Letter addressed to an entity unlikely to respond

[amurderofcows]

Dear Switzerland,

It's been quite some time since my last visit, but I enjoyed myself in your country. What's not to love about beautiful mountains, freakishly reliable trains, and a wide variety of chocolate? But I regret to inform you that, well, you officially fail as a country.

In a 57%-43% vote, your people amended your constitution to ban

Comments

[henkkuli]

I said pretty much exactly the same thing on a Facebook blurb I made this morning. Only you said it more eloquently.

[henkkuli]

If you're interested, my fb is here. My Twitter is here.

[amurderofcows]

I've send an add request on Twitter. My FB, so far, is IRL friends only, but I can't think of a good reason for that policy, so I'll probably add you there as soon as I've finished satisfying myself I don't have any good reasons not to add new friends from LJ there.

[amurderofcows]

Thanks, Henri.

[henkkuli]

Also of importance: The majority of Swiss Muslims are actually Bosnian Refugees turned citizens; most of the rest of them are from Turkey, a country which, for good or ill, will be part of the EU, which totally encompasses Switzerland. Turkish Muslims are quite modern, moderate, and Westernized.

This whole referendum was entirely grounded in paranoid xenophobia.

[amurderofcows]

Switzerland's unwillingness to join the EU has long been seen as part of their independent nature, which is fine, but Switzerland was responding to an entirely imaginary threat. Muslims who live in Switzerland come from the least dogmatic parts of the Muslim world, so it's not like Switzerland was on the verge of Sharia law or Madrasahs on every corner.

[homais]

Ditto: this is a little outside my area of expertise, but I never got the impression that Switzerland even had much in the way of British or French-style simmering Muslim radicalism. They always struck me as about as Europeanized as one could expect first-generation immigrants to be.

[tko_ak]

Oy. I hadn't heard about this. I'm actually a little surprised the Swiss would do something so unnecessary, potentially inflammatory, and, well, stupid. The French headscarf ban was bad enough, but it's the French, so you expect crazy bullshit from them.

[henkkuli]

In fairness to the French, the headscarf ban, while aimed at Muslims, 1) did not *specifically* ban headscarves, it banned all displays of religious regalia including yarmulkes, turbans, and so on. The purpose of the bill was to protect the secularity of government-administered institutions; 2) applies only to schools. It passes the smell test of not being targeted specifically as a fuck-you to a small minority.

That said, being something of a First Amendment (and other-country-analogue) Absolutist, I'm against the ban myself, but there are entirely reasonable arguments to be made in defense of the French ban; in the case of the Swiss Minaret ban, there's no other way to interpret it other than a fuck-you.

[amurderofcows]

Though the law allows Christians to wear crosses, as long as they aren't large enough to actually crucify anyone upon. If it was really about preserving the secular nature of schools, it would ban all displays of all religious symbols by anyone

[henkkuli]

You can also wear tiny Stars of David, tiny Crescents, and other tiny religious symbols.

I spent a lot of time in France as a student, and I can see the other side of the argument, the FU to Muslims notwithstanding: 1) en France, l'état, c'est tout; 2) for all the lip service to individuals, "society" tends to take primacy from a legal standpoint (an outgrowth of countries being relatively ethnically homogeneous historically); 3) for all the impracticality of French society design, they are deeply committed to laïcité and overt displays of religion in government institutions are an affront to that; 4) the influx of headscarf-wearing Muslim students was the first substantial vector of challenge to this whole secularism idea, and French legislators decided that they needed to protect the separation between religious and public life

[agriking]

Ah, but there in lies the point, Switzerland is not America. Americans have a way of imposing American ideas on the rest of the world and if they don't agree then they're just wrong.

[amurderofcows]

I don't think a frontal assault on freedom of religion can be excused with a wave of the cultural relativism wand. If any culture's ideas have to be accepted as correct within the context of that culture, where's the line we draw beyond which that excuse ceases to apply? Freedom of religion isn't just some American custom we seek to impose on others; it's an inevitable conclusion from the concept that the individual exists. The concept of reciprocity-doing unto others as you would have them do unto you-isn't just a nice American concept, but is the logical conclusion of acknowledging that individuals even exist. And freedom of religion is the logical conclusion drawn from reciprocity.

[mizzoumark]

Whenever anyone waxes poetic about how awesome Europe is compared to the US, this should be rebuttal #1.

[amurderofcows]

This and French policies about, like, everything.

[tko_ak]

Don't forget the UK!

[amurderofcows]

It seems to me that UK policies, while not being much to my liking, are an order of magnitude less crazy than French policies. I think the stamp Thatcher left on the political culture helps a lot.

Although I'll give the French that they aren't a monarchy. British monarchs don't do any specific harm, but the idea of hereditary rule just rubs me the wrong way. At least John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush had to get elected.