[seodiary]

Freedom of religion ftw?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/...nd_minaret_ban

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer – Sun Nov 29, 6:40 pm ET
GENEVA – Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.

Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic. Business groups said the decision hurt Switzerland's international standing and could damage relations with Muslim nations and wealthy investors who bank, travel and shop there.

"The Swiss have failed to give a clear signal for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights," said Omar Al-Rawi, integration representative of the Islamic Denomination in Austria, which said its reaction was "grief and deep disappointment."

About 300 people turned out for a spontaneous demonstration on the square outside parliament, holding up signs saying, "That is not my Switzerland," placing candles in front of a model of a minaret and making another minaret shape out of the candles themselves.

"We're sorry," said another sign. A young woman pinned to her jacket a piece of paper saying, "Swiss passport for sale."

The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation. The initiative was approved 57.5 to 42.5 percent by some 2.67 million voters. Only four of the 26 cantons or states opposed the initiative, granting the double approval that makes it part of the Swiss constitution.

Muslims comprise about 6 percent of Switzerland's 7.5 million people. Many are refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and about one in 10 actively practices their religion, the government says.

The country's four standing minarets, which won't be affected by the ban, do not traditionally broadcast the call to prayer outside their own buildings.

The sponsors of the initiative provoked complaints of bias from local officials and human-rights group with campaign posters that showed minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman. Backers said the growing Muslim population was straining the country "because Muslims don't just practice religion."

"The minaret is a sign of political power and demand, comparable with whole-body covering by the burqa, tolerance of forced marriage and genital mutilation of girls," the sponsors said. They said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared mosques to Islam's military barracks and called "the minarets our bayonets." Erdogan made the comment in citing an Islamic poem many years before he became prime minister.

Anxieties about growing Muslim minorities have rippled across Europe in recent years, leading to legal changes in some countries. There have been French moves to ban the full-length body covering known as the burqa. Some German states have introduced bans on head scarves for Muslim women teaching in public schools. Mosques and minaret construction projects in Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Germany and Slovenia have been met by protests.

But the Swiss ban in minarets, sponsored by the country's largest political party, was one of the most extreme reactions.

"It's a sad day for freedom of religion," said 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."

He said he was concerned the decision could have reverberations in other European countries.

Amnesty International said the vote violated freedom of religion and would probably be overturned by the Swiss supreme court or the European Court of Human Rights.

The seven-member Cabinet that heads the Swiss government had spoken out strongly against the initiative but the government said it accepted the vote and would impose an immediate ban on minaret construction.

It said that "Muslims in Switzerland are able to practice their religion alone or in community with others, and live according to their beliefs just as before." It took the unusual step of issuing its press release in Arabic as well as German, French, Italian and English.

Sunday's results stood in stark contrast to opinion polls, last taken 10 days ago, that showed 37 percent supporting the proposal. Experts said before the vote that they feared Swiss had pretended during the polling that they opposed the ban because they didn't want to appear intolerant.

"The sponsors of the ban have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change the relations to Muslims and their social integration in a negative way," said Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Zurich. "Muslims indeed will not feel safe anymore."

The People's Party has campaigned mainly unsuccessfully in previous years against immigrants with campaign posters showing white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag and another with brown hands grabbing eagerly for Swiss passports.

Geneva's main mosque was vandalized Thursday when someone threw a pot of pink paint at the entrance. Earlier this month, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin's call to prayer, and vandals damaged a mosaic when they threw cobblestones at the building.

[JamesTornC]

Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic.

I want to know if one can build non-Muslim places of worship in Muslim countries.

It would be hypocritical of these muslims "abroad" if they want to be treated fairly in other countries when they aren't treating other religions fairly in their own countries.

[Aagotiq]

I want to know if one can build non-Muslim places of worship in Muslim countries.

It would be hypocritical of these muslims "abroad" if they want to be treated fairly in other countries when they aren't treating other religions fairly in their own countries.

Many places are not. There are no Churches in Saudi Arabia (let alone steeples and crosses), and public worship of anything but Islam is illegal.

[DoctorIrokezov]

I want to know if one can build non-Muslim places of worship in Muslim countries. According to Juan Cole:

"Among the nearly 60 Muslim-majority states in the world, only one, Saudi Arabia, forbids the building of churches."

He goes on to mention that Saudi Arabia's neighbor Qatar bans church steeples and bells but not churches -- similar to Switzerland's new law.

[Hoijdxvh]

The Daily Show covers the world ...

Oliver's Travels - Switzerland

John Oliver asks Ambassador Peter Maurer about Switzerland's unshakable neutrality shortly before its vote to ban minarets.

[MaraReenece]

People are uneasy about a religion that does not respect basic human rights. And they don't want a built symbol of that presiding over the landscape.

The ban sounds reasonable to me.

[sharpyure]

Crosses and steeples and stuff like that offend me -- they are symbols of a group that sanctions outrageous punishments -- and would even allow for murder.

Take those symbols down. Stop the madness.

[VodsNittats]

The Muslim bogey man strikes again.

Britain's Muslim population it represents tiny proportion of the total population around 3% and has a history stretching back hundreds of years. Britain's muslim population is far smaller than most European countries and the vast majority of muslim women in Britain do not wear burkas or yashmaks. In fact a recent study by Lancaster University found Muslim teens in Britain to be the most intergrated, assimilated and the least radical in Europe.

http://www.theasiannews.co.uk/news/s/1133039_british_muslim_teens_more_assimilated_

http://www.asianimage.co.uk/uk/4557015.Muslim_youths__most_assimilated_in_Europe_/

Furthermore Black and Chinese Communities have assimalated so well in to British Society that they are in danger of disappearing altogether.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/18/race-integration-study

A couple of British Muslim Women

Konnie Huq




Yasmina Siadatan (BBC Apprentice Winner 2009)







Hammasa Kohistani







Samira Ahmed







Zeinab Badawi





Saira Khan







Laila Rouass







Mishal Husain







Zahra Ahmadi







Natasha Khan







Baroness Sayeeda Warsi







Riazat Butt





Sarah Maple



These are just a few examples, the vast majority of Muslims are not fundamentalist or radical, to suggest they are is like suggesting that Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptists represent all christian belief.

[Mmzmptvk]

^ I don't think this is the issue. Nor the issue in Switzerland.

---

"Furthermore Black and Chinese Communities have assimalated so well in to British Society that they are in danger of disappearing altogether."

But at least according to the British Council's Migration Index new migrants fair better in quite a few other European countries:

Migrant Policy Index:

http://www.integrationindex.eu/

Overall rankings:

http://www.integrationindex.eu/topics/2638.html

[Ayyfjicg]

What is the issue then, is it because the Swiss just don't like Muslim Architecture and particuarly Minarets.

The whole issue is one of assimilation, and the fact that Muslims are now feared in the post 9/11 world.

[Oxzzlvpg]

Yes. And the woman that you posted all in our standards of Western dress and not abiding to Sharia law have all indeed integrated. I doubt that those women are feareded by anyone.... outside of the Muslim world that is.

--

[markoiutrfffdsa]

Overall rankings:

http://www.integrationindex.eu/topics/2638.html

Whoa, is the EU really expanding or what? When did Canada join?

[saerensenatljn]

Well, you know, they're all foreign and socialitsy... so they might as well be.

(oh.... BTW.... notice how the Swiss do on that ranking. Er...OK Codex.... you might have a point.)

[Qeiafib]

Plus, they're half French for heaven's sake. They'll fit right in.

[lopaayd]

Yes. And the woman that you posted all in our standards of Western dress and not abiding to Sharia law have all indeed integrated. I doubt that those women are feareded by anyone.... outside of the Muslim world that is.

--

It is only a small group of fundamentalists within Mislim commuitiies who are the real problem and who adhere to every facet of sharia law.

[FrereeDoulley]

Well, you know, they're all foreign and socialitsy... so they might as well be.

(oh.... BTW.... notice how the Swiss do on that ranking. Er...OK Codex.... you might have a point.)

[OnerePeepsy]

It is only a small group of fundamentalists within Mislim commuitiies who are the real problem and who adhere to every facet of sharia law.

Since faith is adherence to every letter of God's law, why would you favor those who are apostates?

Also known as infidels.

What good is religion without wholehearted adherence, i.e. unquestioning faith?

[WaydayTew]

^
An unrealistic view of how most people regard themselves as faithful to a religion.

Come to think of it, not just religion.

[abishiots]

^ Talk to Sarah Palin.

(about what she believes, not what she does.)

Why have religion at all if folks regard its pronouncements as optional?

That's not religion at all.

[Zwnkkvle]

This is a Muslim woman, a women's rights advocate offering her opion on the Minaret ban. I wonder if the women shown in Codex's post would agree with her? I don't know but my bet is that most would:

Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion

The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas, not a rejection of Muslims.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
from the December 5, 2009 edition

WASHINGTON - The recent Swiss referendum that bans construction of minarets has caused controversy across the world. There are two ways to interpret the vote. First, as a rejection of political Islam, not a rejection of Muslims. In this sense it was a vote for tolerance and inclusion, which political Islam rejects. Second, the vote was a revelation of the big gap between how the Swiss people and the Swiss elite judge political Islam.

IN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS, SYMBOLS ARE IMPORTANT.

What if the Swiss voters were asked in a referendum to ban the building of an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles as a symbol of the belief of a small minority? Or imagine a referendum on building towers topped with a hammer and sickle – another symbol dear to the hearts of a very small minority in Switzerland. Political ideas have symbols: A swastika, a hammer and sickle, a minaret, a crescent with a star in the middle (usually on top of a minaret) all represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others.

On controversial issues, the Swiss listen to debate, read newspapers, and otherwise investigate when they make up their minds for a vote. What Europeans are finding out about Islam as they investigate is that it is more than just a religion. Islam offers not only a spiritual framework for dealing with such human questions as birth, death, and what ought to come after this world; it prescribes a way of life. Islam is an idea about how society should be organized: the individual's relationship to the state; the relationship between men and women; rules for the interaction between believers and unbelievers; how to enforce such rules; and why a government under Islam is better than a government founded on other ideas. These political ideas of Islam have their symbols: the minaret, the crescent; the head scarf, and the sword.

The minaret is a symbol of Islamist supremacy, a token of domination that came to symbolize Islamic conquest. It was introduced decades after the founding of Islam. In Europe, as in other places in the world where Muslims settle, the places of worship are simple at first. All that a Muslim needs to fulfill the obligation of prayer is a compass to indicate the direction of Mecca, water for ablution, a clean prayer mat, and a way of telling the time so as to pray five times a day in the allocated period. The construction of large mosques with extremely tall towers that cost millions of dollars to erect are considered only after the demography of Muslims becomes significant.

THE MOSQUE EVOLVES FROM A PRAYER HOUSE TO A POLITICAL CENTER.

Imams can then preach a message of self-segregation and a bold rejection of the ways of the non-Muslims. Men and women are separated; gays, apostates and Jews are openly condemned; and believers organize around political goals that call for the introduction of forms of sharia (Islamic) law, starting with family law. This is the trend we have seen in Europe, and also in other countries where Muslims have settled. None of those Western academics, diplomats, and politicians who condemn the Swiss vote to ban the minaret address, let alone dispute, these facts.

In their response to the presence of Islam in their midst, Europeans have developed what one can discern as roughly two competing views. The first view emphasizes accuracy. Is it accurate to equate political symbols like those used by Communists and Nazis with a religious symbol like the minaret and its accessories of crescent and star; the uniforms of the Third Reich with the burqa and beards of current Islamists? If it is accurate, then Islam, as a political movement, should be rejected on the basis of its own bigotry. In this view, Muslims should not be rejected as residents or citizens. The objection is to practices that are justified in the name of Islam, like honor killings, jihad, the we-versus-they perspective, the self-segregation. In short, Islamist supremacy.

The second view refuses to equate political symbols of various forms of white fascism with the symbols of a religion. In this school of thought, Islamic Scripture is compared to Christian and Jewish Scripture. Those who reason from this perspective preach pragmatism. According to them, the key to the assimilation of Muslims is dialogue. They are prepared to appease some of the demands that Muslim minorities make in the hope that one day their attachment to radical Scripture will wear off like that of Christian and Jewish peoples.

These two contrasting perspectives correspond to two quite distinct groups in Europe. The first are mainly the working class. The second are the classes that George Orwell described as "indeterminate." Cosmopolitan in outlook, they include diplomats, businesspeople, mainstream politicians, and journalists. They are well versed in globalization and tend to focus on the international image of their respective countries. With every conflict between Islam and the West, they emphasize the possible backlash from Muslim countries and how that will affect the image of their country.

By contrast, those who reject the ideas and practices of political Islam are in touch with Muslims on a local level. They have been asked to accept Muslim immigrants as neighbors, classmates, colleagues – they are what Americans would refer to as Main Street. Here is the great paradox of today's Europe: that the working class, who voted for generations for the left, now find themselves voting for right-wing parties because they feel that the social democratic parties are out of touch.

The pragmatists, most of whom are power holders, are partially right when they insist that the integration of Muslims will take a very long time. Their calls for dialogue are sensible. But as long as they do not engage Muslims to make a choice between the values of the countries that they have come to and those of the countries they left, they will find themselves faced with more surprises. And this is what the Swiss vote shows us. This is a confrontation between local, working-class voters (and some middle-class feminists) and Muslim immigrant newcomers who feel that they are entitled, not only to practice their religion, but also to replace the local political order with that of their own.

Look carefully at the reactions of the Swiss, EU and UN elites. The Swiss government is embarrassed by the outcome of the vote. The Swedes, who are currently chairing EU meetings, have condemned the Swiss vote as intolerant and xenophobic. It is remarkable that the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said in public that the Swiss vote is a poor act of diplomacy. What he overlooks is that this is a discussion of Islam as a domestic issue. It has nothing to do with foreign policy.

The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a domestic issue in Europe. That is, Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas. Native Europeans have been asked over and over again by their leaders to be tolerant and accepting of Muslims. They have done that. And that can be measured a) by the amount of taxpayer money that is invested in healthcare, housing, education, and welfare for Muslims and b) the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are knocking on the doors of Europe to be admitted. If those people who cry that Europe is intolerant are right, if there was, indeed, xenophobia and a rejection of Muslims, then we would have observed the reverse. There would have been an exodus of Muslims out of Europe.

There is indeed a wider international confrontation between Islam and the West. The Iraq and Afghan wars are part of that, not to mention the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians and the nuclear ambitions of Iran. That confrontation should never be confused with the local problem of absorbing those Muslims who have been permitted to become permanent residents and citizens into European societies.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of "Infidel," is the Somali-born women's rights advocate and former Dutch parliamentarian. Her forthcoming book is entitled "Nomad."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1205/p09s01-coop.html