When Switzerland gave Trump the finger

The three-day Basel carnival – the Basel Fasnacht – held every year at the start of Lent, is always a spectacle. The largest Protestant Lenten “masque”, its medieval origins have earned the carnival a place in the Unesco list of global intangible cultural heritage.

This year the carnival received even more attention than usual, because one group carried an eight-foot tall image of a hand giving the middle finger, and on the tip of that finger was a familiar face: that of Donald Trump. Alongside this huge obscenity, which was wheeled through the streets on a cart, was a group dressed in black costumes, each of them wearing a mask in the shape of a hand, again, with the middle finger gesturing towards the sky.

Carnival groups are known as cliques, and this clique marched in unison, accompanied by the traditional piccolo and drum band. As Trump’s unmistakable face went by, the message seemed clear and widely appreciated, including by many of my Swiss friends – “fantastic”, “I love it”, “hilarious!”

What happened next is unique in the Fasnacht’s 700-year history – a video of what quickly became known as “the middle finger parade”, went viral. It got 23 million views on TikTok, and a lot of people outside Switzerland seemed to think the footage showed a Swiss political rally rather than a Lenten festival. According to one post on Instagram, “The parade featured confetti, music, and costumes mocking Trump, reflecting widespread disdain for his character and policies.”

A friend told me: “It got misunderstood and misinterpreted by people. At carnival, it’s a tradition that while in the parade you poke fun at politicians – it’s a free pass to have a go at politicians who behave badly, local and international ones.”

“We didn’t intend to focus solely on Trump,” said Andi Meier, who helped to organise the Trump imagery. “It was about the general problem that people no longer talk to each other. Trump was just one facet, but suddenly our subject became a global anti-Trump message.”

The interest in the middle finger parade has been so great that the clique responsible issued a statement on their website that sounded almost like an apology: “The symbolism behind the middle finger,” it explained, “does not express specific hatred or criticism of Trump, rather it is depicting the current attitude that world leaders are currently showing toward each other.”

To the British ear, much of this sounds like mere back-tracking. But is it? Almost everything about the Fasnacht is traditional and carefully calculated, right down to the music and how the masks and lanterns are made. The political satire is no exception. A lot of thought goes into every aspect, so maybe there really was more to it.

This very different approach to satire is rooted in the distinctive character of Swiss culture. The Swiss political system relies on the art of compromise rather than direct confrontation. No one, not even the right-wing Swiss People’s Party has found a way around the need to yield to others at least some of the time. This is necessary in order to find common ground in parliament. And, of course, the art of compromise relies on first talking to each other – hence Andi’s distress at today’s situation.

Outside politics, the Swiss do not like people who attempt to stand out from the crowd too much, or who become too big for their boots: and no role is more self-effacing than that of the Swiss president. You don’t know who that is? That’s not surprising, as many Swiss probably don’t know either given that the presidential term lasts for just a single year. (Our current president is one Karin Keller-Suter from St Gallen.)

The Swiss are by nature both very polite and somewhat reticent. Dominating the conversation in the style of Trump is anathema, as is being too direct, which is considered arrogant.

While it is undoubtedly true that Basel showed the middle finger to Trump, the people who paraded with the fingers were hoping for a somewhat more self-reflective response than the one they got. Maybe that is why a very large and ungainly dove of peace also featured in the parade, quite some way behind the notorious Trump imagery. But no one outside Switzerland focused on the dove, of course.