Monica, a black Canadian woman, moved to Switzerland two years ago. The first month was stressful, and the relocation agent hired by her company to help ease the transition only added to it. She said she felt bad around the agent and was pleased when she found an apartment. They went together to meet the property managers and exchange the keys.
“We were walking around and she [the real estate agent] was explaining how to open the windows, how to use the dishwasher, how to open the balcony doors. At one point, the property management guy rolled his eyes at her,” says Monica to Alyssa James of The Local, the Swiss websites.
“And then you know what she said? I will never forget, these were her exact words. She was like, ‘Yeah, you know, with these people we need to do these types of things.’ And I was [thinking], ‘Who’s these people? What kind of people am I?’” While some might suggest the agent was talking about newcomers, Monica suspected something more insidious was at play.
“I felt really bad every time I was around her. I even compared it to some of the other people who were moving in my company and they’re not black or from North America, and they had a different experience with her.”
Kelvin Lau, a post-doctoral fellow in Geneva, has lived in Switzerland for three years. He was born in Hong Kong but says he’s never been made to feel uncomfortable, acknowledging his advantage as a Canadian who speaks French. However, he has noticed that not everyone is afforded the same treatment. “I think in Switzerland it’s [discrimination] a double thing. If you are a person of colour, but you have money and your appearance shows it, you are still treated quite fairly,” says Lau. “But if you are of colour, but you have no money and you’re just hanging out somewhere, I think you are very, very discriminated against – especially by the police in certain places.”
Both Monica and Lau attribute these differences to xenophobia or anti-foreigner sentiment, instead of racism.
However, Tarek Naguib, legal sociologist at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, is critical of this distinction because of the way ‘foreigner’ is constructed in Swiss society. “We see that actually, it doesn’t make a difference if you are born here, born and bred here, or if you just came a few years ago,” Naguib says. “They [people of colour] all share the experience of being perceived as foreigners because of their physiognomies.”
The situation is no better in Germany. A Canadian whose parents are from the Philippines had a similar experience.
“When I say I’m from Canada, Germans give me surprised looks. One man a few years ago said ‘You don’t look Canadian’. Having grown up in Toronto, the most diverse city in the world where over 140 languages and dialects are spoken and nearly half the population consists of visible minorities, the majority of my adult life I’d taken being surrounded by multiculturalism for granted” says Philippines-born Canadian woman
“Since I moved to Germany in 2012, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked where I’m from. One thing’s for sure though: now when it happens, I never cease to be annoyed,” she said. “It’s not because I’m sick of being asked this question per se, but rather, the chances are high I’ll have to deal with yet another outrageous response,” she tells The Local.
“On the lower end of the scale of reactions I’ve got after answering, “I’m from Canada,” people have given me surprised looks. But when one man a few years ago said to me, ‘You don’t look Canadian,’ I was so shocked that no words came out of my mouth”, she says.”Having grown up in Toronto, the most diverse city in the world where over 140 languages and dialects are spoken and nearly half the population consists of visible minorities, the majority of my adult life I’d taken being surrounded by multiculturalism for granted”.
She says she was raised in a society in which, on the whole, people can be considered Canadian regardless of their skin colour or religious attire. “But Germany has a very different history of immigration. This may account for why, in 2018, many people in Germany still seem to have a certain image in mind of what a foreigner looks like and what a German looks like”.
As the Swiss People’s Party’s (SVP) 2016 ‘Black Sheep’ posters demonstrated, there is an implicit understanding that to be Swiss is to be white. People of colour are automatically perceived as foreigners, making xenophobia an inherently racial issue.
The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is famous for their posters. And despite being colourful cartoons, their messages tend not to be very friendly. Ahead of a national referendum in 2016 on whether Switzerland should expel, without trial, foreigners who commit two crimes – any crimes, even traffic violations – within a 10-year period, the SVP plastered public spaces with billboards showing a gang of white sheep kicking a black sheep back over the border.
“What I would say is that if you have a look at specific questions of discrimination against specific groups… you should always talk about racism. It has nothing to do with xenophobia,” says Tarek Naguib.
Melissa Sabai, from Tanzania, was interning at the United Nations in Geneva in 2016. She said she didn’t experience discrimination in Switzerland, but had a racist encounter on a night out with a friend. “We were walking by a group of random guys and they were trying to get our attention. They heard us speaking English, so they were saying things like ‘Oh hi, hey’, kind of imitating us,” says Sabai. “When we ignored them they started yelling, ‘Nigga! Nigga! Nigga!’ and I was just looking at my friend like, ‘Is this real?’” Sabai said none of the people nearby spoke up, they were just minding their own business and “distancing themselves”.
Like many people, neither Sabai nor Monica reported the incidents. “It was my first month, so I didn’t want to rock the boat,” explains Monica.
Based on articles appearing in the Swiss website The Local
