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"Oui!"
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
This one requires a bit of explanation. It is a political billboard which has been "modified" by some citizens who disagreed with it's message. The original billboard shows these differently-hued and vaguely threatening-looking hands reaching greedily for a pile of Swiss passports.
The Swiss Peoples' Party, or UDC as it is known here in the French-speaking region, is a political party with an ultra-conservative and nationalistic platform. The party and its leaders have become notorious in the past few years for billboards and advertisements which they term to be "anti-immigration", although many Swiss feel that the images are just plain racist. One famous billboard showed a cartoon of three white-coated sheep kicking a single scowling black sheep off of a Swiss flag, with a caption underneath that said, "For More Security." Whenever new UDC billboards appear, they are almost immediately defaced with graffiti and slogans deploring what many perceive to be intolerant and offensive messages of the party.
Here, some local artists have painted over most of the poster and substituted this fondue pot for the pile of passports. I thought that this particular "rearrangement" of the passport billboard was a step above the typically hurried spray-paint treatment of these billboards, as this effort is more humorous, clever and a bit more carefully executed.
Although I'm not a Swiss citizen and am not permitted to vote or participate in the political process here, I find these UDC billboards shocking and frightening. While I do not endorse vandalism, at the same time I find it comforting that many Swiss vocally (and visually) reject the UDC's policies, which tend to vilify immigrants in general and non-whites in particular in order to play upon fears and prejudices, and to thereby garner support and power. |
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