Expulsion of Foreign Criminals?

On Sunday, the 28th of November, the Swiss public voted in one of their "direct democracy" referendums. The initiative, proposed by the conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP), proposed that foreigners automatically lose their residency permits on conviction of certain crimes. It received the majority vote, and now the government has to work out how to implement this within a legal framework.

The question is: Is this morally acceptable or not? The problem for most liberals arises from the fact that it is such a sweeping proposal. For instance, one of the proposed crimes to be included in the list that automatically gets a foreigner evicted on conviction is breaking and entering. Very broad terminology. There is no mention of the scale involved, or the intent to commit violent crime, etc. So if Messrs. Milovic, Smith and co. break into a mansion in the dead of night, armed to the teeth and ready to remove the van Gogh collection at all costs, and unexpectedly encounter Herr Müller having a late night cognac in his study, and Herr Müller jumps up and runs for his alarm panel, shouting Hilfe at the top of his voice, Mr. Smith could quite likely end up filling Herr Müller with lead from his Uzi. Following the results of the referendum, Milovic, Smith and co. will, after conviction, be evicted from the country. As far as I know, they'll have to serve their sentences here first, unless there is some sort of agreement with their home country (can't quite see that one working with Albania, but anyway...).

Excellent stuff, I say!

Now, young Gopal Munsamy, whose parents came here from India two years before he was born, has grown up into a reasonably typical young man of average academic achievement and the usual lack of respect and discipline that most youth have today, In other words, he's not much different from his neighbour, young Fritz Sigrist. He speaks Swiss German as a first language, as he has never been schooled in his parents mother tongue and only ever gets to speak Hindi or whatever with them anyway. Part of his bad attitude in life is that in order to fit in with his peers, he has to try really hard to distance himself from his parents language, culture and customs. He has never been to India and has no idea and no interest whatsoever in what life is like over there. In fact, he couldn't care less. Gopal's father has spent the last eighteen years working in the kitchen of a two star restaurant in Zürich as a dishwasher on the nightshift, so there isn't any money to go around for much, let alone pocket money for the kids. Like all foreigners of working class in Switzerland, the "Kinderzulage", or child allowance, that the Canton pays him every month is simply added onto the meagre salary in order to help make ends meet. Unfortunately for Gopal, our young potential Swiss-of-colour has taken up smoking in the last year. The only good attribute he possesses is his honesty, drummed into him by his dad's tales of how he ran a successful traders stall back in the good ole days, so when he finally succumbs to his addiction and smashes the window of a Kiosk stand one night, his fumbling attempt at theft goes wrong and he is caught and charged.

Gopal gets extradited to a strange land that is totally foreign to him, and his family are left with little choice but to follow.

Right or wrong?

I personally think such a thing would be rather bloody harsh, and when I voted I allowed myself to believe in the SVP's promise that such worst-case scenarios as this and others that were touted by the liberals would obviously be treated differently. Overtones of Nazism? Perhaps I was naive, but I am sick of the decay that I've had to watch set in in the last nine and a half years. One of the things I love about this country is the respect for law and order. One is safe over here. One's possessions are safe over here. This is changing. In the beginning, I marvelled at the lack of crime in the newspapers. As a South African the lack of violent crime fairly leapt off the pages at me. I remember laughing at the amount of articles detailing crimes such as people taking a tram without a ticket, or the snatching of a handbag in Zürich, wondering if the reporters truly had nothing better to do with their time. Until I realised that this was the locals idea of crime! Once I got to terms with that, I settled down to enjoying life in a place where one could ride a train or walk in the city with one's wife at night, or leave your bicycle standing unchained outside the shop while you bought a loaf of bread, etc. I never learned to leave my house unlocked, and I still automatically lock the car doors when in the centre of town, but it was just nice to know that if you did forget, well, you weren't likely to become a victim.

This has changed. At the age of ten, my son used to catch a train on his own to the next big city for his orthodontist appointment. When he was thirteen, I had to forbid this. First the muggings started, then they became violent. After that the rape started, and the next will be killings. The worst of this is that I have never yet read an account of such a thing where the perpetrator is not a foreigner! By the way, something that amuses me over here in this liberal, first world country is a certain little habit they have that so reminds me of the bad old days in SA when I was a tot. Back then, if there was some major road accident for example, the newspapers would carry reports along the lines of "three people were killed, and 13 blacks". This is, thank goodness, a thing of the past now, but here in Switzerland they always report on things along this vein: "Yesterday evening, a Swiss woman was raped by two Serbs, a Croat and a Nigerian on the late night train to blablabla". They're very correct about it all, though. If the perp has managed to get himself naturalised at some stage then he gets described as a Swiss. Only the qualifying little add-on gives the game away, namely "of migrant (or Balkan/Eastern European/African/Middle Eastern, etc.) heritage". Now you tell me, is this necessary? It sure is interesting to me, 'cause I think the hard facts should be made public, but I don't know how good it is for the attitudes of the Swiss to their foreigners...

Anyway, to get back to the point, I don't believe in any kind of crime. As a guest in a foreign country I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they told me to leave after I'd been caught committing crime, of any sort whatsoever. So, for better or for worse, I'm in with the SVP. OK, I admit it, they do tend to stink of zealotry from time to time, and there are flavours of extreme right-wing within the cauldron, but I feel I have to make my stand somewhere.

Just hope they don't go back on their promises now and really send ole Gopal back to (H)India...

(Still, if they do, his dad's buddies kids might just think twice before they nick that next handbag...hmmmn...)

Screaming Patrolmen

Time: Summer 1993
Place: South Coast of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Rushing along to the station one fine afternoon, Bob and I were eager to sign off duty and get to the beach. It had been a fine summer’s day with perfectly blue skies and not a breath of wind, and we had been stuck on the 06h00 to 14h30 shift. We were concerned that by the time we got off duty the weather may have changed, but here we were at 14h15 and the weather was still perfect. As we raced into town we saw that just over the bridge that led into the main street there was a massive amount of traffic in the build-up to the traffic lights at the intersection. We had to go right to get to our traffic police station, and just before the bridge there was an unpaved gravel road leading through grassland and bush which came out a little way further up the main road through town and just a little further up the road from the station.

We often took this shortcut in times of need, for it was a simple matter to cut back again once hitting the main road and to turn into the station grounds. As it happened, today I decided to do just this. Whipping the car deftly to the right, I slipped onto the “monkey road”, for that’s what it was called. I slowed down to navigate through the crowds of school children all using the shortcut to get to the suburbs. Realising that this could end up being slower than going through the busy intersection on the main road, I wound down my window in order to lean out and yell at the kids to get out of the way. As I did so, a small sandy coloured grasshopper came sailing in through the window and settled in my bare forearm with his scratchy little legs. I’ve never been much of man when it comes to insects, I must admit. I let out a fearful scream, at the same time jamming both legs straight out in front of me. One foot pressed the clutch all the way in and the other jammed on the brakes. As I screamed in fright I snatched up my rubber baton and commenced beating violently about me as the poor grasshopper performed evasive tactics. By this stage Bob too had started yelling, though more because he didn’t quite know what it was that had started me off. The grasshopper was by now moving so fast that I don’t know if Bob had even managed to identify what exactly it was, but he too valiantly grabbed his baton and came to my aid, swatting blindly about in between yells of panic. We were both yelling at the tops of our voices and thrashing the seats wildly. By now the vehicle had almost stopped skidding along the gravel surface, and we threw open our doors and leapt out as it was coming to a stop, clouds of dust swirling over us. The grasshopper must have leapt to safety when the doors were thrown open, for when we tentatively examined the inside of the patrol car, he was nowhere to be seen. Once Bob realised just what it was that had set me off, he gave me a black glare of malevolence that pretty much let me know what his opinion of idiots that overreacted to harmless little insects was, but the tirade that should have followed was nipped in the bud by the realisation that we weren’t alone.

In the sudden silence that ensued we paused to look around us. There we stood, in a cloud of dust with our cool-as-snow avaitor sunglasses and batons in hand. Our vehicle lay abandoned in the middle of the road with both doors hanging open and we were surrounded by a dumbstruck crowd of little Indian children, who were gaping open-mouthed at us. Not saying a word we silently patted the dust off and climbed back in the car. Clinging to what tattered remnants of our dignity as we could, we slowly drove off without looking back.

I often wonder what those little school children must have thought of these two large and well-armed policemen who suddenly began screaming and leaping out of their moving patrol car, all the while thrashing the air and beating the seats with their batons! It must have been quite a sight...

Sadness

My brother-in-law passed away on the 11.11.2010 after a very brief struggle with cancer. It was a very sad occasion for us. He was one of the most decent men I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and he leaves behind two wonderful little boys of 5 and 8 years of age. Well brought up little men of the future, left now to find their way in life without a father. So sad. His wife is not yet 40, and now faces a future without the man she loved and adored. It's taking me a while to get used to the whole idea. I can't imagine how that little family must feel.

I will be back, but I can't promise when. We are now having to continue dealing with my father-in-law's terminal cancer. It is a little hard to write down the stories I wish to tell when I have these things preying on my mind. But I will be back...