It’s official! The Swiss have more cajones than we do!
The Swiss are one of the few peoples that actually get to VOTE on just about everything.
And whatever the voters say, that’s the law.
(very unlike another large democracy I could name...)
Switzerland has never seen itself as an immigrant nation. To that end the country makes it very difficult to become a Swiss citizen. Part of the process includes being accepted, by vote, by the majority of a canton’s (more or less equivalent to our counties) voters.
There are all sorts of subtle and not so subtle biases toward foreigners at every level of Swiss society. Everything from wages, supervisory positions and housing are affected. I am not surprised that the Swiss voted to ban minerets. It remains, at it’s heart, a fairly conservative nation despite its embracing national health care and a few other socialist trappings.
Someone mentioned that the Swiss are armed. It is true that they still require national miliary service for all adult males. They are required to keep their weapons at home. But, for all practical purposes, the system is latent. Swiss men used to be among the best marksmen in the world and the country was always proud of that. That’s pretty much history now. The Swiss maintained huge fighting complexes hewn deep into the rock guarding critical roads throughout the country. If you look carefully at the mountain sides as you drive around Switzerland you can see just make out the camouflaged positions that are there. But these have largely been abandoned. Many young Swiss think that most of the world’s armys dissappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Switzerland is very difficult to attack and relatively easy to defend—even today. Even the German’s, despite surrounding Switzerland on all sides, left the Swiss alone during WWII. Moreover, the country has been very successful at maintaining its neutral status during 20th century European Wars. Even combatants need a conduit for communication during war. The Swiss have provided that service.