"The Swiss Go Nativist" by endorsing far-right's minaret construction ban.

[pampango]

http://trueslant.com/zaidjilani/2009/11/30/swiss-vote-to-ban-minaret-construction/

"In a move that’s shocked Europhiles everywhere, Swiss voters took to the polls this weekend and voted for a referendum that made it onto the ballot thanks to the efforts of the Swiss People’s Party that would ban further construction of minarets in the country."

"Yes, you read that right — the Swiss have banned minarets. While it may seem odd to most Americans that a political party would have it out for a piece of architecture often associated with a particular fate (you’d be hard pressed to see a national referendum in the U.S. banning Buddha statues or crosses), it’s more or less the norm for the Swiss People’s Party — whose campaign advertisements here apparently endorse the ejection of black sheep from the all-white sheep Switzerland — an openly racist far-right party that has just scored itself a whopping political victory."

"The various far-right parties all operate in a similar manner to how the fringes of our far-right political spectrum — the Tom Tancredos of the world — operate. They seize upon economic calamity and social disorder — which is either natural in the case of integration or due to regressive economic policies in the case of unemployment — and blame the oldest of age-old targets for nativists: those darn immigrants."

"Unfortunately, the nativists of the far-right are doing the same thing those who were opposed to integration here in the states are doing — which is using the immigration issues as a battering ram for their racist political agendas. Just as segregationists politicians pointed to the Watts Riots as evidence that blacks couldn’t live with whites, the Swiss People’s Party points to a handful of extremists and has successfully convinced the country to take out their anger on a piece of cultural architecture."

[Democracyinkind]

1. Uhm. The SVP is not "far right" in a national and European context and they came to power in the

years of great economic success, not hardship. Now that the hardship is here, they are posied to lose in the 11 elections.

Maybe the people at true/slant should write about stuff they have a clue about. The person writing this article surely has no clue about Switzerland.