Swiss referendum on minarets: an abuse of democracy
The result of the Swiss referendum forbidding the construction of new minarets surprised, shocked or left speechless the Swiss political, religious and social leaders, who had quasi-unanimously campaigned against a bill describing minarets as offensive weapons.
It is not the first time that such "surprises" occur. This situation strongly resembles the referendum on the European constitutional treaty of 2004: then too, except a few extremists or politicians longing for exposure, nobody supported the "no" and nevertheless, as we all remember, the "no" prevailed in France and in the Netherlands, which, as an incidental result, blocked the progress of Europe during five years.
In the Netherlands by the way, a tragicomic episode of the same vein took place on November 15th, 2004, when the Dutch television organized the election of the greatest Dutchman of History. In the course of the evening, to the surprise of all present, populist leader Pim Fortuijn eventually overtook the father of the nation, prince William of Orange himself – whereas, in a similar program which had inspired the Dutch television, the English had wisely elected Winston Churchill as their greatest compatriot of all times. The organisers then became aware, albeit too late, that the members of Pim Fortuijn’s party, Leefbaar Nederland, had mobilized each and every of their sympathizers and methodically swamped the telephone platform of the program...
I know I am bound to shock many a reader, but this rather amusing story illustrates perfectly well what is wrong with direct democracy, Swiss style: there is a permanent risk of hijacking of the country by a determined minority; the recipe for failure is a deadly mixture of elitist indifference towards a question without interest and/or poorly understood by part of the population and an appeal to fear and survival gut feelings, on a backdrop of swindling electoral turnout and of a strong mobilization of the extremists.
The obvious conclusion is that one cannot, without sufficient preparation, ask any question to the electorate. Voters are used to the classic choices between right and left, to the choices between programs of government for five years, to the choice of representatives or city councillors, etc. But ordinary people like you and me are unable to analyse completely, in a matter of weeks, new questions about which specialists themselves barely understand each other. How could we possibly use our common sense in new situations without a proper map and compass? The best proof of that is that most of those who voted in favour of the banning of minarets in Switzerland do not seem to fathom that this decision is discriminatory and contrary to any bill of Human Rights - although the interdiction of building or enlarging religious buildings was one of the classical forms of religious discriminations which was for instance used against the Protestants in France in the 17th and 18th century.
In the case of the building of minarets, the use of a referendum is a particularly dangerous abuse of democracy and a danger for democracy itself. If no one controls the quality of the questions put to popular vote to ensure that they respect elementary Human rights, isn’t there a risk that the end of democracy or substantial restrictions to democracy be approved by such a popular vote? But this abuse of democracy is harmful in more than one way. Let us imagine for just one minute that Robert Schuman, instead of having his project of Coal and Steel Community discretely approved the end of a Cabinet meeting, would have had the brilliant idea to organize a referendum on the question. The founding act of Europe would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority of the French – quite understandably so, hardly five years after the end of the war’s atrocities. We can then freely imagine how the internal disorders of Europe would have persisted in undermining European countries, and why not in pushing them into new conflicts. Direct democracy would have been out of place there.
Tomorrow German-speaking Switzerland could vote to make German the only language of the Swiss federal administration. A majority of the voters are German-speaking and a majority of the cantons (which is also required) as well. This would almost surely destroy Switzerland as we know it. In any case, the instigators of the bad blow of last Sunday have masses of ideas in reserve: referendum against the burka, against excision, etc.
Clearly the Swiss are going to do a lot more voting! And they’d better go to the poll because, unless they engage in institutional reforms to avoid any more confusion between democracy and demagoguery, they are going to fall into the hands of a group of conservative, xenophobic extremists and become the Western equivalent of Ahmadinejad’s Iran. A fate which I hope a majority of the Swiss will find appropriate to refuse.
The result of the Swiss referendum forbidding the construction of new minarets surprised, shocked or left speechless the Swiss political, religious and social leaders, who had quasi-unanimously campaigned against a bill describing minarets as offensive weapons.
It is not the first time that such "surprises" occur. This situation strongly resembles the referendum on the European constitutional treaty of 2004: then too, except a few extremists or politicians longing for exposure, nobody supported the "no" and nevertheless, as we all remember, the "no" prevailed in France and in the Netherlands, which, as an incidental result, blocked the progress of Europe during five years.
In the Netherlands by the way, a tragicomic episode of the same vein took place on November 15th, 2004, when the Dutch television organized the election of the greatest Dutchman of History. In the course of the evening, to the surprise of all present, populist leader Pim Fortuijn eventually overtook the father of the nation, prince William of Orange himself – whereas, in a similar program which had inspired the Dutch television, the English had wisely elected Winston Churchill as their greatest compatriot of all times. The organisers then became aware, albeit too late, that the members of Pim Fortuijn’s party, Leefbaar Nederland, had mobilized each and every of their sympathizers and methodically swamped the telephone platform of the program...
I know I am bound to shock many a reader, but this rather amusing story illustrates perfectly well what is wrong with direct democracy, Swiss style: there is a permanent risk of hijacking of the country by a determined minority; the recipe for failure is a deadly mixture of elitist indifference towards a question without interest and/or poorly understood by part of the population and an appeal to fear and survival gut feelings, on a backdrop of swindling electoral turnout and of a strong mobilization of the extremists.
The obvious conclusion is that one cannot, without sufficient preparation, ask any question to the electorate. Voters are used to the classic choices between right and left, to the choices between programs of government for five years, to the choice of representatives or city councillors, etc. But ordinary people like you and me are unable to analyse completely, in a matter of weeks, new questions about which specialists themselves barely understand each other. How could we possibly use our common sense in new situations without a proper map and compass? The best proof of that is that most of those who voted in favour of the banning of minarets in Switzerland do not seem to fathom that this decision is discriminatory and contrary to any bill of Human Rights - although the interdiction of building or enlarging religious buildings was one of the classical forms of religious discriminations which was for instance used against the Protestants in France in the 17th and 18th century.
In the case of the building of minarets, the use of a referendum is a particularly dangerous abuse of democracy and a danger for democracy itself. If no one controls the quality of the questions put to popular vote to ensure that they respect elementary Human rights, isn’t there a risk that the end of democracy or substantial restrictions to democracy be approved by such a popular vote? But this abuse of democracy is harmful in more than one way. Let us imagine for just one minute that Robert Schuman, instead of having his project of Coal and Steel Community discretely approved the end of a Cabinet meeting, would have had the brilliant idea to organize a referendum on the question. The founding act of Europe would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority of the French – quite understandably so, hardly five years after the end of the war’s atrocities. We can then freely imagine how the internal disorders of Europe would have persisted in undermining European countries, and why not in pushing them into new conflicts. Direct democracy would have been out of place there.
Tomorrow German-speaking Switzerland could vote to make German the only language of the Swiss federal administration. A majority of the voters are German-speaking and a majority of the cantons (which is also required) as well. This would almost surely destroy Switzerland as we know it. In any case, the instigators of the bad blow of last Sunday have masses of ideas in reserve: referendum against the burka, against excision, etc.
Clearly the Swiss are going to do a lot more voting! And they’d better go to the poll because, unless they engage in institutional reforms to avoid any more confusion between democracy and demagoguery, they are going to fall into the hands of a group of conservative, xenophobic extremists and become the Western equivalent of Ahmadinejad’s Iran. A fate which I hope a majority of the Swiss will find appropriate to refuse.
posted by Antoine Jaulmes at 4:40 AM
0 comments
