The use of the term black sheep to symbolize a worthless or disgraced member of a family dates back well over 200 years and the first know use was in a book published in 1786. Article.

There’s also a description in Black_sheep

After the black sheep has been kicked out it say "1 year later".

On the football pitch one asks "Where are the rest ?" and the other replies "I think they've been thrown out".

On the caption at the end it says Köbi Kuhn will find other players.

Röstigraben replaced by Blocher trench splitting Switzerland.
Interesting article in 20minuten (in German).

Was on a train back from Munich yesterday, as it was packed full of Oktoberfesters and I had no reservation I ended up sat in the corridor. Also in the corridor were about half-a-dozen swiss youths, all cheering for FC Luzern all the way to Zurich (4.5 hours)...I was wearing my "I [heart] [black sheep]" badge from the Talacker on Wednesday.

After a couple of hours, one of them asked me what it was. By this time, we'd already established that a) I spoke next to no German, b) they spoke next to no English, and c) they'd run out of beer and were thoroughly bored. So, I said in my best German "I love the black sheep", which was met with a torrent of Schweizer-deutsch, the only bit I understood was "Um, no you ARE the black sheep", and then the next 2 hours was spent basically ignorning the (some good natured and some clearly not good natured) banter/abuse from these guys.

This only serves to reinforce in my mind what this policy means to a section of Swiss society - all they knew about me was that I'm English, nothing more was needed for them to make a judgement that I shouldn't be in their country.

Blonaybear, I think your head might be in the sand with your constant defence of "the black sheep" as being a commonly used term - yes it is, but surely you're not oblivious to the clear overtones it carries in this context???

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Zürich Inneoin GAA Club
www.snopes.com - an essential resource for the everday gullible internet reader.

On the subject of the upcoming elections, one of my colleagues was telling me over coffe this morning that like the US, there is little to no transparency on how much money is spent on advertising / campaigning here in Switzerland. Which I found difficult to follow.

He then followed this up by saying that the majority of parties are thought to spend between 1-2M chf, whereas the SVP are generally acknowleged to spend upwards of 20M chf ... sound familiar ?

Have tried to find reference on the internet, but my political German is woeful, if someone (Nairda) could have a look & clarify that would be great, don't want to be starting any more urban myths .... unless they are about Catalyst ...

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the sun ain't shining no more ........

A report from Swissinfo.

Thanks BB, I really must get up earlier .
As the article says, no budget limits and no transparency.
SVP estimated spend SFr20 million. SP and FDP SFr1.2 million each.

Essentially, I feel the posters incite fear or even hatred of foreigners and anyone who's not white and reinforce a culture where discriminatory attitudes and behaviours are seen as acceptable.

Travelling alone as a black person could actually be quite frightening in this scenario. Or how about being in a group of lads who decided to argue with the football fans?

People have posted that the black sheep adverts should be permitted as freedom of speech. What about the freedom of speech to wear a badge saying you don't hate foreigners?

However, given the amount of defacing and redesigning of the posters that's been going on I think it's fair to say that most people don't think much of the SVP's campaign .

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"What was the rude word?" "Was it really? Good heavens, you frighten me to death." - Bill Grundy.

I have to say I did wonder what their reaction would have been if I was not the "middle demographic" of late 20's white male - I suspect it would have been more extreme but obviously that's just supposition.

I agree as well that most people clearly disagree with the campaign (certainly more than two thirds of the Swiss I've spoken to about this, and all bar one ex-pat, who left me speechless with his response to my wearing the badge (!) ) but it does seem to back up the allegation that the SVP are targeting a minority segment of Swiss society, and they're doing a decent job of stirring up tension if nothing else.

Also I don't mean to imply that all football fans are thugs, (far from it), but I mentioned their "FC Luzern" chants to clarify that it was very obvious that they were Swiss.

What was also very clear was the "peer pressure" effect, whereby 2 of them clearly had a very strong animosity and were desparate for me to "bite", and the other 4 or 5 clearly seemed uncomfortable with it but joined in anyway so as to either fit in, or not become a target themselves. I wonder if this would translate to the polls or not...

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Zürich Inneoin GAA Club
www.snopes.com - an essential resource for the everday gullible internet reader.

what I find amazing about all of the hype around the elections & cost of advertising etc, is the apathy of the voting public. Apparently only 53% of registered voters are expected to do so ..
Is this the backlash of being called to vote so many times a year on Kantonal as well as Federal topics ?

I caught a bit of one of the French speaking TV shows interviewing Blocher a couple of weeks ago. His justification was that the phrase "black sheep" is common in German, French and English. I'm afraid that my French wasn't up to following the ensuing argument so late at night...

Surely thats still double the amount who'll be voting in England when Gordon decides to win his landslide...?

German extremist right party copies SVP posters
and
SVP probably hasn't payed the $13 for the right to use the sheep graphic.

Schadenfreude ensues.

I'm sure they'd all be delighted if their black and foreign players scored, which Cameroonian Jean-Michel Tchouga did with a header in the 45th minute as did Brazilian Felipe in the 90th to secure the draw .

Also, in Switzerland virtually 100% of eligible voters are registered.
According to Hansard, in the UK there is no way of knowing what % of those entitled to vote are actually registered to do so.
I've seen estimates that it is around 85%. UK Turnout in 2005 was 61%. So the turnout of those entitled to be registered to vote is lower than predicted in Switzerland .

Haha, excellent

Hilarious. So the SVP is considering legal action against the German neo-Nazi NPD for using a similar image. I'm sure they don't mean it to be anti-foreigner or racist either .

whats even more comical is that the SVP didn't pay for the images they lifted in the first place ....

But they've only got an election budget of SFr20 million .

We were at the Valais Fair on Saturday. A Valais candidate for the PRD went up to our Swiss friends American wife and said quite openly "You're a f-----g foreigner. We don't want you here."

Sooner or later foreigners are going to get more and more politcal rights. All these guys are doing is losing a load of potential voters.

Still.. no such thing as bad publicity eh ?