SVP: the propagandist sheep

The Economist asked the other week "Is American turning left?" - I think Weltwoche, the Swiss weekly news magazine, should ask "Is Switzerland becoming a national-socialist state with hints of fascism?". It certainly seems so and the main-stream press is letting this happen, firing up the profile of a nationalist party and misrepresenting information which is steeped in spin, 1930s style propaganda and empty rhetoric.

You might have heard of Christoph Blocher. He is currently the head of the Swiss justice department and leader of the SVP (Schweizer Volks Partei or Swiss People's Party). This weekend the SVP held a gathering in Basel calling all their representatives from around the country who are running for local elections to sign a 'contract' in which they would commit to the SVP campaign promises. These promises boil down to three basic principles: no to the EU, getting rid of any foreign, criminal elements to make Switzerland safer and lower taxes.

I could take issue with all the points mentioned in their campaign manifesto but I wish only to point out one important aspect. The Basler Zeitung (BAZ) today writes, in the first paragraph of the article "SVP-Himmel statt rot-gruene Hoelle" (SVP-Heaven instead of red-green hell) that Blocher proclaimed at the meeting of SVP candidates in Basel that they have now finally 'signed their CONTRACT with the people'.

How can the SVP purport to sign a 'contract with the people' when a contract requires two parties in an agreement? The SVP 'contract' is NOT a 'contract' but a 'campaign commitment of their candidates to the party' - that's between themselves and well, themselves. It is certainly not a contract between the people and the party and not a legally binding document of any type which has passed through parliament but merely a written 'policy to guide the SVP candidates on their campaign trails'. To use the word contract in the context Blocher did is FALSE, DAMAGING and A LIE. It really hurts to think that such blatant propaganda still makes its way into the mainstream press: it formed the opening gambit of the article in the BAZ. People read this and believe it and I'm utterly disappointed.

Added to this false claim about their so-called 'contract' the SVP has been using emotive imagery in their campaign posters (see above) where the white sheep of Switzerland kicks out the black sheep (those criminal and foreign elements I was talking about in the campaign commitments of the SVP). I ask you this Mr Blocher: do you really think that Swiss people like to be seen as sheep? Do you think people will follow you blindly into creating a Switzerland which is xenobhobic, anti-European and scared? Actually, my dear Swiss friends do you consider yourselves Blocher's sheep?

Some Swiss bloggers certainly think that fascism has already arrived in Switzerland whilst the mainstream press, in their 'independent reporting' (especially the poor reporting in the BAZ), merely gives credence to the nationalist party which is turning Switzerland into an 'SVP heaven'. For what I ask? Maybe I can get Bush to put the SVP on that list of terrorist organisations - oh no, their too similar, I think they might even get along - Mr Blocher and Mr Bush, that is.

Switzerland was one of the first countries to profit from globalisation. The international financial markets propelled it to the top of the food chain. Why, the country is even home to the biggest producer in the world of foods, Nestle (in Vevey). Switzerland is home to some of the largest pharmaceuticals - how can such a small country try to close its borders when it has a negative birth-rate and must employ guest workers to do the work aging Swiss don't want to do?

You can't embrace globalisation and then shut-down when questions of immigration, trade-regulation, financial-stability and the Swiss labor-market are at stake. When things get hard you sit down and seek out solutions. Switzerland is a small, well-managed country which, if governed with transparancy and debate, can achieve anything it wants. You can't start sowing seeds of fear in a population that has everything and nothing to fear - it is paradoxical, wrong and worrying because political debate is lost and emotive 1930s style propaganda starts taking over. Even SVP opponents, like the Social-Demorcates (SP) are having to revert to anti-SVP propaganda (left: Blocher is being kicked out by his own sheep) that's not politics that's a slug-fest from which citizens do not benefit but bereft.

(In case you didn't know, 'Zottel' is the SVP mascotte. The SP, in this poster use a play on words to communicate 'abzotteln' or 'shake-off'.)

I just hope the ruling elite in Switzerland are strategizing like the Austrians once did with Juerg Haider: by bringing these extremist political parties into the fold of mainstream politics at an early stage of their popularity they can be exposed for what they really are: power-hungry, xenophobic, people-hating nationalists with an agenda that any citizen can see is not substantive but only based on fear and propaganda in a plot to create a police-state. In fact, an isolated Switzerland would collapse if it takes Blocher's short-term strategies as a long-term guidelines (ok, that's me fear mongering now - but still!).