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.

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You are right Riven about the pointy bits. We have lived in a Muslim country and had a fantastic time. The people were welcoming and the Sultan (apparently) donated some money to enable the RC to build a church. He also donated money to enable a crem to be built for the Hindu people who couldn't afford to fly the bodies of their dead back to wherever they came from.
I live in the german speaking part of Switzerland so can't commenton the rest, I have found the swiss to be breathtakingly racist and very defensive if challenged.www.swissinfo.ch/eng/index/Rightwing_rejects_parallel_Muslim_society.html?cid=7822 676

Does what differ in the different parts?

I don't know about the rest of the country, I do know that the ones that I've come across are astonishingly and outrageously racist. It is generally a very throwaway sort of thing.
I did try to do a link to a report but failed. One thing in the report that jumped out at me was the statement 'our land and our values'.
Our dd attends an International school so by it's nature has children from all around the world. One woman in my dd's class was asking me if I thought it would be OK if her ds was moved to a class with less brownish people in it. to say I was would be an understatement.

Riven - you might find some interesting reading here and some links to statistics relating to the vote.

Harpy, I have seen it. We live relatively close to a housing unit for people claiming asylum. This pre fab adjoins a small railway station and people do come from the main town to throw stuff at the walls. Almost an evening out. If you live in Switzerland you'll have noticed that any crime committed by an auslander reports their nationality.
Riven, I told the mum that it would not be a good idea on many levels. She seemed suprised TBH. My dd's class has one indian, one indonesian, one nigerian, one from Kenya and the rest are white. Hardly the league of nations.

beautiful

TheShriekingHarpy No, there have not been any "wild" minaret buildings in Switzerland that could have instigated the need for tougher legislation.

There are currently 4 moques with minaret (about 200 Muslim places or worship) that were built with a planning permission. A biger mosque (the Langenthal project) with a minaret got planning permission in 2006 but has not been built yet. They are now talking about reversing that planning permission to a mosque without a minaret even though permission had been granted for it 3 years before the ban (this mosque would have been the 5th one with a minaret). This mosque was the last one to which a planning application for as minaret had been accepted. For the last 3 years no planning application for a minaret has been granted in Switzerland this new addition to the constitution had no reason to be.

I do totally agree with you about the use of "winter festival" instead of Christmas being a ridiculous idea. We had an issue like that in the town a few years back as the council banned a church from flying St Geoges flag on St Geoge's day because it would "upset muslims" but no Muslim was actually consulted on the issue. DH called the newspaper at the time to tell them that it was not actually something that Muslims in the area had asked for and to not blame a minority for what was a Council decision.

I think the only sensible idea is to call things by their name and accept the differences instead of absolutely wanting to "level" everything; it makes people increasingly frustrated about those issues instead of making anyone happy.

Well, the real question about Switzerland is how did they get so rich, one of the 3 riches countries in the world?

By bowing out of both world wars and having such stable neutrality that everyone trusted their currency, and asking few questions about where they money came from.

That to me is the description of a country with no integrity.

All the UN globe-hugging stuff in the world won't clean their hands of that imo.

Again I agree with you TheShriekingHarpy, you cannot make the present generation accountable for the mistakes of previous generations.

It would be nice if they learnt from passed experiences though.

"make the present generation accountable for the mistakes of previous generations"

that's debatable of course.

Environmental issues the best example here of course.

If not accountable then at least responsible. that's what citizenship is about. belonging, accepting, be it honoring or bettering.

Many countries have learned from their historical lack of integrity.

Switzerland has only very recently relented and made reparation to those whose assets were seized and hidden in Swiss banks during and after the war. Of course a huge proportion of those people were dead but they many had relatives who fought for their rightful property and some survivors died waiting.

This is very recent history, Switzerland has shown almost no shame for its history in avoiding both wars to make money which is, effectively what it did. Neutrality is euphemistic in this case.

Germany has had to wrestle with its past ever since. Not so over the mountains.

I like the story from Sweden a while back: a local authority would only allow permission for an amplified Muslim call to prayer in the town, if the local humanist society was given the same right in duration and decibels to proclaim "There is no god"!
I think the Swiss vote shows that there are many people who are worried about a triumphalist form of political islam, which is the basis for terrorism all over the world. Islamist extremism does not reflect the opinions of most muslims but is very pernicious and divisive - read Ed Hussain's "The Islamist", for example.
Tall towers can seem aggressive in an environment where they are out of kilter with most of the population, effectively proselytizing for a religion which is (so far) unreformed and also uninformed by European democratic and Enlightenment values. I believe that some muslim groups who plan these edifices intend them that way. Professional offence takers, who see racism everywhere, are unwittingly supporting them.