The Swiss people have just decided, in a referendum, against building new minarets in their country. This decision can legitimately raise very many concerns. Referenda require people to answer “yes” or “no” to a specific question. Can we answer “yes” or “no” to such a complicated question touching on such deep-rooted issues? I am convinced this can only give rise to painful misunderstandings and a feeling of injustice, and that such a categorical answer to a matter, which has to be resolvable on a case-by-case basis, respecting everyone’s beliefs and religion, can only cause hurt.
Criticism for the Reaction to the Vote Rather than the Vote Itself
But how can we fail to be astounded at the reaction this decision has provoked in some media and political circles in our own country? Extreme, and at times grotesque, reactions against the Swiss people, whose democracy, older than ours, has the rules and traditions of a direct democracy, where the people are used to speaking up and taking decisions for themselves?
Indeed, behind these harsh reactions lies a visceral mistrust of everything emanating from the people. For some, reference to the people already signals the beginning of populism. But it is by turning a deaf ear to the cries of the people, becoming indifferent to their difficulties, feelings, aspirations, that populism is fueled. This contempt for the people, since it is a form of contempt, always ends badly. How can we be astonished at the success of extremists when we take no account of voters’ suffering?
What has just happened reminds me of the reception given to the rejection of the European Constitution in 2005. I remember the sometimes hurtful things said to that majority of Frenchmen and women who had chosen to say “no”. This implacably pitted the France who said “yes” against the France who said “no”, opening up a split which, had it deepened would never have allowed France to resume her place in Europe.
To reconcile the “yes France” with the “no France”, it was first necessary to try and understand what the French had wanted to express; to admit that the majority had not gone astray, but had, like the majority of the Irish and majority of the Dutch, expressed what they felt and, in full knowledge of the facts, rejected a Europe they no longer wanted because it gave the impression of being increasingly indifferent to the peoples’ aspirations.
Unable to change the peoples, we had to change Europe. The “no France” began to be reconciled with the “yes France” once, instead of judging her, people sought to understand her. It was then that, transcending what had divided her, France was able to take the lead in the battle to change Europe.
Don't Vilify. Understand.
So instead of vilifying the Swiss because their answer doesn’t please us, it is better to ask ourselves what it reveals. Why in Switzerland, a country with a long tradition of openness, hospitality and tolerance, can such a rejection be so forcefully expressed? And how would the French people answer the same question?
Instead of condemning the Swiss people out of hand, let’s also try to understand what they sought to express and what so many peoples in Europe, including the French, feel. Nothing would be worse than denial. Nothing would be worse than not being realistic about so many Europeans’ feelings, concerns and aspirations.
Let’s first understand that what happened has nothing to do with freedom of worship or freedom of conscience. No one, no more in Switzerland than elsewhere, is thinking of calling these fundamental freedoms into question.
National Identity as Antidote to Tribalism
Europe’s peoples are welcoming and tolerant; it’s in their nature and their culture. But they don’t want the nature of their ways of life and thinking and social relations to be distorted. And feeling you are losing your identity can be a cause of deep suffering. Globalization is contributing to heightening this feeling.
Globalization makes identity a problem because everything in its process contributes to undermining it, while simultaneously increasing the need for it. This is because the more open the world, greater the cross-fertilization of ideas and people and movement of capital and goods, the more people need anchors and points of reference and not feel alone in the world. This need to belong can be met by tribes, nations, sectarianism or the Republic.
National identity is the antidote to tribalism and sectarianism. This is why I called for a great debate on national identity. We must all talk together about this gnawing threat which so many people in our old European nations feel, rightly or wrongly, hanging over their identity, because if it is pushed under the carpet it could end up nurturing bitter resentment.
The Swiss, like the French, know that change is a necessity. Their long history has taught them that to remain what you are you have to accept change. Like the generations which preceded them, they know that opening up to others is a source of enrichment. No other European civilization has, throughout its history, engaged more in the cross-fertilization of different cultures, which is the diametric opposite of sectarianism.
This cross-fertilization denotes the desire to live together. Sectarianism means opting to live separately. But cross-fertilization does not negate identities, for everyone it means recognizing, understanding and respecting the Other.