Swiss Review 4/2020

Swiss Review / July 2020 / No.4 25 erant Yenish and Sinti communities are no less significant than they were before. For example, the number of camping sites available to them is not increasing but declining, while pro- posals for new sites often fall victim to local opposition. Feelings run especially highwhen authorities try to create new sites for non-Swiss Roma. Many Swiss Yenish and Sinti are in favour of such sites, because they have sensed how the vit- riol directed against their non-Swiss counterparts is also meant for them. In their view, everyone therefore needs to have their own space for peaceful coexistence to work. A debacle was looming in Febru- ary, shortly before the aforemen- tioned surveywas due to be published. In the canton of Berne, all the signs were that voters would emphatically reject a proposed caravan site for non- Swiss members of the itinerant com- munity. However, a 53.5 per cent ma- jority of Bernese voters approved the loan needed to create the site, which MARC LETTAU Switzerland is a cosmopolitan coun- try full of minority languages and cul- tures. Yet the country’smajorities and minorities do not always coexist hap- pily. The Yenish and Sinti minorities have first-hand experience of this. In particular, thosewho live an itinerant way of life suffer from prejudice. Whenever groups of non-Swiss Roma arrive in Switzerland, themood turns sour very quickly. However, according to a repre- sentative survey published in March by the Federal Statistical Office and the Service for Combating Racism, the Swiss seem to be more accepting of the itinerant minorities than was generally thought. Some 67 per cent of those questioned consider the itin- erant lifestyle of Switzerland’s native Yenish and Sinti communities to be part of Swiss diversity, while 56 per cent believe that Switzerland should domore for persons with an itinerant way of life. Irrespective of these posi- tive attitudes, the concerns of the itin- Society Ray of hope for the Yenish, Sinti and Roma Are social attitudes changing? A law discriminating against the itinerant way of life has been rescinded. Voters have approved a controversial camping site for itinerant people. And a survey shows that the majority of Swiss are accepting of the itinerant lifestyle. is situated near the farming village of Wileroltigen. First this unexpected verdict at the ballot box, then the eyebrow-rais- ing findings of the survey. Next came a landmark ruling at the end of April, when the Swiss Federal Supreme Court rescinded articles of the Police Act of the canton of Berne that dis- criminated against itinerant people. The passages in question made it pos- sible to evict itinerant groups from private land very quickly and under threat of punishment without afford- ing these parties the legal recourse to which they would normally be enti- tled in Switzerland. The Federal Su- preme Court said that the clauses were unconstitutional. The Radgenos- senschaft der Landstrasse, the um- brella organisation for Yenish and Sinti in Switzerland, called the ruling an “important step towards ensuring the protection of minorities in Swit- zerland”, while the Society for Threat- ened Peoples said that the ruling had “set a precedent in combating discrim- inatory legal clauses”. Representatives of the Yenish, Sinti and Roma communities told “Swiss Review” that the Berne vote, the survey and the court ruling are encouraging “rays of hope” but noth- ing more. This is because itinerant people remain in a difficult predica- ment. Any goodwill towards them quickly evaporates once push comes to shove. For example, the Bernese electorate gave a clear thumbs up to theWileroltigen caravan site while 91 per cent of voters in the village re- jected it. Members of Switzer- land’s itinerant community who have been allowed to pitch up on a farm in Bäretswil (canton of Zurich). Photo: Danielle Liniger Results of the survey on attitudes towards people with an itiner- ant way of life: ogy.de/swiss-diversity