Despite heavy nationalism propaganda, the Swiss turned out to be less nationalism than we thought...
Nationalism is a construct. I’ve learnt that in political history classes. You can read some smart stuff about this from guys like Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm. We were socialized into becoming birds of a feather. Brits, French, Spanish, Romanians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, and so on. In times of crisis, birds of a feather flock together. I’m sure you have all found out by now it’s times of crisis we are facing.
So how do we act? We try to increase job security. Bluntly put, we protect our jobs. Stick to them. British workers go on strike if local authorities and owners decide they should staff factories with non-British workers. The European Union has become fortress Europe a long time ago. Non-EU nationals oftentimes don’t even get visas, let alone are offered workplaces in EU member countries.
However, few know that even inside the European Union the situation is rather “orwellian”. We are all equals, but some are more equal than others. Surely, we all abide by the principle of free movement for workers, but countries such as the UK impose quotas and barriers for Romanian and Bulgarian workers. And have extended such limitations for several years after the most recent enlargement date. There is a serious migration flow between new EU member states and old ones.
Here’s a recent enacted scenario, though. The Swiss government - though Switzerland is not a member of the EU, but it is part of the European Economic Area and abiding by and large by EU principles - wanted to prevent Bulgarian and Romanian workers from entering the Swiss labour market. However, because of Swiss constitutional law - a referendum afficionada, I would say - the Swiss government asked the Swiss people (no less affected by the crisis than the rest of world, I assume) whether they’d ban Romanian and Bulgarian workers from entering their markets, in order to prevent potential job losses for the Swiss people. Guess what the people said… A large enough majority of them said “no” and accepted work migration towards their country.
I wonder what other Europeans would say if they were confronted with similar referenda… My guess is that we are not at all that nationalist, if we get to the point when the question is asked straightforward in our faces “Guys, do you want this people as workers in your country?” “Yes or no.” I may be wrong, but deep down I believe government policies and rhetorics don’t always resonate with how real people feel towards issues…
PS: Picture was taken from Flickr, under a Creative Commons licence.
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Well said!