The news from Switzerland is bad, not just for the overwhelmingly moderate Swiss Muslim population, but also for democratic reformers in general. Anyone arguing against democratic reform can now say – “let the people have their say, and you’ll get racism and discrimination, like in Switzerland”.
What’s worse, a minority in British politics see such populist racism and discrimination as positive reasons for more participatory democracy. “Cut through the wiles of politicians and the PC brigade, and let the people say what I … sorry, they really think.”
What case can democrats make against those populists?
It has to start from questioning the democratic credentials of the Swiss vote. Sure, the vote was passed in the proper constitutional form, but there are undemocratic elements to every constitution, and I would argue that the use of referendums to deny minority rights is just such an undemocratic element.
One has to draw the distinction between the false view of democracy as “whatever the people think today”, and the larger view of democracy as a system that secures the right of people to control their government both now and in the future.
When I think about the basic principles of democracy, I’m always drawn back to its original Athenian conception, centred around three words – isonomia (equality before the law), isegoria (equal right to speak), and eleutheria (personal freedom).
Two and a half thousand years on, our conception of equality has moved on a little (no slaves, women voting), but the ancient fundamental that a good state secures permanent equality in laws, speech and freedom is written into the US Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, and a hundred other basic laws.
If we start with this conception, the Swiss vote starts to look very undemocratic. In the same way that it is not democracy to vote to abolish democracy, it is not democracy to legislate against the fundamentals of democracy.
This Swiss law would be democratic if it applied to all citizens of any religion – the French concept of laïcité works, in theory, like this. As it is, the Swiss referendum attacks isonomia as it applies to Muslim citizens alone. This is even more obvious when one looks at the form it took: a federal constitutional amendment on one religious building in a constitution that delegates every other religious matter to the cantons.
I don’t know what reach the ECHR has in Switzerland – I assume the country is a member of the Council of Europe. I hope that the ECHR has the power to overturn the referendum result. You can imagine the reaction from the rightwingers on the Net: screaming about a disgraceful denial of democracy. I don’t agree. To overturn this unjust and undemocratic referendum would be in itself a democratic decision – even if not taken by the people.