A series of crimes by immigrants has raised the integration issue in Zurich, reports tk vogel |
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The Swiss are usually not given to the sort of tortured self-examination that consumes their German neighbors at regular intervals. Not for them the endless debates about national identity, their role in the world, or how to deal with globalisation: in all these areas, the Swiss with their unshakeable pragmatism have charted an independent, and highly successful, course.
But now, a string of sexual assaults committed mostly by foreigners or naturalized citizens has forced the Swiss to take a hard look at the way they deal with the country's large foreign population, some 20 per cent of the total. (In Europe, only tiny Liechtenstein and Luxembourg have a higher share.)
Just last week, the media reported from Zurich that a 13-year-old girl had repeatedly been raped, over a period of several weeks, by a gang of around ten adolescents
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| The headline in a Swiss newspaper story about the 13-year-old’s ordeal translates as: ‘Sex gang from Zurich: He lured Michelle into a trap’ |
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(including her boyfriend), all of them of foreign extraction. They all confessed to the assaults but did not seem to grasp the concept of statutory rape (though some of the sexual activity may have been consensual).
Not content with fatalistic explanations that humans are evil or men are pigs, the pragmatic Swiss wanted an explanation that came with a solution attached. The most powerful of these explanations, because it touched on an uncomfortable but undeniable truth, was that 'integration' had failed in Switzerland. But has it?
The claim comes from two sides whose solutions to the problem are diametrically opposed.
The xenophobic right, represented by the Swiss People's Party of Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, wants tougher immigration rules. The party blames left-wing policies for "uncontrolled mass immigration," the "endangerment of local culture," and exploding welfare budgets.
On the other side are the "lefties and do-gooders," in the People's Party's words, 
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