The worrying thing for me is not the blatant xenophobe rhetoric from a rather stupid party (but one that is rapidly becoming the largest local party) but the absence of any reaction from the other political parties. And this is the city that proudly claims to be cosmopolitan and international. It's about time the international community sends a message.
The latest posters of MCG in Geneva with its initiative to make Onex "zero frontaliers" really start working on my nerves. I think we have crossed a red line of democratic debate when one allows the constant stigmatization of a group of people.
If all the frontaliers moved to Switzerland, it might help remove the commuter traffic problems, give the city more taxes, and generally make life better for everyone. Apart from insufficient housing, where is the problem?
insufficient affordable housing
I see
I wouldn't like frontaliers either if I lived in a border area. The traffic is ridiculous in some places, and if you're going to have the benefit of a Swiss salary it might be nice to contribute it back into the economy as well.
If you can't move the frontaliers, move the frontier. It's working well in Ukraine.
No you don't see. There is no stigmatization in describing accurately what this party is doing. There is a huge difference between a victim defending itself and a perpetrator having a go at innocent citizens. It's not stigmatization, it's calling a spade a spade and a xenophob a xenophob.
In the romand news today, the shop keepers of Onnex expressed their strong disagreement, as frontaliers are a technical necessity to have a life there in the first place and a frontalier is sometomes a Swiss... more often than one thinks.
There, you did it again.
Tolerance is good, but we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant.
The most noble form of tolerance is the love of those who agree with us.
In all fairness, you are Belgian.
So it's stigmatizing to say they are xenophobe? It is sufficient to read their definition of frontalier. Conveniently, it does not include the many thousands of Swiss living in neighbouring France, there is no problem with these; they are not frontaliers, they are called commuters...
Crap. Accepting anything for the noble pleasure of being the better person means in practice that you get screwed by everybody. Not my scene.
Or do a Gadsden purchase-type thing?
The SNB might do better to attempt propping up the Euro by buying land rather than by buying worthless papers.
Uh?
We're talking about stigmatization of certain groups here.
And you're saying it's okay to stigmatize those who stigmatize?
So a guy , call him A, causes traffic congestion, winds a lot of people up.
Guy B gets worked up and lets off steam by stigmatizing A. You say that's wrong.
C calls out the person who stigmatized B. You say that's okay.
I'm calling out C for stigmatizing B, you say that's wrong.
Not very consistent are you?
All frontaliers pay income tax in Geneva. I think if we are talking about contributing, they should rather have a problem with the many Vaudois that work in canton Geneva but pay no tax in Geneva at all.
I agree traffic is ridiculous. But that is because Geneva never managed to build infrastructure in line with its economic growth. They have been talking about a bridge or a tunnel since forever.
Anyway, there are 40,000 more jobs in Geneva than people at working age. Take away the frontaliers and the economy collapses.
No we're not. You are on your own. And you don't see it.
FWIW, there doesn't seem to be the same hatred of frontaliers in Basel...
Who'd serve our coffee?
explain.
Traffic is ridiculous in every border area. I drove home along the Rhine from Basel last week and there was an endless line of DE cars at the bridges, it's insane.
I understand your frustration at being demonized, but I'm sorry, I have no sympathy for frontaliers. Most just got a massive pay raise while the rest of the Swiss economy takes a beating, making it even easier for them to accept a salary that would be poverty level in Switzerland. You have places like Chiasso and Mendrisio that literally have more Italians working than Swiss, Swiss unemployment is higher than the national average in all the border cantons, and the Swiss are moving inland in order to find jobs that pay them enough to allow them to continue living in Switzerland. It's absurd and unsustainable.
If you speak French and listen/read MGC's rhetorics, it's selfexplanatory.
There is a huge difference between making an evidence based judgement about their xenophobia and their myths based hate campains against the designated scapegoat. When the scapegoat answers back, it is by no mean a discourse of the same nature than the hate speech.
If you define as stigmatization just any discourse about a group, with no induction of intent, then you might say that there are damn right justified worthy stigmatizations of damageable people for the community like the MCG, the English law makers in Turing's time, the Innerrhoden people's assembly in women equality time and many others.
If you believe in their myths, then we'll just agree to disagree.
The current exchange rate is absurd unsustainable. I fully agree and it's making people more jealous than ever although everyone is free to do the same and many thousands of Swiss have done so (given the housing maffia in Geneva, nothing much is being built but that's a different story).
But I don't buy the story of Swiss people being unemployed because of frontaliers. There has been much research done on this and this is simply not true. And if there is salary dumping it has been rather because Swiss employers do not want to pay frontaliers the same salary. And anyone in the know will confirm to you that many Swiss HR actively discriminate on residence and nationality.
I am happy to read that in Basle there are less issues.