Swiss on minarets
So, since I never post here anymore, I thought I'd address some current world news. Switzerland has just banned the building of minarets.
For those of you who don't know what minarets are, they're often depicted as those tall round thingies that the muslims use to issue their 5 times daily call for prayer. Wikipedia has more information on their use and history. Now, there's obviously a religious connection here, but I was rather surprised that the Swiss were that paranoid of the whole "religious buildings" thing. Frankly, I'm rather surprised that someone managed to persuade 57% of the Swiss population that minarets are an obvious and deadly danger to civilised society. Of course, the reactions don't help much:
From the above article: The Swiss foreign minister warned on Tuesday that a decision by voters in Switzerland to ban new mosque minarets could endanger security, amid stark warnings about a broader threat of extremism.
Because Iran, of course, has the moral high ground over maybe Hitlereveryone else:An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tuesday condemned a Swiss referendum banning the construction of minarets in the country, local English language satellite Press TV reported.
Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast described the Swiss minaret ban as an "Islamophobic act" and a blow to the religious freedom declared in the West, the report said.
"We consider such acts as inappropriate, a move that is against the Western claims of democracy and religious freedom," he told reporters, adding that "surprisingly some of the actions of the West have Islamophobic roots."
Sources indicate that this constitutional amendment (yes, the Swiss decided that the only way to do this was to enshrine it in their constitution) will be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights, since this likely violates the spirit, if not the letter, of at least a couple of treaties Switzerland is subject to. Of course, if the court rules against them, what's going to happen? (I'm not an expert on this, but I doubt there's teeth enough to do much.) Surely it won't put the Swiss people even more up in arms at having their national sovereignty interfered with!
I suppose something like this is the tragic result of actually trusting people to run their own country. Of course, we've been seeing Europe get around that a lot lately, with politicians doing their best to avoid referendums on bolstering the European Union--remember how much of a fiasco the Irish thing was, until they'd had so many votes that people got sick of it?
This action by the Swiss is only bolstering similar attempts by other right-wing parties (which amount to ethnic/nationalist purists even more in Europe than in the US, imo), like in Holland and Denmark. One wonders where this is going to lead, and what the reaction of the Islamic world is going to be. (After all, look at all the hullaboo that ensued when someone dared to *gasp* draw a picture of Muhammad.)
I have trouble figuring out what the benefit in this is, but the potential problems should be clearly visible to anyone with half a brain.
For those of you who don't know what minarets are, they're often depicted as those tall round thingies that the muslims use to issue their 5 times daily call for prayer. Wikipedia has more information on their use and history. Now, there's obviously a religious connection here, but I was rather surprised that the Swiss were that paranoid of the whole "religious buildings" thing. Frankly, I'm rather surprised that someone managed to persuade 57% of the Swiss population that minarets are an obvious and deadly danger to civilised society. Of course, the reactions don't help much:
From the above article: The Swiss foreign minister warned on Tuesday that a decision by voters in Switzerland to ban new mosque minarets could endanger security, amid stark warnings about a broader threat of extremism.
Because Iran, of course, has the moral high ground over maybe Hitlereveryone else:An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tuesday condemned a Swiss referendum banning the construction of minarets in the country, local English language satellite Press TV reported.
Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast described the Swiss minaret ban as an "Islamophobic act" and a blow to the religious freedom declared in the West, the report said.
"We consider such acts as inappropriate, a move that is against the Western claims of democracy and religious freedom," he told reporters, adding that "surprisingly some of the actions of the West have Islamophobic roots."
Sources indicate that this constitutional amendment (yes, the Swiss decided that the only way to do this was to enshrine it in their constitution) will be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights, since this likely violates the spirit, if not the letter, of at least a couple of treaties Switzerland is subject to. Of course, if the court rules against them, what's going to happen? (I'm not an expert on this, but I doubt there's teeth enough to do much.) Surely it won't put the Swiss people even more up in arms at having their national sovereignty interfered with!
I suppose something like this is the tragic result of actually trusting people to run their own country. Of course, we've been seeing Europe get around that a lot lately, with politicians doing their best to avoid referendums on bolstering the European Union--remember how much of a fiasco the Irish thing was, until they'd had so many votes that people got sick of it?
This action by the Swiss is only bolstering similar attempts by other right-wing parties (which amount to ethnic/nationalist purists even more in Europe than in the US, imo), like in Holland and Denmark. One wonders where this is going to lead, and what the reaction of the Islamic world is going to be. (After all, look at all the hullaboo that ensued when someone dared to *gasp* draw a picture of Muhammad.)
I have trouble figuring out what the benefit in this is, but the potential problems should be clearly visible to anyone with half a brain.