There is a huge difference between discussing or recognizing xenophobia, and standing on a soapbox and saying "I'm the very pillar of tolerance but these people ..."
It's a question of intellectual honesty to stop pretending to be tolerant when in fact you aren't. Tolerance is about accepting the good with the bad. Intolerance is about making the difference. But if you chose intolerance, there goes your credibility when calling out the intolerance of others.
Do you know you read like a 20th Century Ostblock political history book?
Any discourse has an intent. You don't call out people for fun. So to claim others are stigmatizing with intent, but at the same time claiming that in opposing that you are not purusing any intent is really naive.
That's universal endless recyclable cheap rhetorics. I do not use the word tolerence in the first place so you are arguing against youself, not me. And you are wellcome to agree with those people, I don't care, but I dont agree with them. I do not agree either with people who want and can have me dead by the law of their country. You do you, I do me. But don't think you argued with me, you invented your own rhetoric. I don't mind, it's not my world.
I'm glad you understand my messages better than I do. If you see the word tolerence where I didn't put it, I won't argue with your perception. But I do put the record straight about what I write, not what you read. We can agree on that.
As for Geneva, come and see for yourself.
FYI: no hyperbol, just the facts, there are countries where I face death penalty. Your stance on tolerating those who don't tolerate me as well doesn't stand, as it would cost me my life.
There are countries where 90% of us face the death penalty for any number of things, it doesn't really have anything to do with this subject.
I understand people are bothered by anti-frontalier rhetoric, but by definition it isn't xenophobia, not even close. Frontaliers are the subject of criticism based on their residence and employment choices and how those choices are perceived to negatively affect border regions, I don't think nationality or ethnicity has anything to do with it.
I don't know for what you would face a death penalty. But I think it is hyperbole in a discussion about traffic congestion to talk about the death penalty. If you are projecting into the people who protest about that, that they are the same people who wish to apply the death sentence to you, then that is hyperbole.
As for tolerance, your example only serves to illustrate that universal tolerance doesn't work. You are in fact saying that we can't be totally tolerant so we must tolerate intolerance. I said the same. So do we have agreement?
Easy. I can tolerate say a religion or a political opinion or a type of music without subscribing to it or having sympathy for it. By tolerating it I am asserting that it has a right to exist, even if I don't want to be part of it.
A consistent logic can be tranferred from one situation to another without losing validity. A topical reaction can be ad-hoc, gut driven or driven by personal interests or entrenchment and will thus sometimes fail the former criterium.
Whatever the political arguments (there are always a for v an against in any subject), if you have tried driving through a little village like Soral in the Geneva countryside at rush hour where the roads are not wide enough for 2 large cars to cross, an endless stream of cars, lorries & motorbikes etc, you can imagine how awful it would be to live with that outside your front door every day & understand the feelings that get into these debates (which is on the road in many cases being a village with very old buildings).
But these are infrastructure issues that could be addressed. In Basel, the infrastructure is much better and I've never had to wait more than a minute or two to get across the border each morning (from France), and from Germany it's the same. There's no congestion at the small crossings, either.
The bigger issue (which I wish the Swiss authorities would address!) is the massive backlog of trucks waiting to clear Swiss customs each morning. On the German side, these waiting trucks are well-managed with clearly designated waiting areas that keep the remaining traffic safe and flowing. In France, they build up on the hard shoulder, blocking traffic and occasionally the entries/exits to the motorway.
There is a fair amount of resentment in the local population about the Swiss and also frontaliers driving up prices although by the same token they are also aware that the Geneva factor makes for a relatively low unemployment rate. In my opinion they'd never go for a merger with (ie annexation by) Switzerland. A lot of them are also quite indignantly Haute-Savoyard rather than Savoyard They feel even less neighbourly towards the Genevois.
If given a choice now, I am pretty sure the Chablais part would prefer to become a Swiss canton indeed. It's the same and geographic area and economic interests are rather in canton Geneva and Valais. And mentality is the one of "montagnards", wary of anything that doesn't come from the same place:-)
from my biased central-geneva perspective, there are at least 2 levels to this topic
1) emotional - Swiss don't like french that much. Period. Having good amount of french friends, been dating some French girls and generally walking around daily with my eyes wide open, I can see why. Explaining that would dive too much into subjective topics though. Let's say general Swiss and french mentality are not in same ballpark... or continent for that matter (with exceptions confirming the rule).
2) factual - most frontaliers are knowingly (and legally) screwing system, having uber-high salaries, and having low expenses that don't help sustain Switzerland approach to existence. I heard stories about unaffordable housing, blah blah, and albeit true, most don't even try. Traffic is bad too, everybody can see that. For blue collar jobs, some wages dumping might be present too, not so much for white collar jobs that are cornerstone of canton's revenue.
No big mysteries here, similar situations can be found in some shape all around the globe
screwing the system? I think it's rather the opposite. They are actually saving the system. For the last 20 years, Geneva has built around 25% of the housing it needed for its economic growth. Luckily, Geneva found a solution by outsourcing its housing needs to neighbouring France. A win-win for everyone. Imagine there would be no France to send everyone back to in the evening, they would have to sacrifice all the agricultural land in canton Geneva for housing and start building highrise buildings.
I was writing about screwing economically. Taking away cash from country without giving it back for expensive purchases and services.
Even my french colleagues / frontaliers admit this, not caring about some swiss attitude openly. From cashflow point of view, I don't blame them. Most are accepting negative sentiment as part of the deal, outweighted by cash. Very few people I know have other motivation than money to live in french voisine.
I don't get the whole "screwing economically" argument, either -- particularly in the case of Geneva-based frontaliers. They are paying their taxes into the Swiss system, but they're not consuming any of the benefits. By living abroad, they are not contributing to ever-increasing housing costs in a congested area. Unemployment rates are very low.
With Basel-based frontaliers, there is more of an argument as their taxes go to the French authorities, not the Swiss. But there doesn't seem to be the resentment here -- maybe because there are more 'professional' frontaliers working for the big Pharma companies that locals realize simply don't exist in the Swiss labor market.
Yes, the frontaliers spend their money outside of Switzerland. But a quick drive through any supermarket car-park over the border shows that plenty of Swiss are spending their money over the border, too.