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[This is BBC after all, so don't expect logic, truth
or consistency. For example, when what are generally
considered to be universal democratic rights are
violated, it's - from the point of view of the BBC
writer - the result of "too much democracy." In the
Western, OSCE-approved version, any time people vote
it's democracy and any time they don't it isn't.
Parliamentary cretinism, as it was once defined. Of
course no one is permitted to vote on anything that
matters - national economic or foreign policy, for
example - except in the Republic of Ireland yesterday
and we saw how that turned out: Too much democracy.
Must do away with it.]
BBC News
Friday, 8 June, 2001, 15:18 GMT 16:18 UK
Swiss democracy gone mad?
The Swiss vote on everything - even street lighting
By Imogen Foulkes in Emmen, Switzerland
Milunka Milovanovic has had a hectic social calendar
recently. She and her family are busy trying to
persuade their local community of Emmen, near Lucerne,
that they deserve Swiss nationality.
Now they have to convince Emmen's 10,000 voters
In Switzerland, 20% of the population is foreign, but
you can only vote if you are Swiss. Switzerland has
the strictest nationality rules in Europe - you have
to have lived in the country at least 12 years,
Emmen is a small industrial town and, like many
similar Swiss communities, it recruited foreign
workers in the 1970s and 80s. Among them were the
young Milovanovics: 21 years ago they arrived from
Yugoslavia.
Now they and their three children, who were all born
here, would like to be citizens of their adopted
homeland.
The Milovanovics have met all the legal requirements
for citizenship: They have paid 1,000 francs for their
application to be considered, they have been
interviewed by the local council, they have passed
German tests, and demonstrated their understanding of
the Swiss way of life.
But now they have to convince Emmen's 10,000 voters.
In order to help people make up their minds, Emmen
town council has sent a brochure to every home: In it
the hopeful faces of the applicants stare out. Beneath
the photographs their jobs, hobbies and reasons for
wanting to be Swiss are listed.
Public test
Milunka Milovanovic, we are told, works in an old
people's home, and in her free time likes to walk in
the country. She wants to be Swiss, she says, because
she has lived in Switzerland more than half her life.
But all this is not enough: The local political
parties in Emmen have been holding meetings so that
voters can ask the applicants questions.
The meeting organised by the right-wing Swiss people's
party becomes a shameful spectacle. The five
Milovanovics are placed on a stage. Rows of upright
Swiss voters stare up at them. The questions come
thick and fast.
Who would you cheer for at a football match -
Switzerland or Yugoslavia?
What language do you dream in?
Why do you really want a Swiss passport - isn't it
just because you think you can get a better life here?
The Milovanovics answer everything patiently, meekly,
with great courtesy. But why submit to such a
humiliating public examination? After all, the
meetings are supposed to be voluntary.
Milunka smiles wearily before hurrying off to the next
meeting.
"Well, if it has to be, it has to be,'" she says.
"We'll just put up with it."
Locals' whims
There is good reason for her stoicism; last year when
Emmen voted on applications for nationality, 48 out of
a total of 56 were rejected. Not a single person from
the Balkans was accepted.
Ethnic origin is not supposed to influence citizenship
decisions. But Switzerland has accepted a lot of
asylum seekers from former Yugoslavia, and, human
nature being what it is, many people now think there
are too many people from the Balkans in their country,
and are expressing their concern at the ballot box.
It is democracy gone sour, a way to express prejudice,
and punish innocent people
But the victims are not asylum seekers at all, who
cannot apply for citizenship, but families like the
Milovanovics, who live here permanently.
After watching the goings on in Emmen with increasing
unease, I asked a Swiss friend whether it would not be
better to take the whole nationality issue away from
the local communities and make the decision
anonymously at federal level. He too is repelled by
the prejudices expressed in Emmen, but he looks at me
in surprise.
"That could never happen in Switzerland. The people
always have the final say," he said.
Another Swiss acquaintance related with approval that
she regularly rejected applications.
"We had one woman who applied," she explained. "She'd
been here for 20 years, but you know she never said
hello to me on the street, and she didn't join any of
our lady's clubs -so I voted against her."
Personal view
Is this really what Swiss democracy is supposed to be?
Neighbour judging neighbour, over real or imagined
slights?
Switzerland has been my home for almost 11 years now,
and it is in so many ways a very civilised, friendly
and cultured country.
But the example of Emmen depresses me, because it is
democracy gone sour, a way to express prejudice, and
punish innocent people. But because in theory it is
democracy, no one, it seems, wants to challenge it.
"People would vote the same way in your country if
they could," said one Swiss friend.
I am sure many would, but they do not have the right
to, and quite frankly after watching the ordeal of the
Milovanovics I think I prefer a more limited
democracy.
The irony of the whole miserable Emmen episode is that
if the Milovanovic family's application for
citizenship is rejected, they will still live
permanently in Switzerland, doing the same jobs, going
to the same schools and visiting the same shops.
But they will be doing it all in the knowledge that
for some reason their neighbours did not think they
were good enough to be Swiss, and worthy enough to
vote alongside them.
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