Odd, Tough Tests for Aspiring Swiss Citizens

L O N D O N, Oct. 22 -- The Swiss say it is the power of the people.

Human rights groups say it is flagrant xenophobia. Its victims say it is a completely legal popularity contest.

Switzerland’s long-standing immigration custom of “let the locals decide” has come under fire.

In this pristine country, each town has the right to allow its citizens to choose who can be one of them. But recent controversies suggest that this choice is based on deciding who is “Swiss” enough to fit in.

Ethnically Turkish, Culturally Swiss

Oezcan Oezbey has lived in Pratteln, Switzerland, since he was five years old. Though he is Turkish, Switzerland is his home.

Three years ago, at the age of 20, he decided to make it official and applied for Swiss citizenship. He submitted himself to a trying process. Local officials tested him on Swiss holidays, typical celebrations and facts about the different cantons in Switzerland.

It can be even worse. Some towns take the citizenship process to a much greater extreme. This past spring, the town of Emmen, near Lucerne, forced its prospective citizens to undergo what has come to be known as “the fondue test.”

Local officials visited applicants in their homes to see how clean their homes were, how they lived, and yes, what they were cooking.

Photographs of the applicants were published and circulated in a booklet, along with personal details like what their family history was, what their hobbies were, and even what their income status and tax history was.

All this so that the applicants’ neighbors could choose who could be one of them.

A Tyranny of the Minority

But for many, it is not enough. In both Emmen and Pratteln, a significant majority of those who applied were rejected.

In Pratteln, just 200 of a possible 3,000 eligible voters came to the polls. Still,what some critics called a tyranny of the minority legitimately ended the dreams of some applicants.

Most of those who applied were not from Western Europe. Switzerland opened its doors wider to immigrants from less affluent areas of Europe in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s because it was looking for cheap labor.