Switzerland:
Multicultural Paradise?
In March, the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service announced that a growing
number of jihadists are being recruited in Switzerland. The number of robberies
and assaults on Swiss trains has skyrocketed to such an extent that the Swiss
government recently opted to equip transport police with firearms, and at least
1,400 women in Switzerland have been victims of forced
marriages.
A controversial new report by the Swiss government claims that Muslim
immigrants are so well integrated into Swiss society that no further federal
policies or programs are needed to promote Muslim integration or to counter
Islamic extremism.
Published by the Swiss Federal Council [Bundesrat] on May 8, the 102-page
study -- known by the short title, "
The
Situation of Muslims in Switzerland" -- so completely downplays the
countless problems associated with Muslim immigration in Switzerland that the
report has been ridiculed as being worthy of a "case study in political
correctness."
The report was first commissioned by proponents of multiculturalism within
the Swiss Cabinet shortly after Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a
referendum in November 2009 to
ban
the construction of minarets, the tower-like structures on mosques that are
often used to call Muslims to prayer.
The surprise outcome of the referendum, which passed with a clear majority of
57.5% of the voters, represented a turning point in the debate about Muslim
immigration in Switzerland.
Among other matters, the referendum exposed the growing gap between Swiss
multiculturalists and ordinary Swiss voters on the issue of Muslim immigration.
The Swiss Federal Council had
campaigned
hard against the ban, arguing it would "endanger peace between religions"
and "hinder integration." After the ban was approved, the government launched a
multi-pronged effort to "educate" the Swiss populace through taxpayer-funded
pro-Islam research.
The latest report estimates the Muslim population of Switzerland to be
between 350,000 and 400,000, or around 5% of the total population of 8 million.
The vast majority of Muslims in the country originate from the Balkans, Turkey
and North Africa, and roughly one-third are Swiss citizens. Many of them are
second- and third-generation immigrants firmly establishing themselves in
Switzerland.
The report says that most Muslims in Switzerland are not religious; only 12%
to 15% of Muslims in the country regularly attend a mosque. According to the
study, Islam in Switzerland is neither homogenous nor monolithic; it is
organized around multiple ethno-linguistic identities that rarely interact with
each other.
The greatest barriers to Muslim integration are due to language, not
religion, says the study, and serious problems related to Islam occur "only in
exceptional cases." The study notes that the vast majority of Muslims are fully
integrated into Swiss society, that Islam presents no particular problems for
daily life in Switzerland, and that Islam rarely leads to social conflict. As a
result, the study says, the government has decided that no further measures are
necessary to promote Muslim integration.
At the same time, however, the report says that Muslims in Switzerland often
feel discriminated against, and that the government needs to do more to educate
Swiss citizens about "Islamophobia." Muslim "victims" also need to be better
informed of their legal rights under existing anti-discrimination laws.
Needless to say, Muslims have welcomed the government's conclusions. In a
press release, the
Islamic
Central Council of Switzerland (IZRS), a radical Salafist group that states
its desire to install Islamic Sharia law in Switzerland, said the report
provides information that could help "reduce widespread fear in the Swiss
population." The IZRS -- which has been monitored by Swiss intelligence for its
anti-constitutional activities -- also called on the Swiss Federal Council to
take action against the "spread of Islamophobia" in Switzerland.
The study has left many Swiss voters scratching their heads in disbelief
because it is common knowledge that the twin issues of multiculturalism and
Muslim immigration are far more problematic than the rosy assessment proffered
by Swiss cabinet.
According to a recent survey of popular perceptions of Islam produced by the
Bertelsmann
Foundation, fully half of all Swiss voters view Islam as a threat to their
country, and 58% believe it does not belong in the Western world. Two-thirds of
Swiss voters view Islam as a source of conflict. Considering that hardly a day
goes by without news of some Islam-related problem in Switzerland, those survey
results are not surprising.
In May 2013, for example, it emerged that more than
two-thirds
of the pupils attending 80 schools in Zürich do not speak any German. At one
school in the Sihlfeld district of Zürich,
only
one pupil is a native German speaker. In Basel, the lack of German language
skills among Muslim immigrants is so acute that politicians are seeking to
establish quotas at the so-called
ghetto
schools, requiring that at least 30% of the students at any given school be
native German speakers.
Also in May, the Supreme Court of Switzerland ruled that a 14-year-old Muslim
girl
could
not be excused from swimming lessons just because the teacher was male. Her
parents had sought permission, but school officials had rejected the request. In
its ruling, the Supreme Court referred to a 2008 ruling that established the
principle that obligatory swimming lessons take precedence over religious
duties.
In April, it emerged that since the beginning of the Arab Spring, the
crime
rate in Switzerland has doubled, and some politicians are now demanding that
all male asylum seekers from North Africa and the Middle East provide DNA
samples that would be stored in a data bank to help Swiss police investigate
crimes.
In March, the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) warned that a growing
number of jihadists [holy warriors] are being recruited in Switzerland. In an
interview with the Swiss newspaper
Berner
Oberländer on March 11, the head of Swiss intelligence, Markus Seiler,
said, "What worries us, is that there are more and more people in our country
who are recruiting Swiss people for jihad." More than two dozen Swiss Muslims
are thought to have travelled to Syria to join the fighting there.
In February, the Vimentis polling platform, in its
annual survey for 2013,
found that immigration is by far the top issue of concern for Swiss voters. It
also found that nearly 70% of Swiss voters favor increasing the number of police
officers in the country due to rising levels of insecurity.
In January, Swiss authorities said they are bracing for a
massive
increase in asylum seekers in 2013. The government had budgeted for 23,000
asylum applications for 2013, but that figure is forecast to hit 30,000. Costs
to deal with political refugees are expected to explode to 1.43 billion francs
($1.5 billion).
In November 2012, the chief of police for the Swiss canton of Zug, Beat
Villiger, said Switzerland needs at least
1,500
more police officers to fight a crime wave perpetrated by foreign gangs.
Villiger said: "The professionalization of criminals in the areas of
pickpocketing, tricks and skimming [from ATM machines using duplicate credit
card readers and wireless cameras] is rising." He also called for special
prisons for failed asylum seekers and increased video surveillance in trains.
The number of
robberies
and assaults on Swiss trains has skyrocketed to such an extent that the
Swiss government recently opted to equip
transport
police with firearms.
Also in November, Swiss police arrested several members of a
Muslim
gang called Jamahat who forced adolescents from disadvantaged families in
the cities of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds to convert to Islam and then to
sell drugs. The
Jamahat
gang is made up of young Muslim men originally from Afghanistan, Chechnya
and the former Yugoslavia. According to police, the group "is attempting to
radicalize its activities by seeking to impose -- by physical and psychological
violence -- a monopoly on the sale of marijuana in our region."
In nearby Lausanne, the imam of a local mosque was
accused of polygamy
after he married a Swiss woman who converted to Islam. Both the imam and the
woman were already legally married to other spouses. The polygamous marriage was
performed in a religious ceremony; however, in Switzerland only civil marriages
are officially recognized by the state.
In October, Muslims complained about "offensive" advertising by
Swiss
Airlines. The campaign included large-format posters depicting an airplane
with the red and white cross of the Swiss flag painted on the tail fin,
accompanied by the slogan "Cross is Trump" [Kreuz ist Trumpf, a play on words
referring to card games]. Muslims were outraged by what they said was a
"Christian slogan used as a provocation and attack against Islam." Swiss
Airlines said its advertising campaign carries no religious or political
message.
Also in October, a sixth grade boy at a school in Winterthur was forced to
change schools after Muslim children repeatedly
pressured
him to convert to Islam. The problems began after one of the boys, whose
father is an imam, tried to force the boy to pray to Allah. After the boy
refused, the Muslim child began ridiculing his Christian faith. Soon thereafter,
other Muslim classmates (14 of the 19 boys in the sixth grade class are Muslim)
began harassing the boy, even calling for him to be killed for refusing to bow
the knee to Allah. Muslim children at the same school have also sought to
enforce Islamic dress codes.
That same month, a gym teacher at the
André-Chavanne
school in Geneva prevented female students from using a track field on
Fridays because of complaints from a nearby mosque. When outraged parents
confronted the teacher, she justified her action by saying she was concerned for
the girls' safety because Muslims had previously shouted insults at them.
In September, the Swiss House of Representatives voted against banning Muslim
women from wearing burkas in public spaces. Parliamentarians who voted against
the
burka
ban argued it would "encourage negative opinions of Switzerland" and "hurt
tourism from Muslim countries."
In August, a study conducted by a pair of academics from the University of
Neuchâtel found that at least
1,400
Muslim women in Switzerland have been the victims of forced marriages. Most
forced marriages involve Muslim immigrants from the Balkans, Turkey and Sri
Lanka.
In June, Swiss police warned that
radical
Muslim groups are using Switzerland as a base from which to promote jihad in
Europe and beyond. Islamists in Switzerland are providing jihadists with
logistical support, and also stepping up their use of Internet websites there to
spread Islamic propaganda as well as to incite their supporters to commit acts
of terrorism and violence. In response to the rising threat from radical Islam,
Swiss police launched a new specialist IT research department to intensify
efforts to monitor jihadist websites and their operators.
In February, leading Islamic groups in Switzerland announced plans to
establish
their own parliament that will enable all of the country's Muslims to "speak
with one voice," and that their new "parliament" will be based on the principles
of Islamic Sharia law. Swiss analysts, according to an exposé published by the
newspaper
Basler
Zeitung, say the initiative is an effort to establish a "parallel"
legislative body in Switzerland that will be a mouthpiece for Islamic
fundamentalists who are seeking to impose Sharia law in the country.
In January, the extremist Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (IZRS)
announced that it was trying to raise money from countries in the Persian Gulf
to build a 20-million Swiss franc ($21 million)
mega-mosque
in Bern. With three floors, the planned mosque would be the biggest in
Switzerland. In addition to a prayer room for more than 500 worshippers, the
building would have conference and training rooms, shops, underground parking
and a garden.
In September 2011, an immigrant group based in Bern called for the emblematic
white
cross to be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian
symbol it "no longer corresponds to today's multicultural Switzerland." In an
interview with the Swiss newspaper
Aargauer
Zeitung, a Muslim activist said the cross has a Christian background,
and while the Christian roots of Switzerland should be respected, "it is
necessary to separate church and state" because "Switzerland today has a great
religious and cultural diversity. One has to ask if the State wants to continue
building up a symbol in which many people no longer believe."
Soeren Kern is a Senior
Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He
is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de
Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
