Switzerland’s Muslims
On 8 November 2009, three weeks ahead of the vote on the minarets initiative, Le Matin Dimanche (LMD) published the picture above accompanying a story on a voting intention survey (see the picture in the context of the story here).
At the iconic level, the picture shows a group of rather informally dressed people, women and men, the former being much more prominent and wearing head-scarves. They are pictured from their waists up and are all with their backs to the camera. In the background, the top of a minaret is visible against the blue sky. LMD’s readers are probably expected to recognize it as the minaret of Wangen bei Olten [1], a municipality in the German-speaking canton of Solothurn (Soleure, in French). Its inauguration had been reported by the paper on 29.06.09 with a brief story illustrated with the same picture, although smaller and cropped (LM 2009b:8). That particular minaret and the scarves make the people pictured in the image Muslims in Switzerland. In terms of visual composition, the placement of the minaret corresponds almost perfectly to the golden proportion of the image. This, together with the fact that it stands out over an uncrowded background and constitutes the convergence point towards which the women point their partially visible faces, makes it the focus of the image.
The textual elements of the story anchor the photo within the context of the debate and political campaign around the minarets initiative and by extension the place of Islam in Switzerland. The initiative “seduces more women than men”, states the headline. The photo caption and the lead paragraph report a survey according to which more women than men would vote in favour of the initiative. The lead also offers an explanation of why they would do so: “out of fear of losing their [gender] gains”.
In this context, the photo signifies, on the one hand, the initiative itself as the minaret is clearly its focus. On the other hand, as the women in it are obviously not those whom the headline refers to, i.e. Swiss female voters, it signifies instead their fears, what they fear to become: women wearing head-scarves and standing behind the men [2] — or, in other words, women who have lost their rights. As a whole, the photo signifies also a certain stereotypical image of Islam.
On a myth level, the picture refers to the lack of integration of Muslims in Switzerland because of their religion. All Muslims pictured in the image are oriented towards the minaret — the men bowing down their heads towards it, the head-scarved women looking at it — and with their backs to the viewer, that is to the Swiss people.
Whilst the men are faceless and thus anonymous, the women’s faces are partially visible. That contributes to their prominent role in the photo but also adds an additional layer as the story is about women, both Swiss and Muslim: they can see each other but they cannot look each other in the eye. It is above all to Swiss women — two of them also pictured in the story — that the Muslim women in the photo are showing their backs.
Finally, if at a myth level the photo refers to the non-integration of Muslims, the graphic device of framing it leaned towards the right — intended to add dynamism to the layout of the page — suggests the destabilizing effect Islam has on Swiss society.
NOTES
- The initial request for an authorization to build that minaret, submitted several years earlier, had actually been the starting point of the initiative.
- The women are in the forefront of the image but in a subaltern position regarding what is happening in the scene.
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