A left-green politician uploaded a video of herself using a print of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus for handgun target practice to Instagram, later claiming she had no idea that the image had religious significance.
32 year old Sanija Ameti, until this week a Green Liberal Party (GLP) city councillor of Zurich in Switzerland is being ejected from her political party and has even lost her job at a public relations consulting firm after courting outrage. The left-wing activist, whose recent publicity stunts have including distributing condoms to fight “xenophobia” had published footage of herself on Instagram using a print of a 14th century painting of Mary and Jesus for pistol shooting target practice.
It is claimed the politician, who migrated to Switzerland as a child with her family, has received threats after the act and is now in receipt of police protection. Even so, many quarters of Swiss society have called for forgiveness, including Swiss Catholics and conservatives.
The Swiss Catholic Women’s Association, which describes migrant politician and activist Ameti as a “media-savvy lawyer, who is known for her provocative demeanour… Ameti’s Muslim family fled from Bosnia to Switzerland in 1995 with Sanija, who was three years old at the time and who now describes herself as an agnostic” reminded its members that “As Christians, we are called upon to forgive”. The body blamed tabloid media for any terse words about the Ameti shooting.
Swiss conservative magazine Die Weltwoche was also pretty gentle in its response, saying while Ameti’s act was “unnecessary and tasteless” and that it “hurt the feelings of religious people”, nevertheless “there is no right not to be insulted” in an open and free society. There has to be room to be disrespectful and stupid, the paper notes, and “Anyone who is against cancel culture stands by Ameti – even and especially if you do not share her views and actions”.
In all, the paper says, her disrespect is far less dangerous to Switzerland than her political views on dragging the long-neutral country into the embrace of the European Union.
The gentle reaction of such sections of Swiss Christian society may reflect on the nation well, especially in the light of other communities in Europe taking rather less understanding paths of reaction to perceived slights against their own prophets, gods, and idols.
For Ameti’s own part, she has issued an apology and written to Swiss Bishops to ask for forgiveness even if, somewhat incredibly, she clings to the line that she didn’t realise the religious significance of the Mary and Jesus print before she started shooting at it, saying: “I deleted it immediately when I realized its religious content. I didn’t think about it”. She has resigned from her position as leader of the Liberal Green Party faction in Zurich.