What do you think a referendum is, if not a poll of the population's opinion on something?
My answer to your question is to look at their actual positive impact all around the world, including for Islamic countries, not their opinions on architecture or dress.
I literally don't think there's a more peaceful, welcoming, open-to-others' cultures anywhere in the world than the Swiss. If you think they're xenophobic then everyone else is 10x more xenophobic.
As a Swiss citizen (my age range is 40-50), I can only provide my own witness account about what you just wrote: I think you're completely wrong.
The fact that some Swiss were able to contribute immensely to a "positive impact all around the world" doesn't magically turn us into a nice and warm population, open to other people's cultures. A large part of the population hates foreigners, considers them as opportunists and job stealers, if not criminals. This is not a "Swiss", it's the same everywhere in the world.
The difference is that Swiss are educated and law abiding xenophobes: a foreigner will rarely feel insecure in Switzerland and discrimination will mostly be silent. As opposed to a country like the USA where racists are empowered with a low likelihood of criminal charges.
But that doesn't mean in any way that a foreigner is more welcome in Switzerland than elsewhere. If you sincerely believe this, it could only indicate you don't share a significant part of your life with foreigners who actually visually look like foreigners.
This is a honest and candid review.
People think the country with the highest standards of living is a wholly charitable entity.
Ask the first generation Italians. Or Turkish. Or Sri Lankans. Albanians. Former Yugoslavs.
Some 50% of German immigrants , notabene with the same education and language(minus the dialect) leave this alleged paradise within 1 year.
Same language, same education. Now add a different skin color to that and lack of speaking the language to that, then you might be able to grasp how these people felt there.
Of course there are some die hard open minded people there, not enough, though.
Sounds like I have nothing good to say about Switzerland? There are good aspects, I just blow a head gasket every time a person who has not lived there from early on and dealt with the institutions or does not have relatives there thinks it is a nation of innocence , milk(this is true, though) and honey.
People are less likely to be beat up by a racist mob, that is not how it is done in Switzerland. The Swiss are silent sufferers and more sophisticated than that.
I simply think that classist amd racists are the blindest people walking earth.
Plenty of those in Switzerland.
Ps even that direct democracy is a crock of manure.
A wise man once told me, the Nazis the communists amd other such opportunists ....in Switzerland they will have a smile and wear a suit.
> This is not a "Swiss", it's the same everywhere in the world.
If you think everyone's a xenophobe and it's just that the Swiss are the best at not acting on it... then yeah they're the best aren't they? Beats acting on it with violence like every other country surely?
Everyone always thinks the worst of their own country and holds their own to higher standards.
Swiss here that happen to have voted in both polls. I can give you an insight on my view of the topic that may be representative of a part of the population (probably not the majority but at least a significant fraction).
Both initiatives are targeted to a specific extremely tiny population of citizens (most of the trouble is with « converted » Swiss that embrace Islamist views, most of Muslim of foreign origin are pretty well integrated and many even supported the recent burka ban because they know very well what that means) that tries to exploit the democratic system to promote their totalitarian ideology. You have to nip that in the bud. There is for sure some collateral damage as not all people that would like to build a minaret are necessarily islamists but there are prices to pay so that everybody can live peacefully together. The sacrifices will be compensated when the times come.
FYI, back when that was source of troubles Jesuits were banned in the constitution (ban lifted in the 70ties) and some cantons were forbidding to build bell towers for Catholic churches till last century, etc. When the tensions tapered out all the bans were lifted. I’m pretty sure in 50 years if we get rid of Islamism the minaret ban can be lifted with no troubles.
As a side note, by the way it is constructed, essentially everybody in Switzerland is part of some minority and is both paying a bit and getting back a lot in terms of freedom and respect. Everybody depends on the goodwill of the majority so it is in general wary of stomping on other minorities but react strongly when somebody want to destroy the system or doesn’t respect it (most of the sparse cases of real xenophobic behavior, which btw I don’t condone, you may encounter in Switzerland often boils down normal human narrow minds and that).
