FIRST BLACK CITIZEN ELECTED TO SWISS PARLIAMENT IS ANGOLAN
Switzerland has just elected its first Black MP and he happens to be of Angolan origin!
According to TimesOnline, "the first black MP in Switzerland said yesterday he was worried about the direction of his country after an election that was won by a right-wing party with a strident anti-immigration message."
Ricardo Lumengo, who fled Angola as a student activist in 1982 and was elected to parliament in Sunday’s vote, said he feared that other political refugees would be turned away in the current climate of hostility towards foreigners. Mr Lumengo, 45, told The Times that he felt singled out personally by a controversial poster at the heart of the campaign by the Swiss People’s Party, which showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag.
The SVP consolidated its position as the biggest party in parliament in the elections, partly at the expense of Mr Lumengo’s Social Democrats, and is planning to press ahead with tougher immigration laws. It maintained that the poster was not racist but illustrated its proposed policy of ejecting foreign criminals.
“We do not like it that people abroad see us as against foreigners. I am proof that not all of Switzerland thinks like that,” said Mr Lumengo, who trained as a lawyer in Switzerland and completed the tests for his Swiss passport in 1997. He said: “I have had a good experience in Switzerland for 25 years but the situation has changed and I feel I would have difficulties if I came now. There is a tension, a conflict now between foreigners and Swiss. Other politicians are talking irresponsibly by suggesting that foreigners are responsible for all the country’s problems. We, the Socialists, are worried that this is the wrong direction for the country.”
Mr Lumengo said he hoped that his election as an MP would be “a symbol showing many things”, including that Switzerland was not a racist country. “There are people who are building another Switzerland, a Switzerland of tolerance and a Switzerland of dialogue,” he said. ALL THE BEST TO MR. LUMENGO IN HIS POLITICAL CAREER ARE MY WISHES!
Switzerland has just elected its first Black MP and he happens to be of Angolan origin!
According to TimesOnline, "the first black MP in Switzerland said yesterday he was worried about the direction of his country after an election that was won by a right-wing party with a strident anti-immigration message."
Ricardo Lumengo, who fled Angola as a student activist in 1982 and was elected to parliament in Sunday’s vote, said he feared that other political refugees would be turned away in the current climate of hostility towards foreigners. Mr Lumengo, 45, told The Times that he felt singled out personally by a controversial poster at the heart of the campaign by the Swiss People’s Party, which showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag.
The SVP consolidated its position as the biggest party in parliament in the elections, partly at the expense of Mr Lumengo’s Social Democrats, and is planning to press ahead with tougher immigration laws. It maintained that the poster was not racist but illustrated its proposed policy of ejecting foreign criminals.
“We do not like it that people abroad see us as against foreigners. I am proof that not all of Switzerland thinks like that,” said Mr Lumengo, who trained as a lawyer in Switzerland and completed the tests for his Swiss passport in 1997.
He said: “I have had a good experience in Switzerland for 25 years but the situation has changed and I feel I would have difficulties if I came now. There is a tension, a conflict now between foreigners and Swiss. Other politicians are talking irresponsibly by suggesting that foreigners are responsible for all the country’s problems. We, the Socialists, are worried that this is the wrong direction for the country.”
Mr Lumengo said he hoped that his election as an MP would be “a symbol showing many things”, including that Switzerland was not a racist country. “There are people who are building another Switzerland, a Switzerland of tolerance and a Switzerland of dialogue,” he said.
ALL THE BEST TO MR. LUMENGO IN HIS POLITICAL CAREER ARE MY WISHES!
Switzerland has just elected its first Black MP and he happens to be of Angolan origin!
7 comments:
Great news for Mr. Lumengo and for Angolans in general, but I'am afraid not so good news for African immigrants in Switzerland in general, given the overall results of this election.
I'm afraid you're right Nick. But the simple fact that someone like Lumengo could be elected in the current environment is in itself a sign of hope for Africans in Switzerland and in Europe in general.
Só gostava de saber quando é que uma “maravilha” destas acontece em Portugal --- um negro de origem estrangeira ser eleito para o Parlamento por um dos maiores partidos?
AC: Nao sei, meu irmao! Mas talvez haja por ai iluminados que digam que "nao e' preciso porque em Portugal sao todos pretos de origem estrangeira/ ou brancos de origem estrangeira, nomeadamente de origem Angolana/luso-angolanos/lusotropicais - tanto faz, Portugueses e' que nao sao"!!
Corage...
;-)
Bem….. ou talvez digam apenas que “somos todos humanos, por isso bastam os brancos para representar todos”……Eheheheh
Obrigado pelo Elias e o Ressureição, essa obra prima de nossa música e identidade nacional. Já sabe que ele foi um dos galardoados este ano com o Prémio Nacional de Cultura e Artes?
Ahahahahhh, essa foi bem apanhada!
Sim, por saber disso e' que decidi tocar o Ressureicao por estes dias. O Elias e' um dos casos mais flagrantes a demonstrar que o juri desse premio nem sempre tem as suas prioridades na ordem certa, mas... mais vale tarde do que nunca!
Thanks for the tip about Ricardo Lumengo being elected to the Swiss Parliament in last year's elections. It is an important development in the European political scene and in the history of black Africans in Europe. I will update my blog post to include this post about Mr. Lumengo.
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