Institutionalising Islamophobia in Switzerland: The Burqa and Minaret Bans

Vista Eskandari, null; Elisa Banfi, null

doi:10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0053

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Islamophobia Studies Journal

Volume 4, Issue 1

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Institutionalising Islamophobia in Switzerland: The Burqa and Minaret Bans

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Author(s): Vista Eskandari , Elisa Banfi

Publication date (Print): Fall 2017

Journal: Islamophobia Studies Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Islam, Islamophobia, burqa, minaret, Switzerland

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Abstract

This article aims to analyse the legislative processes leading to forbidding the wearing of burqas and the building of minarets in Switzerland by a postcolonial approach. In 2009, a federal popular initiative amended the Swiss constitution by forbidding the construction of minarets across the Helvetic territory. At the same time, several right-wing parties have attempted to pass a general prohibition of the burqa in public spaces since 2006. As a consequence, in 2013, the canton of Tessin has adopted an article prohibiting the face covering in public spaces and, in 2016, a popular initiative for the ban of the burqa in the whole country was launched. Starting from the content analysis of parliamentary debates and legislative documents concerning these bans, hegemonic and Eurocentric narratives excluding Muslims from the national community will be examined. The article also aims at casting a new light on the interlinkages between Swiss direct democracy, populism and Islamophobia. Furthermore, the exploitation of gender aimed at reinforcing Islamophobic narratives will be analysed. In both the minarets and the burqa ban cases, the image of women has played a crucial role in justifying the right-wing discourse on Muslims and Islam in Switzerland. On the one hand, the minarets ban has occupied the Swiss public space by a propaganda poster showing a woman wearing a burqa in front of minarets erected like missiles on top of a Swiss flag. On the other hand, the burqa ban articulated its campaign around the defence of freedom and women's right as Swiss traditional values. By deconstructing political and legislative arguments against burqa and minarets, the article shows how they have encouraged the legitimacy of public Islamophobic discourses and fostered a crystallised and undifferentiated representation of the Muslims' presence in Switzerland.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Vista Eskandari

Elisa Banfi

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): islastudj

Title: Islamophobia Studies Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 23258381

ISSN (Electronic): 2325839X

Publication date (Print): Fall 2017

Volume: 4

Issue: 1

Pages: 53-71

Affiliations

Université de Genève, Switzerland

Article

Publisher ID: islastudj.4.1.0053

DOI: 10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0053

SO-VID: 61c4ff22-d88e-401a-9d0c-789709b1596c

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

ScienceOpen disciplines: Social & Behavioral Sciences

Keywords: Switzerland,Islam,burqa,Islamophobia,minaret

References

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2013. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[2] Ahmed, Leila. 1982. “Western Ethnocentrism and Perception of the Harem.” Feminist Studies 8 (3): 521–34.

[3] Armando, Salvatore. 2013. “The Sociology of Islam: Precedents and Perspectives” Sociology of Islam 1 (1): 7–13.

[4] Belser, Katharina. 2015. Femmes | Pouvoir | Histoire Politique de l'égalité et des questions féminines En Suisse 2001–2015 . Berne: Commission fédérale pour les questions féminines CFQF.

[5] Benhadjoudja, Leila. 2015. “De la recherche sur les féminismes musulmans: enjeux de racisation et de positionnement.” In Le sujet du féminisme est-il blanc?: femmes racisées et recherchefFéministe , edited by Naïma Hamrouni and Chantal Maillé, 41–56. Montréal: Éditions du Remue-ménage.

[6] Bilge, Sirma. 2010. “Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 31 (1): 9–28. doi:10.1080/07256860903477662.

[7] Bilge, Sirma. 2012. “Mapping Québécois Sexual Nationalism in Times of ‘Crisis of Reasonable Accommodations.’” Journal of Intercultural Studies 33 (3): 303–18. doi:10.1080/07256868.2012.673473.

[8] Boggio Ewanjé-Epée, Félix, and Stella Magliani-Belkacem. 2012. Les féministes blanches et l'empire . Paris: La Fabrique éditions.

[9] Boulila, Stefanie. 2013. “Insignificant Signification: A Feminist Critique of the Anti-Muslim Feminist.” In Jahrbuch Für Islamophobieforschung , edited by Farid Hafez, 88–103. Vienna: New Academic Press.

[10] David, Thomas, Bouda Etemad, and Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl. 2005. La Suisse et l'esclavage des noirs . Histoire.ch. Lausanne: Editions Antipodes: Société d'histoire de la Suisse romande.

[11] de Flaugergues, Amélie. 2016. Pratiques et croyances religieuses et spirituelles en Suisse: premiers résultats de l'enquête sur la langue, la religion et la Culture 2014 . Neuchat̂el: Office fédéral de la statistique (OFS).

[12] Eid, Paul. 2015. “Balancing Agency, Gender and Race: How Do Muslim Female Teenagers in Quebec Negotiate the Social Meanings Embedded in the Hijab?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (11): 1902–17. doi:10.1080/01419870.2015.1005645.

[13] Fanon, Frantz. 1959. A Dying Colonialism . New York: Grove Press.

[14] Fässler, Hans, and Claudine Layre. 2007. Une Suisse esclavagiste: voyage dans un pays au-dessus de tout soupçon . Paris: Éd. Duboiris.

[15] Frischknecht, Jürg, Peter Haffner, Ueli Haldimann, and Niggli. 1984. Die Unheimlichen Patrioten: Politische Reaktion in Der Schweiz: Ein Aktuelles Hanbuch: Ergänzungsband 1979–84 . Zürich: Limmat Verlag.

[16] Giugni, Marco, and Florence Passy. 2004. “Migrant Mobilization between Political Institutions and Citizenship Regimes: A Comparison of France and Switzerland.” European Journal of Political Research 43 (1): 51–82. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.2004.00145.x.

[17] Haenni, Patrick, and Stéphane Lathion, eds. 2009. Les Minarets de la discorde: éclairage sur un débat Suisse et européen . Testimonia. Gollion: Infolio.

[18] Honegger, Manuela. 2013. “Beyond the Silence: Institutional Racism, Social Welfare and Swiss Citizenship.” Lausanne: Université de Lausanne, Faculté des sciences sociales et politiques.

[19] Kian, Azadeh. 2010. “Genre et perspectives post/dé-coloniales.” Les Cahiers Du CEDREF , no. 17. http://cedref.revues.org/603.

[20] Kreis, Georg. 2007. Switzerland and South Africa 1948–1994: Final Report of the NFP 42 + Commissioned by the Swiss Federal Council / Georg Kreis . Bern.

[21] Lavanchy, Anne. 2014. “How Does Race Matter in Switzerland?” University of Neuchat̂el, Maison d'analyse des processus sociaux, no. Working paper 7. http://www2.unine.ch/cms/site/maps/op/edit/pid/11195.

[22] MacMaster, Neil. 2012. Burning the Veil: The Algerian War and the “Emancipation” of Muslim Women, 1954–62 . Manchester: Manchester University Press; Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan.

[23] Mahnig, Hans. 2005. “La politique migratoire du milieu des années 1980 jusqu'à 1998.” In Histoire de la politique de migration, d'asile et d'intégration en Suisse depuis 1948 , edited by Hans Mahnig, 160–85. Zurich: Seismo.

[24] Marwan, Muhammad. 2010. “Islamophobia: A Deep-Rooted Phenomenon.” Arches 4 (7): 96–102.

[25] Meer, Nasar. 2013. “Racialization and Religion: Race, Culture and Difference in the Study of Antisemitism and Islamophobia.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36 (3): 385–98. doi:10.108 0/01419870.2013.734392.

[26] Meer, Nasar. 2014. “Islamophobia and Postcolonialism: Continuity, Orientalism and Muslim Consciousness.” Patterns of Prejudice 48 (5): 500–15. doi:10.1080/00313 22X.2014.966960.

[27] Michel, Noemi Vanessa. 2014. “Quand les mots et les images blessent: postcolonialité, égalité et politique des actes de discours en Suisse et en France.” http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:ch:unige-456850.

[28] Michel, Noemi Vanessa. 2015. “Sheepology: The Postcolonial Politics of Raceless Racism in Switzerland.” Postcolonial Studies 18 (4): 410–26.

[29] Michel, Noemi Vanessa, and Manuela Honegger. 2010. “Thinking Whiteness in French and Swiss Cyberspaces.” Social Politics 17 (4): 423–49.

[30] Michel, Noemi Vanessa, and Joëlle Scacchi. 2014. “Enoncés dans le présent, les actes de discours racialisés ravivent une longue histoire d'exclusion et de violence.” Tangram Juin 2014 (33): 38–43. https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:86894.

[31] Minner, Patrick. 2011. La Suisse Coloniale. Les Représentations de l'Afrique et Des Africains En Suisse Au Temps Des Colonies (1880–1939) . Bern: Peter Lang.

[32] Monnot, Christophe, ed. 2013. La Suisse des mosquées: derrière le voile de l'unité musulmane . Genève: Labor et Fides.

[33] Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s . New York: Routledge.

[34] Piguet, Etienne. 2004. L'immigration en Suisse: 50 ans d'entrouverture . Lausanne: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes.

[35] Purtschert, Patricia, and Harald Fischer-Tiné. 2015. Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

[36] Purtschert, Patricia, Barbara Lüthi, and Francesca Falk. 2012. Postkoloniale Schweiz: Formen Und Folgen Eines Kolonialismus Ohne Kolonien . Bielefeld: Transcript.

[37] Rana, Junaid. 2007. “The Story of Islamophobia.” Souls 9 (2): 148–61. doi:10.1080/10999940701382607.

[38] Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism . New York: Vintage Books.

[39] Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2010. “‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Revised Edition, from the ‘History’ Chapter of Critique of Postcolonial Reason.” In Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea , edited by Rosalind C. Morris, 268. New York: Columbia University Press.

[40] Studer, Brigitte, Gérald Arlettaz, and Regula Argast, eds. 2013. Le droit d'être Suisse: acquisition, perte et retrait de la nationalité de 1848 à nos jours . Lausanne: Antipodes.

[41] Telseren, Asli. 2016. “Reproduction et reconstruction des rapports sociaux de sexe et de «race» Après Le 11 septembre 2001: le cas des films hollywoodiens (2001–2011).” Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité. http://www.theses.fr/194073068.

[42] Voegeli, Yvonne. 2014. “Suffrage féminin.” Dictionnaire Historique de La Suisse . http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F10380.php.

[43] Yegenoglu, Meyda. 1998. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.