As someone who's lived in Switzerland for a decade and loves Switzerland very much, it definitely has a massive racism/xenophobia issue, and has had it for centuries. Here are a few of the posters...
As someone who's lived in Switzerland for a decade and loves Switzerland very much, it definitely has a massive racism/xenophobia issue, and has had it for centuries.
Here are a few of the posters I remember from public referendums they were voting on in the time I lived there.
Those all comes from the right-wing populist party. They are sadly known for those kind of stunts. Fortunately, the Swiss politic system is based on compromise, so their impact on society is less...
Those all comes from the right-wing populist party. They are sadly known for those kind of stunts. Fortunately, the Swiss politic system is based on compromise, so their impact on society is less bad compared to what could've happen in a winner-takes-all system.
If memory serves, I think the minaret ban (poster #2) and the "against mass immigration" initiative (poster #1,#3), which legalizes expulsion of foreigners who commit two offenses within a 10-year...
If memory serves, I think the minaret ban (poster #2) and the "against mass immigration" initiative (poster #1,#3), which legalizes expulsion of foreigners who commit two offenses within a 10-year period without a trial or appeal, were passed.
But regardless, the feeling I got was that the swiss really do hate their foreigners. Apart from having some of the most extreme naturalization laws (12 years), immigration and asylum quotas in Europe, as a foreigner who had lived there for a long while, they had consistently made it a point to remind me of it and make me feel unwelcome. I was even refused the right to get married there (they said it was because of some nonsense bureaucracy of Geneva's etat civil, but really they had changed their tone very abruptly as soon as they learned I was jewish). And this isn't unique to me - most of my expat friends from various countries reported the same experience - all of whom have since left the country.
Now, don't get me wrong, the country itself is amazing and I absolutely loved my time there. As someone who's lived in many countries throughout my life, if there's one country in the world I could pick to live in, it would be Switzerland. It's just not thanks of the swiss. :)
I'll parrot the top comment of /r/Switzerland: Also this bit: A bit more context: In this game, players moves unidirectionally from one end of the field to the other. Opposite to them is the Black...
I don’t doubt that racism exists in Switzerland. I don’t even doubt that it could be systemic. However, I find it kind of hard to take those "findings" seriously when half the article is just someone whining about about a statue and a mountain peak named after historical figures from decades ago.
Also this bit:
Swiss playground games persist such as "Who is afraid of the Black man?", which have a racially discriminatory effect, the experts said.
A bit more context: In this game, players moves unidirectionally from one end of the field to the other. Opposite to them is the Black Man, who does the same in the opposite direction. While crossing each other, the Black Man can tag other players, who becomes Black Men as in the next round. The game progress until no players are left. There's a ritual call that announces the begin of a round ("Who's afraid of the Black Man?" "Not me!").
The name is unfortunate, but this is an allegory of the Black Death (because acral necrosis turns parts of your body black). I remember there were already some debates back in the '90s when I played this; I think the village schoolteacher changed the "Black Man" into "the Man in Black" to dodge this issue. I don't think I ever associated the Black Man with race (more of a generic boogeyman) ? But the fact that there was a métisse pupil in the neighboring class and that I am of East Asian descent probably helped.
Yeah, German here and I've played the child game as well. Same as you, I never thought of an actually black person. I don't know why, but in my head it was always a chimney sweeper. It didn't even...
Yeah, German here and I've played the child game as well. Same as you, I never thought of an actually black person. I don't know why, but in my head it was always a chimney sweeper. It didn't even occur to me, that it could be racist until it was brought up in debates a few years ago.
That said, there certainly is (perceived) racism in Switzerland, at least that's what I noticed when I worked there for a few months. Some political posters that were hanging in Basel made me go "uuuh, what?". Stuff that wouldn't fly in Germany (it's been like 8 years already, so sorry I can't be more concrete what was on the poster, but it was about foreigners being bad because they steal jobs or something). And I assume that in a big city like Basel it's a bit more left leaning than conservative.
I'm also reading a German finance and work subreddit regularly and whenever someone makes a thread about moving to Switzerland to work, three topics generally come up: a) differences in working culture, b) culture of the people (for example how it's hard to become friends with people) and c) racism. And while I obviously can't know for sure, people who report these also have personal experience with this from working in Switzerland and are not just parroting phrases they've read on the internet (for example they're really familiar with how insurances work there or how the taxes/pension works while also mentioning racism they've experienced).
Switzerland has a serious systemic problem with racism against people of African descent, according to a report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday, giving a broad range of examples from police brutality to a children's game.
The U.N.-appointed working group noted positive measures taken by Switzerland but still voiced concerns about the prevalence of racial discrimination and highlighted several incidents following a visit to the country this year.
Switzerland's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva broadly accepted the findings in comments to the council, although questioned the experts' use of a limited number of examples to draw wider conclusions.
As someone who's lived in Switzerland for a decade and loves Switzerland very much, it definitely has a massive racism/xenophobia issue, and has had it for centuries.
Here are a few of the posters I remember from public referendums they were voting on in the time I lived there.
http://media.talkingbeautifulstuff.com/2014/10/Swiss-Political-Posters-4.jpg
https://media.talkingbeautifulstuff.com/2014/10/Swiss-Political-Posters-3.jpg
https://static.euronews.com/articles/307901/580x363_swiss-birds.jpg
https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/Swastika-800x450.jpg
Those all comes from the right-wing populist party. They are sadly known for those kind of stunts. Fortunately, the Swiss politic system is based on compromise, so their impact on society is less bad compared to what could've happen in a winner-takes-all system.
If memory serves, I think the minaret ban (poster #2) and the "against mass immigration" initiative (poster #1,#3), which legalizes expulsion of foreigners who commit two offenses within a 10-year period without a trial or appeal, were passed.
But regardless, the feeling I got was that the swiss really do hate their foreigners. Apart from having some of the most extreme naturalization laws (12 years), immigration and asylum quotas in Europe, as a foreigner who had lived there for a long while, they had consistently made it a point to remind me of it and make me feel unwelcome. I was even refused the right to get married there (they said it was because of some nonsense bureaucracy of Geneva's etat civil, but really they had changed their tone very abruptly as soon as they learned I was jewish). And this isn't unique to me - most of my expat friends from various countries reported the same experience - all of whom have since left the country.
Now, don't get me wrong, the country itself is amazing and I absolutely loved my time there. As someone who's lived in many countries throughout my life, if there's one country in the world I could pick to live in, it would be Switzerland. It's just not thanks of the swiss. :)
I'll parrot the top comment of /r/Switzerland:
Also this bit:
A bit more context: In this game, players moves unidirectionally from one end of the field to the other. Opposite to them is the Black Man, who does the same in the opposite direction. While crossing each other, the Black Man can tag other players, who becomes Black Men as in the next round. The game progress until no players are left. There's a ritual call that announces the begin of a round ("Who's afraid of the Black Man?" "Not me!").
The name is unfortunate, but this is an allegory of the Black Death (because acral necrosis turns parts of your body black). I remember there were already some debates back in the '90s when I played this; I think the village schoolteacher changed the "Black Man" into "the Man in Black" to dodge this issue. I don't think I ever associated the Black Man with race (more of a generic boogeyman) ? But the fact that there was a métisse pupil in the neighboring class and that I am of East Asian descent probably helped.
Yeah, German here and I've played the child game as well. Same as you, I never thought of an actually black person. I don't know why, but in my head it was always a chimney sweeper. It didn't even occur to me, that it could be racist until it was brought up in debates a few years ago.
That said, there certainly is (perceived) racism in Switzerland, at least that's what I noticed when I worked there for a few months. Some political posters that were hanging in Basel made me go "uuuh, what?". Stuff that wouldn't fly in Germany (it's been like 8 years already, so sorry I can't be more concrete what was on the poster, but it was about foreigners being bad because they steal jobs or something). And I assume that in a big city like Basel it's a bit more left leaning than conservative.
I'm also reading a German finance and work subreddit regularly and whenever someone makes a thread about moving to Switzerland to work, three topics generally come up: a) differences in working culture, b) culture of the people (for example how it's hard to become friends with people) and c) racism. And while I obviously can't know for sure, people who report these also have personal experience with this from working in Switzerland and are not just parroting phrases they've read on the internet (for example they're really familiar with how insurances work there or how the taxes/pension works while also mentioning racism they've experienced).