Swiss vote to ban minarets in referendum

[mateykatie]

Switzerland has voted to ban the construction of mosque minarets in a national referendum. 57% supported the ban.

Here is the BBC story.

Women voted for the ban more than men according to the Times.

This seems pretty horrible to me. I always thought the Swiss were tolerant but obviously not.

Isn't the purpose of a minaret to broadcast the call to prayer, which presumably the Swiss indigenous population would rather not hear?

If the call to prayer isn't allowed, I don't really know why the minaret itself would be important.

Perhaps some countries don't want to 'dilute' their nationality... this is a difficult concept to understand without shouting 'racist', which the Swiss are very. IT is also to protect their skyline, I think they may have a point. There are areas where I live that are ruined by cheap looking mosques and seventies churches that don't fit in with any other buildings....

Mumblechum - they are banned from having the call to prayer.

Riven,

obviously the swiss Muslims did get a say, they had a vote, would you did them a treble vote just because there are less of them? That's like saying everyone who wants to vote green gets three votes because they don't stand a chance otherwise.

I listened to the JEremy VINe show today and was a little about the guy who likened the objection of 5am call to prayer with bell ringing.... surely the objection is that it's 5am.

How many Christian churches are there in Islamic countries? It just seems the 'tolerant' west are again expected to welcome Islam with open arms when Islam itself and Islamic countries are no where near as tolerant. Are there any countries with dictatorships that are Christian?

LL... I have a couple of friends, both medics (consultants) and one is Russian/Nigerian... when visiting friends the mother was heard to say, in a surprised tone, well he's alright for a black and educated'.

STill can't beat the trucker on radio 2 who said 'You can always find a n&@*$r in the wood pile' or something.

Riven, who is the "we" and who the "them" in that context?

I think the reason why people are saying "what about churches in Muslim countries?" is because there has been condemnation from places like Pakistan. It's a bit rich for Indonesia and Pakistan to get their knickers in a twist about it when non-Muslims in their countries have far fewer rights than Muslims in Switzerland.

I have been woken up by calls to prayer at 4am (in a non-Muslim country), and I objected to it being at 4am. And the fact that it went on for SO FREAKING LONG (with little gaps in the middle, so you'd think "awesome. It's over! Sleep time!" Only to have the blasted guy start again). And yes, I have also objected to church bells very early in the morning. I am an equal opportunities complainant against all early waking.

And also, (I am not in favour of the ban, BTW), it's not like the Swiss have voted for something that would prevent Muslims from fulfilling their religious obligations; it is a cultural symbol. It would be VERY different if say, for example there was a vote to prevent them from slaughtering meat in a Halal way (like Paul McCartney once asked for, saying Kosher and Halal slaughtering is unfair to animals, so they should be banned and all Jews and Muslims become vegetarian).

"I am an equal opportunities complainant against all early waking."

Hear hear!

ds has mostly got the point but there are occasionally weaknesses in practice. I am sure I will be able to Iron Them Out by judicious use of grumpiness, though.

onagar and alexpolismum - I stand corrected in my (IMO) reasonably liberal swiss naughty corner.

I do urge people not to get hung up on this issue. There are far more serious instances of religious persecution in this world!

londonlottie - your impressions of living in switzerland mirror my own feelings. The catch in the utopia is that they all go to bed too damn early!

I haven't read all the way through this, so apologies if someone has already posted this thought. I was speaking to the Swiss secretary at my dd's school yesterday, she asked me what I thought about the vote. I expressed my thoughts that minarets should be allowed even if the call to prayer is not (although our church bells are going all day and night every 15 minutes). She said that she felt the same and was very upset that people from outside of Switzerland would consider them to be a backward racist country. I reassured her that people thought that anyway before the minaret vote.

lol kreecher

It must be comming from my Italian side.

Swiss people are great in general, even though not the most open minded people arround but it really does sadden me that almost 60% of them feel that theatened by the architecture of a religious building that they would write in the Constitution (not in some urbanisme law/ planning aplication thing) that said building should be stictly forbidden.

It might have been linked to already but just to refresh the memories and really make the point that it was not actually a building issue Swiss voted on. Christoph Blocher and the Swiss People's Party, not the BNP but...the ones behind the minaret referendum and the very tight law on assylum

Scroll down to SEE ALSO Swiss People's party and then go on "policies"

I happen to live in a canton where they did not vote to ban minarets and I would never consider the residents here to be 'tolerant'.

The xenophobia (meant in the purest sense of the word) here astounds me. They truly believe that all of the crime is committed by foreigners and that their very Swissness is threatened by immigration.

I felt very sad when I read the results but if anything surprised me it was that it was not by a wider margin.