On a hot summer day, the quaint village of Grindelwald was basking in the sun in its full Alpian glory. Bikers cycled ahead, paragliders swooped in from the sky, dropping slowly from the tall mountains all the way down in the canyon. My uncle Ilir and his son Milot had decided to show me the majestic Alps. My uncle who had spent quite some time in the area working odd jobs knew the Bernese region well.
A first generation immigrant, my uncle Ilir came to Switzerland in 1989. Like thousands of young Yugoslav men, who had flocked to Europe in the 1980s, he had arrived to search for a good job and a better life, fuelling the booming Swiss economy with manpower. As Milosevic rose to power, Kosovo’s autonomy was revoked and tens of thousands of Albanians were fired from their jobs. Many Kosovar men, some followed by their wives and children, left the country and settled where they were most needed, if not welcome. Approximately 200’000 Albanians live in Switzerland today. The majority are originally from Kosovo, although other former Yugoslav republics and Albania also contribute to the fifth largest migrant group in Switzerland. Locally, they are infamous for alleged honor killings and terrible treatment of women, if not for mere backwardness. According to a 2015 report of Federal Department for Home Affairs (EDI) on racism, Albanians come third as a perceived threat to the Swiss way of life (after North Africans and «blacks» in general). According to the same report only 25% of respondents would not mind working with them.
To say that Switzerland has a problem with migrants would be an understatement. Xenophobic discourse used in public debates, a lack of anti-discrimination laws and racial profiling are recurring issues, as the European Commision against Racism and Intolerance reported in 2014. Although dark-skinned people are most vulnerable to experiencing discrimination, Muslims, a group which includes the majority of Albanians in Switzerland, are second in line to be at the receiving end of curtailed opportunities and harassment.
I had no idea what my uncle did or what his life was like in Switzerland.
In the 90s while I was growing up in a segregated Kosovo, having an uncle or an aunt abroad was commonplace. With a presumed 800’000 Kosovar Albanians living in the diaspora, almost one third of the entire population, this comes as no surprise. I had no idea what my uncle did or what his life was like in Switzerland. Unlike the Albanians the Swiss read about in daily tabloid headlines, Ilir has yet to stab anyone, or join a drug cartel. A great amount of his life was spent doing odd jobs, earning money to send back home to Peja, a town in western Kosovo where more than 90 percent of the houses were burned down during the 1999 war. Today, he has an office job in a factory after years of working in the assembly line.
Many Kosovars that live in Switzerland and elsewhere dream of a magnificent homecoming. In total, they spend millions of euros in building great family houses in their original villages or towns; they regularly send money back home, and fly in each summer, keeping the service economy afloat. Ilir’s own dreams entailed a return, he married a local girl and took her to Switzerland; yet when the children were born this plan changed. Today, both he and his wife work hard to ensure that their three sons study hard, and get the opportunities that they themselves never had: to attend a Swiss university, and make something better of themselves. With parents dying and siblings growing apart, they also visit Kosovo less and less. Instead of spending their summers in the scorching heat of landlocked Kosovo, his family hits the road and bathes in the Amalfi sun. This was quite unimaginable even to him, he often says, jaded.
Their story is like many others’, but theirs is not one that is commonly reported in Swiss newspapers or television. Instead, Albanians are feared as a violent bunch. Feeble attempts to change the public opinion and mood, such as the 2011 documentary «Die guten Albaner», or the more recent article published in Tages Anzeiger «Was, du bist Albanerin?» (April 2015) try to paint a different image of Albanians. They tell a different story: successfully integrated, well-meaning Albanians (preferably with perfect Schweizerdeutsch) – they do exist. Albanians themselves are also greatly concerned with the image they have in Switzerland. Websites that cater to the Albanian diaspora in Switzerland, such as Albinfo.ch or Dialogplus.ch report constantly on current affairs, especially those about Albanians in their adopted homeland. These, and sites like KosovoDiaspora.org, adamantly feature successful people to show once and for all that amongst Albanians there are good apples too.
The story goes, «See, Italians too were once unwelcome but they managed to make a place for themselves. Remember when we all hated Italians?»
Often, the journey of Albanian migrants and their integration in their host country gets compared to that of Italian immigrants, who by the mid 20th century comprised the majority of the migrant population in Switzerland. The Italians commonly referred to belong to the wave of migrants who were at first denied the right to bring their families along. This later changed. The story goes, «See, Italians too were once unwelcome but they managed to make a place for themselves. Remember when we all hated Italians?» Today, it is noted, Italians are beloved – «we eat Pizza and what Swiss person wouldn’t want a piece of that dolce vita?» As years pass and new generation of immigrants are born, it is hoped that Albanians will become a beloved minority group, respected for their family values and work ethic. This especially might be true for third generation immigrants, whose naturalization might become easier if the Swiss Parliament passes a legal amendment that will guarantee easier procedures, a possibility which is currently being discussed.
Moreover, to use Italians as a reference point for the potential successful integration of Albanians (and other migrant groups) is problematic. When idealized this way, Italians become the Swiss «model minority», a term introduced by sociologist William Petersen in 1966 to describe minority groups that are socioeconomically successful. At the time, Petersen coined the term to describe Asian Americans in the US, which experienced upward mobility to a greater extent than other minority groups in the US. Yet often the model minority as a category is considered a myth, that creates certain expectations and links the success of a particular group with inherent, innate characteristics, either biological or cultural, which in turns essentializes social stratification and especially inequality.
The continuous use of Italians as an example of successful integration is also problematic because it ignores the cultural and historical context in which Italians became an integral part of Switzerland. Today, it is easy to claim that Italians are well incorporated, because like the rest of nations that are part of the EU they enjoy the right to work and live in Switzerland as they would in any other country in the EU common area. Furthermore, it is easy to ignore the simple fact that Italians are predominantly white Christians, much like the local Swiss population. To point to this fact does not erase the hardships of the Italian immigrant population, but it shows that integration of some groups works hand in hand with the exclusion of other groups, which are perceived to be even more alien.
The general idea is that Albanians will follow the Italian example. Second generation immigrants like my cousins whose dreams are to become dentists and vets, will have it easier to «integrate», accustomed to Swiss «values» as they will be. Second generation immigrants, one is to believe, are educated, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. Such an image is offered by the Tages Anzeiger article mentioned above, an interview of three Zürich University students of Albanian descent. Undoubtedly full of good intentions to dispel all sorts of stereotypes about Albanians, the journalist poses a series of «naive» questions: is it true that Albanians are either football players, martial artists or bouncers? Is there actually a «Balkan macho» man? And what about gender equality amongst Albanians, how do things stand with that? By posing leading questions, the journalist does not do justice neither to the interviewees nor her own audience. The interviewed have no opportunity to actually talk about themselves but have to attend to generalizations; while Tages Anzeiger readers are treated as complete ignorants who need to be didactically told that stereotypes are simplified categories that do not stand when tested against reality.
The model minority Albanians are supposed to be educated, driven, successful.
The journalist innocently asks the students what would happen if a teenager would curse in a schoolyard in Prishtina, as if the expression «Figg dini Mueter», which she uses, is an Albanian invention. Furthermore, the question is posed to three unassuming Swiss-raised respondents who have to entertain the idea of what Albanians do in general, and as if it is not completely futile to say anything definite about the behavior of teenagers. This false invitation, a hypothetical question, to testify to something they cannot comment on as «native informants», can only result in a generalization, or worse, a racist remark. The crux of the problem with this interview is that it does treat identity as essential and does not try to illuminate the complexity of human beings and groups, but it only reaffirms a new stereotype, which is supposed to be a positive one: Albanians, the model minority. The model minority Albanians are supposed to be educated, driven, successful. They are model citizens of the neoliberal state: they make money, are self-sustainable and, most importantly, are entrepreneurial – no moochers. In the SRF documentary «Die guten Albaner» they are educated, well-behaved, god-fearing and family-loving people. A Thai boxer champion is married to a beautiful but also smart financial consultant; a banker who lives with his parents and his Kosovar wife wants «to find his own way» ; a young female politician running for the Social Democrats in her district wins the assembly seat and has moved out of her parental home; a practicing Muslim doctor finds a way to synthesize his Albanian and Swiss identities – these are the good Albanians.
What is good? To take a page from Sara Ahmed in her discussion of happiness, in this case the face of goodness «looks rather like the face of privilege» (2010). The good Albanians, similarly to the good Italians or the good Asian-Americans, represent a privileged class of people, compared to both immigrants and natives alike. Unlike my uncle, who is a factory worker, all of the examples of good Albanians are proof of a Switzerland that allows for social mobility, and against all reported xenophobic and racist biases, a country that is inclusive of its diverse residents. However, according to a report published by the Federal Office for Migration the majority of former-Yugoslav immigrants work as manual, artisanal and agricultural labor. The main characters of «Die guten Albaner» are not so much the good Albanians, but rather exceptional ones.
«Being good» is being well-off and educated – goodness is the embodiment of middle-class values. This is noticeable in the glimpses of the subject’s houses, family lunches or dinners, which reveal taste, and consequently class. After showing his Swiss home, Azem Maksutaj, the Thai box champion, takes the camera crew to his home village Pozhar in Kosovo. There too the audience can admire the mansion-sized house Maksutaj has built for his parents. Similarly, Sysret Kastrati, an Albanian banker who was born in Switzerland, shows off his well-organized designer clothes in his wardrobe, before showing us the rest of the house, while the narrator tells us how he has been educated in Zurich and London. Kastrati also is the owner of an expensive motorbike, with which he cruises the Swiss landscape with his other Albanian buddies.
It is after the large group of Albanian immigrant bikers, called the Eagles (Shqiponjat), have stopped for some Balkan snacks (qebapa) and a chat, that the audience gets to hear a discussion about what it means to be integrated in Switzerland. One of the bikers says that each people should preserve its own culture and values, claiming that Swiss integration means «to each their own». Another biker, dressed in black and red in honor of the Albanian flag, says he doesn’t feel Albanian. Another quickly retorts «You’re an Albanian, and you remain one». He doesn’t have to add «whether you like it or not». Luckily, these men who occasionally meet up to feel the wind in their hair as they speed below the Alps on bikes, have the choice to identify as Albanian and to claim their Swiss rights. The same cannot be said for those who belong to precarious social groups, as the BBC reported case of a disabled Kosovar man who was refused citizenship because the local community in his canton considered him a burden to taxpayer money. The fact that he was Muslim did not help. Islam is probably the main obstacle that Albanians face in becoming a model minority. After a general referendum in 2009, Switzerland placed a ban on the construction of minarets. A great force behind this was the People’s Party (SVP), which was very vocal about the necessity of taking action against the «Islamization» of Switzerland. In 2007 SVP won the largest share of the vote as a single party, although it has since lost some of the popular support. Nevertheless, even the current SVP popularity is telling of the general mood in Switzerland not only towards Muslims, but immigrants in general.
In light of this anti-immigrant mood, quite a few Albanians have chosen to enter politics and fight for their rights in district assemblies and other state institutions. Currently Arbër Bullakaj, a second-generation Albanian immigrant, is running for the Swiss national parliament, and if he is elected, he will be the first Albanian to win a seat. Other local politicians like Ylfete Fanaj, an SP councilwoman in Luzern, have already joined local institutions (Fanaj’s election for the canton assembly is also chronicled in «Die guten Albaner»). Like Bullakaj and Fanaj, both of whom are greatly concerned with the issue of the integration of immigrants, SP member Blerim Bunjaku has developed an app that allows immigrants to prepare for the citizenship test. Bunjaku also ran for local council in Winterthur, but did not win. Interestingly enough, he ran as part of the Christian party EVP, although like most Albanians, Bunjaku is a practicing Muslim. EVP running with a Muslim candidate, a fact that raised quite a few eyebrows in Switzerland, pales in comparison to Faton Durmishi’s case. Faton Durmishi, a Swiss Albanian who lives in Lugano, ran for a council seat as an SVP candidate. It might seem strange for an immigrant to run for a party known for its anti-immigrant sentiment. In 2001, SVP ran a poster which most visibly said «KOSOVO-ALBANER NEIN». Yet, Durmishi, in an interview for Albinfo.ch, explains that it was «the Italian invasion» that convinced him to join politics and a particularly conservative party. According to him it is the «frontaliers», the daily commuters who work in Switzerland and enjoy the benefits of the European common area, that are endangering Switzerland. Like many other conservatives, Durmishi feels that it is the foreigners who are stealing the jobs of the hardworking Swiss. How a man who moved to Switzerland with his parents when he was six can say this with a straight face is a conundrum. Yet, not taking Durmishi seriously might be wrong. He does not deny his immigrant identity, in fact, he finds roots of conservatism in his Albanian heritage. Durmishi sees many similarities between Albanian and Swiss culture, such as patriotism and family values. And who is to say that he is not right? Perhaps Durmishi is the most integrated immigrant of them all. He has somehow managed to synthesize his conservative worldviews and find a new scapegoat for Swiss/Albanian problems: the other foreigners. He has achieved to ingratiate himself in a party which on principle is not keen on foreigners. Could it be that as a result of the common European area, Albanian immigrants have become more native than the Italian commuters? Could it be that the Italians might just not be the model minority anymore after all?
My uncle looks wistfully at the Alps. «Albanians would never know how to preserve something like this», he says.
The situation of Albanians in Switzerland is clearly very complex. Whereas the first generations worked hard, saved up and returned, the new generation of immigrants are staking their claim on their adopted homeland. This means that more Albanians will involve themselves in the public and political life of the country and this is both an opportunity and a peril. It is an opportunity for Albanians to lobby for immigrant rights and change the political landscape of a country that for far too long has held on to its conservative policies. It also might be perilous because the «good Albanians» might simply identify with the model minority myth and interpret their success as a result of some inherent trait. Consequently, the model minority Albanians will reinforce and reproduce a system that is unjust for most immigrants, who will continue to suffer from structural disadvantages.
In Grindelwald, we stop to drink water at a public fountain sitting afoot the Jungfrau peak. We wait in line to fill our bottles, while a couple rest on a bench. The woman is covered by a burqa, the Burberry lining adorning the black sleeves. I notice a smirk on my uncle’s lips, but his young son seems completely unimpressed. I am the one most uncomfortable by the sight of seeing a woman fully veiled in the summer heat, although it is a fairly common one in Swiss tourist spots. While I entertain my own prejudiced thoughts («Is this woman oppressed?»), my uncle looks wistfully at the Alps. «Albanians would never know how to preserve something like this», he says.