Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Immigrants Want Cross Removed from Swiss Flag

An immigrant group based in Bern has called for the emblematic white cross to be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian symbol it "no longer corresponds to today's multicultural Switzerland."

Ivica Petrusic, the vice president of Second@s Plus, a lobbying group that represents mostly Muslim second-generation foreigners in Switzerland (who colloquially are known as secondos) says the group will launch a nationwide campaign in October to ask Swiss citizens to consider adopting a flag that is less offensive to Muslim immigrants.

In a September 18 interview with the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung, Petrusic said the cross has a Christian background and while the Christian roots of Switzerland should be respected, "it is necessary to separate church and state" because "Switzerland today has a great religious and cultural diversity. One has to ask if the State wants to continue building up a symbol in which many people no longer believe."
Read the rest here.

3 comments:

123 said...

They should also lobby to have the crescent removed from the flags of their families' countries of origin, too, if they are to be consistent - especially in nations with significant Christian histories (e.g., Turkey) or minorities.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

They are being consistent. The West endlessly promotes itself as secular and multi-cultural while the Muslim East makes clear that it is uni-cultural and minorities are tolerated at best.

Anonymous said...

Stand fast, Switzerland!