Democracy, indeed .. banning minarets in Switzerland
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” – Adolf Hitler
In banning minarets, Switzerland has exposed how fake the rights and freedoms of the West really are for minorities, writes Ramzy Baroud – Source: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/976/op11.htm - Dec 2009
So this is how democracy works?
In 2004 France banned headscarves and school principals chased after young “defiant” Muslim girls who continued to cover up in school. Now, following a national referendum, Switzerland has banned minarets, because minarets also somehow symbolise oppression. Thanks to the dedicated action of the far-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP), Alpine skies will be free of that menace that would spread intolerance and taint the splendour of Swiss architecture.
In between these two peculiar events, the targeting of Muslims in Western countries and the subjugation of entire Muslim nations all over the world has never ceased. Not for a day. Not for an hour. Moreover, the collective targeting of small or large Muslim communities in Western countries, and the deliberate abuse and degradation of Muslim individuals and of Islamic symbols (from the Holy Quran to the Prophet) has also never ceased.
Bizarrely, most of these actions have been through “democratic” channels and justified in the name of democracy, on the basis of upholding the principles of secularism and Western values.
Many thoughts come to mind here, all unreservedly angry.
I remember when the word “democracy” used to resonate loudly among Arabs and Muslims around the world. The more they were denied it, the more they yearned for it. University campuses in Cairo, Gaza and Karachi took student union elections very seriously. Innocent blood was spilled in clashes as students desperately tried to express their right to vote, to speak out and to assemble.
Those were the days, when demoqratiya — Arabic for democracy — was the buzzword in the Middle East and beyond. Even Palestinian political prisoners held elections, ever so faithfully, surrounded by highly fortified towers and under the deriding gaze of armed men in the unforgiving heat of the Negev desert. Arab and Muslim masses were keen on democracy to the extent that there was a near consensus that democracy, although a Western concept, could be distinguished from the many ills invited by Western intervention, imperialism and wars that scarred and continued to impair the collective Muslim psyche.
An entire school of Muslim thought was in fact established around the concept that democracy and Islam are very much compatible. Such a notion goes back to Egypt’s Azharite scholar Rifaa Al-Tahtawi, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that the principles of European modernity were compatible with Islam. “Al-Tahtawi’s work influenced the philosopher Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), another Azharite who is often described as the founder of Islamic modernism, which is captured in his statement that in Europe he found Islam without Muslims, while in Egypt he found Muslims without Islam,” wrote German Anthropologist Frank Fanselow.
If one set one’s prejudices aside to ponder this for a moment, one would realise the intellectual valour it takes to consider and even embrace commonalities with the very powers that have instilled so much harm and fear. Even in their darkest, least proud moments, Muslim intellectuals and nations displayed impressive open- mindedness. They are hardly ever credited for that. More recently, in Egypt, people tried hard to vote, in the face of beating, public humiliation and imprisonment. In Palestine in 2006 the price was even higher — that of starvation. Gaza continues to endure under a draconian Israeli siege, ultimately because of an election.
Muslim communities in the West have long been considered the luckiest; after all, they live in the abodes of democracy. They drink from the fountain of rights and freedoms that never runs dry. However, these idealised assumptions miss the fact that Western democracy was conditional. And unconditional democracy can only be a farce.
Much has been said to explain the West’s faltering on its own commitment to democracy. No, the tragedy of 11 September 2001 is hardly the defining moment that created the growing chasm that made the West fearful of Islam. Despite all that has taken place since then — the constant spewing out of rightwing hatred, evangelical fanatic preaching and all the rest — America is still more tolerant than Europe. Nor was growing anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe a response in solidarity to America’s woes.
Honestly, neither the French are fond of Americans, nor are the Germans necessarily that passionate about the Swiss. But this didn’t stop a German Christian Democratic interior minister, Volker Bouffier, from making a “recommendation” to Muslim communities in his own country: “Naturally the Muslims in Germany have a right to build mosques. But they should make sure not to overwhelm the German population with them.”
How do you overwhelm people with minarets? Is this a post-post-post-modernistic logic that we are yet to be informed of?
There are only four minarets in the entire country of Switzerland, one per 100,000 people. How overwhelming can that be? And aren’t religious freedom and the freedom of collective and individual expression basic rights guaranteed by democratic values?
But this is hardly about a 16-feet tall minaret in the northern Swiss town of Langenthal. It’s about the fact that the one who suggested the structure is a Muslim furniture salesman by the name of Mutalip Karaademi. He didn’t know, of course, that his modest idea of adding a minaret to the community’s mosque would generate a nationwide referendum, and an international “controversy”. Karaademi was not trying to “Islamificate” the Swiss. He just wanted his community to have a place for worship (as opposed to the unused paint factory it currently uses for prayer), to be able to express its collective identity without fear. Ironically enough, the Muslim community in Langenthal are mostly Albanians, refugees who fled Kosovo seeking escape and deliverance.
What a strange paradox: Muslims escaping to the West, physically and figuratively, only to find double standards, self-negation and — at times — pure hypocrisy.
For now, however, a new consensus is forming: democracy can be invoked and used against Muslims only, not for Muslims. It can be manipulated to deny them their identity in Europe and their freedom in Palestine, to ensure their subjugation in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and to meddle in their internal affairs everywhere else.
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Source: Dec 2009
http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10478&Itemid=9
Switzerland ban on Islamic minarets only heightens tensions |
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| By Derek H. Davis, UMHB Center for Religious Liberty | |
| Published: December 09, 2009 | |
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Swiss voters supported a referendum to ban the building of minarets in Switzerland. The ban certainly runs contrary to Switzerland’s reputation as a bastion of freedom and tolerance. And it will only exacerbate tensions between Christians and Muslims. On November 29, 57 percent of Swiss voters supported a referendum to ban the building of minarets in Switzerland. Minarets are tall, cylindrical spires usually attached to Islamic mosques. A muezzin typically calls faithful Muslims to prayer five times each day from the top of the minaret. The minaret is also a powerful symbol of Islam. The proposal was put forward by the Swiss People’s Party, the largest–and most conservative–party in the Swiss parliament, which claims that minarets are a sign of encroaching “Islamicization.” The ban, which is opposed by the government, does not end the right of Muslims to worship, nor does it block construction of new mosques. Because the ban received a majority of votes and passed in a majority of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, it will be added to the Constitution. A sentence will be added to the article defining church-state relations, stating: “the building of minarets in Switzerland is forbidden.” According to the New York Times, of 150 mosques in Switzerland, only four have minarets, and none of them are used for the traditional calls to prayer. An estimated 400,000 Muslims comprise only 6 percent of the total Swiss population of 7.5 million people. By most accounts, Swiss Muslims, mostly of Turkish and Balkan heritage, have been living peacefully in Switzerland for decades, even centuries, and generally do not adhere to the dress and conduct codes associated with Muslim countries. The Swiss government quickly announced that the minaret ban was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.” Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the justice minister, said the result “reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies.” The ban certainly runs contrary to Switzerland’s reputation as a bastion of freedom and tolerance. “That Switzerland, a country with a long tradition of religious tolerance and the provision of refuge to the persecuted, should have accepted such a grotesquely discriminatory proposal is shocking,” declared David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International’s deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia. The Vatican denounced the ban as an infringement of modern notions of religious freedom. Catholic bishops in Switzerland issued a statement of regret, regretting the ban, accusing the SVP of exaggerating any threat posed by Muslims, and also warned that the ban “will not help Christians oppressed and persecuted in Islamic countries.” Spokesmen across Europe criticized the ban as discriminatory and antithetical to a European culture of human rights. “Scandalous,” said the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. “It’s a sad day for freedom of religion,” added Mohammed Shafiq, the chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a British youth organization. “A constitutional amendment that’s targeted towards one religious community is discriminatory and abhorrent.” Babacar Ba, a senior official of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, warned of an “upsurge in Islamophobia” in Europe. But it was not difficult to find supporters of the vote. The minaret “is a political symbol against integration; a symbol more of segregation, and first of all, a symbol to try to introduce Sharia law parallel to Swiss rights,” said Ulrich Schluer, a lawmaker from the conservative SVP. “When you look at the European Union, where are there extremists?” asked Schluer. “In the suburbs and ghetto banlieues of Paris and London. . . . We don’t want that in Switzerland.” Other conservative leaders in Europe likewise applauded the Swiss vote. ”The flag of a courageous Switzerland which wants to remain Christian is flying over a near-Islamised Europe,” said Mario Borghezio, an MEP from Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League. The ban against minarets in Switzerland is part of a rising xenophobia spreading across Europe associated with an increasing Muslim population and the fallout from 9/11. Similar anxieties about Muslims have spread across Europe in recent years, leading to remarkable legal developments. The French have banned the burqa, the full-length body covering worn by some Muslim women. Some German states have imposed bans on headscarves for Muslim women teaching in public schools. Mosques and minaret construction projects in Sweden, France, Austria, Germany, and Italy have been the subject of public marches and protests. But the Swiss ban of minarets is arguably Europe’s most dramatic move yet. It is not difficult to understand these reactions, but are they appropriate in an increasingly multicultural world? Muslim extremists and jihadists have done done nothing to threaten life in Switzerland, so why punish peace-loving Muslims who live there? How would Swiss Christians react to having their church spires banned? The Swiss ban on minarets will only exacerbate tensions between Christians and Muslims. It interrupts the progress for religious rights that human civilization has made over the last several hundred years. The idea that all human beings are entitled to religious liberty has arisen primarily as a byproduct of democracy and the belief in the dignity of the human person. For most of history, political orders tended to be monarchical, even totalitarian, believing a common religion to be the foundation of a stable society. Enforcement of religious uniformity became commonplace. World history reveals an unmitigated level of religious intolerance, persecution, inquisitions, and religious wars. The modern era’s response to this has been the democratic principle of religious liberty by which governments declare their neutrality on religious questions, leaving each individual citizen to adopt his or her own religious beliefs, and each religious group to conduct its own worship activities, without fear of government reprisal. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, not to mention countless other international treaties, written in the aftermath of the unspeakable horrors of World War II, provide standards, including religious rights, by which the peoples of the world may learn to live in peace and cooperation. The Swiss vote might eventually be overturned by Swiss courts or the European Court of Human Rights, but the more effective way to deal with the prejudice that results in such bans is increased education and more dialogue among people of different faiths that leads to mutual respect and acceptance. Otherwise, the growing tensions in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe are certain to elevate as Muslim populations increase. Religious prejudice and intolerance will persist in Europe and across the world until we gain deeper understandings of each other and strive to live together in peace in spite of our differences. ##################### A quote to remember…“There are people who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language, one history and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate these people from one another … if, per chance, this nation were to be unified into one state, it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and would separate Europe from the rest of the world. Taking these considerations seriously, a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a springboard for the West to gain its coveted objects.” - British Prime Minister Henry Bannerman, Campbell-Bannerman Report, 1907
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