• English Site
• >Europe
• >

  White Sheep, Black Sheep: Bringing Rancor to a Swiss Election

White Sheep, Black Sheep Bringing Rancor to a Swiss Election

By Mathieu von Rohr

Part 3: "The expression 'black sheep' exists in every language"

His party's other issue this year is youth violence. It has increased considerably, he says, adding that it just so happens that most of today's delinquents are foreigners, especially immigrants from the Balkans. The problem can't be solved, he says, unless people openly discuss it.

His party has launched a popular initiative known as the Deportation Initiative. Under the plan, foreign minors who commit serious crimes could be deported, together with their parents. Blocher tells his audience that he wants to take tougher action, and that criminals will only learn their lesson if the punishment hurts. He talks about education. Everything gets lumped together in Blocher's rhetoric. He rages against leftist educational practices, against the lack of discipline in schools, but in essence his policies for dealing with foreigners are themselves a sort of educational policy. Some would call it an especially brutal educational policy.

He promises a "conservative shift." Then a microphone is passed around so that his audience can ask anything that happens to be on their minds. One listener asks why Switzerland's prisons are so luxurious. "Please don't leave the Federal Council," one old woman begs him, beaming as she shakes his hand. "I'll see what I can do," he growls.

After the speech he says his European counterparts would be astonished if he were to tell them about events like this one. "That's the value of direct democracy." In Europe, says Blocher, many citizens suffer from feelings of impotence in the face of politicians who operate on a higher, unapproachable plane. "I didn't understand half of what the politicians were saying in the last German election campaign," he says. "That's why I have to make an effort to say things in a way that people can understand."

He says he doesn't like being at the center of this campaign, but he's quick to blame his opponents for putting him in this role, since they were the ones who spent four years attacking him and his policies. If he's removed from the Council, says Blocher, he will be forced to lead his party in the opposition. "I see many more opportunities today than in the past," he says. "The opposition in Switzerland is tempting, because it enables you to push for popular referendums."

Posters touting the "Deportation Initiative" have now appeared throughout Switzerland. They depict three white sheep standing on a Swiss flag and kicking away a single black sheep. Political discourse in Switzerland is rarely politically correct, but the United Nations special observer lodged an official protest with the government against this poster, claiming it was racist.

Responding to the criticism, Blocher says: "The expression 'black sheep' exists in every language. How can someone seriously think that this is a reference to Africans? Everyone knows that the 'black sheep' are the criminal foreigners we have to deport."

Representatives of his party have launched a second initiative to ban the construction of new minarets in Switzerland. Blocher says that although he cannot comment officially on the initiative, the critical question will be whether a minaret can be defined as an obligatory part of a mosque. "That's something we will have to examine." Besides, says Blocher, he doesn't know of any Muslim nation that permits church towers.

Now it's time to go. He walks along the lake with his wife Silvia. The Blochers board a waiting green Swiss military helicopter. This man of the people soars over the Alps aboard a government-owned machine which will take him to his second home in Rhäzüns, in Canton Graubünden, where Switzerland's conservative power couple plans to spend the weekend.

The Blochers' second home, actually, is a castle.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan