denlocracy in its purest, most Athenian form. How this attitude of mind came about is a complicated question of history. Today the best way to understand it is simply to look at the Alps. These still form the grave and silent centre of the European whirlpool, and in most foreseeable strategic circumstances the Swiss Militia, with every able-bodied man hanging Up his rifle above the kitchen stove, is enough to keep that centre inviolate.
An undifferentiated hospitality to foreigners, not entirely dissociated from an eye to the main chance, is one aspect of this higher neutrality. Switzerland was Europe's first Playground, it welcomes and conceals private bank accounts, and, in offering political asylum to all, it calmly harboured at ZimmerWald forces that in the Russian revolution blew the rest of the world apart. To offset this, it gave birth to the Red Cross, and, between the wars, was the seat of the League of Nations. Today it offers house-room to more International 6rganisations than any other country. Thus no one is quite a foreigner in Switzer, land. To the three national languages English
has been added. It is easy for any foreigner to visit Switzerland and forget about the Swiss.
8ut now at last the workings of economics in a Europe out of demographic balance have caught up with this civilised and quietly ac
quisitive folk. Swamped not by foreign .tourists, conspirators or millionaires, but by TOreign workers, they, of all people, have caught the disease of xenophobia. Once Switzerland was poor enough for a proportion of her young men to seek their fortunes abroad, notably in the hotel in clUstry. This applies no longer, except to the nigher branches of the exporting industries. There are few Swiss workers outside Switzerland, but there are a million foreign workers and their dependants within her borders, Some with permanent residential certificates and some who must apply for them annually.
, million foreigners out of a total popu lation of six million is something to think bout, more especially when the figure is sWollen by 200,000 seasonal workers in sum
'tier and by 100,000 men and women who cSoss and re-cross the German, Italian and ,rrench frontiers all the year round to do their "a,Y's work in Swiss factories. Ai in Britain, but to a much greater extent, the more menial jobs are being taken over by strangers. These compose half the work-force of the construction industries, and since 1970, when new immigrants, through legislation as traumatic as Britain's Commonwealth Immigration Acts, were restricted to 20,000 a year, the road-building programme has had to be held back. The textile industry employs up to 70 per cent of foreign labour; and even in cer tain branches of tourism it is hard these days to meet a Swiss waiter, though his skill has traditionally inspired the rest of the world, There are few coloured workers in Switzerland, and half the foreigners are Italians from the impoverished Mezzogiorno. Italian is one of the three Swiss national languages, and Catholicism one of the state religions. But the superficial ease with which these strangers enter Swiss society in itself raises problems. They cannot be immediately recognised by the colour of their skin or by their speech, but they are suspect aliens none the less, with a Mediterranean background very different from that of their staid and orderly hosts. Already they have upset the ancient confessional balance, making Roman Catholicism statistically the dominant religion.
The process by which those foreigners who desire to settle can progress from annual work permits to permanent residence and fi nally to full citizenship has recently become complex and restrictive, but it remains liberal in intention, It is now in danger from the Swiss principle of direct democracy. The respectable political parties can proclaim hu mane and liberal principles, but ultimately, in the secrecy of the polling booth, it is the people who decide.
James Schwarzenbach, a leader of the extreme right-wing group composed of the Re publikaner and National Action parties, commands the votes of eleven members in a parliament of 200. It is inconceivable that he could ever form part of that coalition of Christian Democrats, Liberals and moderate Socialists that is the mainstay of nearly all Swiss administrations. Nevertheless, he has only to obtain the signatures of 50,000 citizens to force parliament to present to the people his proposal that the million foreigners now resident in Switzerland be reduced by one half. The major parties in parliament can delay the popular vote, offer alternative proposals and indulge in as much propaganda as they wish. In the end, however, according to the constitution, they must appeal to the people and abide by their decision. Schwarzenbach tried this " initiative" in 1970, and captured no less than 46 per cent of the votes. This was indeed a narrow squeak. Had a tiny proportion of the electorate voted the other way Switzerland would have been in what one official has described as an " horrendous " situation. Unless some constitutional device had been found to render the popular vote nugatory, one of the most civilised nations on earth would have emulated and surpassed General Amin, and destroyed both its economy and its self-respect in the process.
Now the Schwarzenbach factions are trying again, with the slogan "Switzerland is not an immigrant country". Though there are many constitutional ways of postponing the vote, the legal possibility that it will happen one day is inescapable. Enoch Powell, one feels, would give his right arm for such an opportunity here.
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