Switzerland Bans Minarets

Speaking as a -very embarrassed- Swiss citizen, I think you pretty much have it. It’s clearly the wrong decision. You are also right that Switzerland is not about to be overtaken by fundamentalist islam; the muslim community in Switzerland is small, moderate, and peaceful. It’s mistargeted: there are only four minarets in the entire country, and the vote seems to have been cast more in opposition to islamic theocracies in the world, and more locally to requests for special treatment for example for muslim girls in gymnastics class. And in fear of ‘the other’: yes, not the best of motives.
There really isn’t an organization of atheists in Switzerland which could have condemned this. Individuals, however, did denouce it –including yours truly– and many people, religious and otherwise, did argue that from a secular perspective this was way out of line.
I don’t need to add that these arguments didn’t carry the day…

One small point: you are right that “if a population-driven initiative like this one is passed, a court cannot overrule the decision.” Not a Swiss court, that is. It remains to be seen whether the European court of Strasbourg could make this decision inapplicable by finding it in contradiction with the Declaration of human rights, which garantees the freedom of (and from to some degree, by the way) religion. Several groups have already declared themselves ready to test this, so we shall see…

It seems architecture is a gateway drug to fundamentalist terrorism. I always knew it to be so.

Any word on whether this applies only to new buildings or will extant buildings have to remove their minarets?

Edit: Well said Shawn!

I’m inclined to agree with this post. Banning minarets is not the answer. The shape of places of worship is unimportant. What’s important is whether the message being preached is one that is friendly or unfriendly to secularism.

I’d rather have minarets and moderation than a minaret-less mosque preaching that their neighbours are the enemy.

So sad. Building codes for belfries in S. Arabia… also sad.

Samia, I wonder if you could clear up a question I have regarding the possible motivation behind this.

My gut feeling when I saw that the ban had passed that this spoke more of unaddressed fears within the larger populace towards Islam generally than any particular problem with minarets specifically.

I live in Spain, and we have a large, and growing, Muslim population. Whenever anyone voices concerns about this (or about immigration generally) they are instantly branded a racist. Political parties won’t touch the issue, except for the extreme right-wing, that grow stronger as a result. The end result is that people, resentful of their concerns not being addressed and politicians unwilling to acknowledge them, become hardened in their opinions and even less likely to be tolerant of newcomers.

My basic question is that if you think this could also be at work in Switzerland? I think the whole matter is deplorable generally, due mostly to the fact that banning certain symbols is exactly contrary to the values that any modern society should hold dear, but I wonder how much of it comes from uncomplicated religious bigotry, and how much from longstanding political resentment.

Well, I for one have been arguing very hard with the people on a Dutch news forum who immediately reacted that “now we need to do this in the Netherlands too”. Others have called this a “victory of democracy” – never mind that it’s a tragedy for human rights. It’s sad to see so many people use bad arguments like “it’s ok to bad minarets because the Muslims don’t allow us to build churches in their country either”.

Geert Wilders (of Fitna fame) of the populist PVV has already announced that he wants a referendum like this in the Netherlands too. Judging from the responses to the news, I’m afraid there will be plenty of people who will support it. PVV is supposed to stand for “Party For Freedom”, but as usual, only wants to ban stuff.

Adhering to any spiritual practice other than Islam is reason enough for radical Islamists to hate the Westernized world. Let’s also respect the right for a populace to exercise choice in the voting booth.

No it can’t do much about militant Islam – it’s a symbolic response to the lack of integration of Muslim immigrants. My point is just that – the response is symbolic, rather than one which asks for harm or death towards groups or individuals.

As for why this has happened – it’s because as soon as you rightfully criticize Islam or the actions of the militant mullahs wanting to Islamicize the whole world, you get called a racist or an Islamaphobe, and quite frankly, there’s some very strong reasons to be fearful of many Islamic practices and their overall theocratic philosophy which is inherently anti-democratic.

If goverments try to appease Islam, all the populations see is that nothing is being done about a real problem and issue and that plays right into the hands of the far right parties who will ask for (and probably get) a much stronger response to the problem of Islamification than this Swiss symbolic response.

We are lucky this is just a symbolic response. It could have been a “far right” solution to the problem which I don’t think anyone here would want to see – me included.

That means we need reasoned and reasonable responses to all religious issues that threaten a peaceful, democratic, secular society. That means making sure NO religion gets special privilege and that they ALL play by the rules – Islam included.

@PrimeNumbers: I agree that all religions should play by the rules, but I completely fail to see how that sentiment relates to this particular issue of banning minarets in Switzerland. I haven’t seen any allegation that Muslims in Switzerland were declining to “play by the rules”.

Also, it would be useful to include in this discussion what role that radical Islam has played internally in Switzerland — as some commenters have noted, and as I have read this morning, the vast majority of the Muslim population in Switzerland is from the Balkans, and the government estimates that only one in ten Muslims in Switzerland even devoutly practices the religion. Not to mention that, as Hemant noted in the post, Switzerland’s architectural laws would have restricted future minaret construction anyway.

It seems to me that the only role this vote really served as to tell Swiss Muslims that they are not really welcome there.

Adhering to any spiritual practice other than Islam is reason enough for radical Islamists to hate the Westernized world. Let’s also respect the right for a populace to exercise choice in the voting booth.

The essence of a functioning democratic society is the recognition of both the will of the majority and the rights of the minority. To compromise either principle is tyranny. In this case the rights of a minority to design their places of worship as they see fit (safety and engineering requirements not withstanding) has been denied by a majority. Let’s not forget that every effort to deny the right of marriage to gay people in this country has come out of a voting booth.

I like it. Let’s face it, architecture is not the real issue, the real issue is the spread of religion, and this is a symbolic yet powerful gesture presented by a free, democratic society. As we are well aware, ALL religions are primitive superstitious bullshit, and Muslims have earned a reputation for being especially oblivious to reason, logic, and fairness. The Swiss are letting everyone know that they won’t allow a primitive, barbaric ideology to flourish in their society. Good for them.

I don’t think the Swiss are looking at what is happening at home, but more in the way of the worldwide attitude to the spread of Islam.

And I do think what they did is symbolic in that they’ve not said no Mosques, just that one of the symbols of the Mosque cannot be built – that they cannot literally shout their religion from the rooftops. Indeed they are probably saying to Muslims all over the world that they are not wanted. That’s not a terribly nice thing to say. But neither is issuing death threats to authors, or causing riots and violence over cartoons and faking offence to stir up trouble so much that democracies get frightened into appeasing Muslims to avoid riots and violence.

@Primenumbers: explain to me: why again should we treat the Muslims in Switzerland based on the actions of other Muslims in completely different countries?

@Claudia: I think you are right. At least it very much looks like that. And this is not new. In one of the Swiss canton where most people refused this initiative yesterday, catholic churches only gained the right to build steeples in 1935. So yes there is some basic fear of ‘other groups’ there. We’ve come a short way in a short time.

“banning certain symbols is exactly contrary to the values that any modern society should hold dear”

It depends. A secular society can ban religious symbols from state-associated places, like classrooms for example. It’s banning them elswhere that poses a problem.

“I wonder how much of it comes from uncomplicated religious bigotry, and how much from longstanding political resentment.”

That’s hard to tell, because these things are hard to discuss even at the best of times, and these questions hardly arise at the best of times. To those deploring the delusion of European sophistication, let me say this: religion is not absent from Europe. It is perhaps less prevalent, but mostly it is just more confined to the private sphere. This has many upsides. Indeed, this is what state secularism is. It also has a downside however: discussion of strongly religiously charged issues in politics are difficult. They seem to ‘need’ to take place without religion being mentioned too much. And indeed, no pre-vote poll predicted the result: people simply did not vote the way they said they would. Apparently, what they thought was somehow impossible to say out loud.
The respect afforded religion elsewhere is also very much alive here, though it may show a different face.
So yes, probably several of people’s real concerns here went undiscussed in the campaign. And it is not at all clear that they will be addressed more directly now.

@HamsterWheel: this would be fine if ALL religions were targeted. They are not. A group did put a mock initiative online to ban church spires, but the site makes it clear that they don’t seriously intend this. Even if they did, it would be likely to fail the popular vote and just hammer a discriminatory message home to the muslim population.

@Deen

It is true that the majority, if not the entirety, of Muslims in Switzerland are moderate. Most of them are not devout Muslims, and they have never behaved violently or indecently. Why should they be punished for what their radical counterparts do in other parts of the world?

Because they have done and said nothing about what their people have done in the past ten or twenty years. Silence implies consent. When Israel is said to have violated human rights in Gaza, Jews in the US, Europe, and other parts of the world have publicly protested these acts, even fasting in sympathy with the people of Gaza. Why? Because even if they and their families weren’t personally involved, they are still implicitly are connected to Israel through the virtue of their cultural heritage and religion. Similarly, Americans have publicly protested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because they are still accountable for what their government does.

Even if the Swiss Muslims themselves have done nothing. Even if they privately disagree with what the majority of radical Islam does, they still represent Islam to their country and neighbors. It is precisely because they are doing and saying nothing in response to radical Islam that their neighbors are punishing them through this legislation.

Nate Silver has an interesting analysis on this. It seems that (among other interesting findings) support for the ban is higher amongst Christians than atheists and agnostics.

Good for you Switzerland.

Set the world an example on how to preserve civilization and how to handle primitive, barbaric, intolerant ideologies.

Though I personally don’t think the decision is a good one, let me add a few details:
– About 53% of the people voted – this is a low turnout for Switzerland.
– In Switzerland, we vote all the time, usually about 4 times a year with several national, cantonal and local issues on the agenda. People usually do have an idea what it’s about.
– Most muslims are well integrated and not very religious (with a rate of regular ‘churchgoers’ of about 15%).
– In everyday life, religion is not much of a topic. Usually you wouldn’t know the religion of your colleague, and neither do you care much. Including muslims.
– There are no violent conflicts, no religiously inspired attacks or special discimination against muslims in particular.

– There are, however, a few things the Swiss are rather allergic to.
One of them is asking for special treatment. We had a few such cases, when parents asked that their kids do not have to participate in excursions, sports or compulsory swimming classes (eg. a father didn’t want to let his two small boys go to swimming class).
(Also, no homeschooling for Christian kids – you would get a huge fine.)

Another one is being loud in general, and especially being loud about your religion (‘loud’ Christians are frowned upon, too, so it’s not particularly about muslims).
Having a guy shouting from a tower to get people down on their knees to pray certainly does hit this particular point.
(By the way, we also have an NGO lobbying for limiting the use of church bells.)

As a conclusion, you will get closer to the truth (and the mentality of the Swiss) if you consider this to be basically a statement against “being loud” about your religion, whether by having guys screaming from rooftops or having women wrapped up in “modest” clothes, or by not letting your kids participate freely in the school community.

Claudia, I knew we agreed on this, but at bottom line this is precisely one of the distinctions public opinion failed to make. It does seem as though differences on religion on the one hand, and differences on the rules applying to religion in the public sphere on the other hand, have been completely mixed up. In fear of ‘minarets as a symbol for muslim intrusion in politics’, our voters have introduced a law that theocracies would be completely confortable with.

This is a case of how much democracy we should have on the rules of democracy…

I think their fear is justified. What happens when Islam tips into the majority? Freedom and democracy get shut down, permanently.. and it will never, ever, come back. Islam is designed to do that.
We will see it soon in some European countries.

Serves them right, these Moslems are the same or even worse when they are in the majority.

Christian intolerance at its finest.

I thought the Western world has outgrown this, apparently not.

In the end it’s just the Medieval/Religious mindset vs. the 21st century worldview.

No one’s downplaying the right to religious or sexual freedom here. Religulous-minded folks don’t need Minaret(s) to pray. Just as homosexuals don’t need legally binding documentation to copulate. I’ll support any legislation necessary to keep personal choice behind closed doors where it belongs. I think that’s fair for everyone involved in a Democracy as opposed to, say, frivolous lawsuit(s) till you get your way.

And yes, I’d be the first to ban “noise pollution” and make it apply to lots of things, including all calls to prayer than can be heard beyond the property line of the religious building in question. I live near a church and I have to put up with their bell’s noise pollution.

I’m ashamed to see a country so well-known for being secular doing such a stupid, bigoted thing.

Really? I posted this on another site recently, and I’ll mention it here. Switzerland only gave the right to vote to women as recently as 1971 – and there was significant opposition.

Do you live in Switzerland? Or any European country with a significant muslim population? You have to be pretty naive to believe this was just about minarets, or “Islamaphobia”. I’m sure the Swiss voted for the ban because they see the on-the-ground reality of muslim immigration every day: disproportionate criminality, and academic and economic underachievement. In other words, muslims form an ethnically distinct underclass in Switzerland, exactly as they do in every other European country where there’s a significant population. (The US has its own experience with that kind of social pathology, right?) The Swiss see this in their own country, and they know it is even worse in other European countries, e.g. France. And they don’t want it to get worse in their country. So they grasped at this straw and voted to ban minarets, when most of them would really like to do a lot more, e.g. stop muslim immigration altogether. Try to imagine the shitstorm that would unleash.

I don’t know how harmless minarets are, if they were mere decoration it wouldn’t be a problem, however they are used to call people to meetings where they are indoctrinated to believe in the persecution and subjugation of others.

Has anyone of you thought that this is a great opportunity for the Muslim community to show that they can live together with others? By publicly announcing that they accept the law they show that they don’t support fundamentalism and are ready to co-operate against it. It would probably decrease the fears that other Europeans have for Muslims and maybe stop the growth of intolerant movements.

It would be bad to reverse the law now since reversing it would just increase bitterness and intolerance towards Muslims.

You missed out one important part – it was and still a historical fact that Islam was flourishing in all aspects of life…be it politics, science, art etc when the whole of europe was in the ‘Dark Ages’ ! That was until the muslim became complacent and forgot to follow the holy book and went ‘secular’ which does not even come close to providing solution in all aspects of life. For your info, muslims are never taught to be offensive to other religions or other forms of life for that matter. Hatred is cancerous and will only bring misery to yourself, but to gain knowledge through reading and understanding is the best solution in your regard.