Voters in Switzerland have passed a referendum–with a healthy margin–to ban the construction of new minarets in the country. Switzerland currently has a grand total of FOUR minarets.
There are ways to oppose the encroachment of extremist Islam, but this isn’t one of them.
Tags: minarets, switzerland
Yeah, this is bullshit. My mom’s boyfriend has swiss citizenship and they send him a letter so he can vote on this issue he voted against the motion (so, for the construction of minarets). Europe is going to hell in a hand basket. On the one hand, the UK legalizes sharia lay, and on the other France bans burkas and Switzerland does away with minarets.
I am of two minds here.
On one hand, as an American, anything you do to disfavor one religion against more favored alternatives is bad. Period, end of story.
But Europeans are feeling threatened by muslim encroachment into their countries. Europeans have been getting less and less religious over the last 60+ years, and to see what is, in essence, a “foreign” religion come in and grow in what are alarming numbers is frightening. If enough of them get together in small democracies like Switzerland, it is feared that they could take over from the traditional populations and enforce their “foreign” religious values.
Since Europeans have just, in the last 60 years, gotten away from that monster, they don’t want to go back.
Perfectly understandable. Flawed, but understandable.
Having lived in Switzerland I’ve followed this story quite closely.
Of course the Swiss have made a terrible, for both the Swiss Muslims and also themselves in the eyes of the Muslim world.
However this is not a question of the Swiss as an isolated case of a singular right-wing reaction but of a greater perception within Europe. The Swiss simply were first to make such a drastic move thanks to their unique model of direct democracy. You can be quite assure that the same sentiments are carried throughout Europe.
The Turkish prime ministers widely quoted remark that minarets are Islams missiles surely could not have helped the issue.