Minaret ban: Switzerland is no more racist than anywhere else
Posted on Monday 30 November, 2009
Filed Under International
I KNOW where Christoph Blocher lives. The billionaire leader of the Schweizerische Volkspartei owns a substantial property – it would probably be fair to call it a castle – that can clearly be seen from the cable car linking Rhäzüns to Feldis, the alpine village where my mother’s ashes have been reburied next to those of her brother and sister.
The SVP, of course, has been the driving force behind the referendum that has seen voters back the call for a constitutional proscription on the construction of minarets on Swiss mosques. Take that as further evidence that Blocher is pushing Swiss politics towards the right, on the back of the growth of a certain ugly xenophobia in a country that has always presented itself as the very model of a successful multinational state.
The Swiss economy has always made use of many seasonal guest workers, and one of my uncles took on Muslims from Turkey and Yugoslavia as well as Catholic Italians at his door factory. Although they had no rights to speak of – they had to return to their country of origin each year – I don’t recall racism being an issue in the 1960s. There was certainly no problem with employees dating the boss’s daughters, for instance. Two of my cousins even married the guys.
Marriage to a Swiss citizen confers the right of residence, and slowly the number of Swiss Muslims began to grow. In 1970 there were just 16,000; today, thanks to a liberalisation of the restrictions on work permits and the arrival fairly sizeable numbers of refugees from Bosnia and Albania, the total stands at 400,000.
As a Swiss national and a fairly regular visitor, I am well aware that the Zwinglian-dominated Germanophone part of the country is naturally conservative on social issues, and unlike some commentators, I am not surprised that the minaret ban won through. But it isn’t necessarily evidence that Switzerland is any more (or any less) racist than anywhere else.
While the decision was clearly the wrong one, the significance may not be that great in practice. There are some 150 mosques and Muslim prayer rooms, all still accorded freedom of worship in accordance with the standards of liberal democracy.
But it is the symbolism is worrying. One day a rightwing populist party, perhaps with mass repatriation as part of its platform, will surely win an election and form a government somewhere in western Europe. That’s when the social fabric will be tested.
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84 Responses to “Minaret ban: Switzerland is no more racist than anywhere else”
“While the decision was clearly the wrong one, the significance may not be that great in practice. There are some 150 mosques and Muslim prayer rooms, all still accorded freedom of worship in accordance with the standards of liberal democracy.”
I disagree.
This is a huge symbolic “fuck off” to Muslims in Switzerland.
It will – unless progressives are very careful about their allies – result in an anti-bigotry campaign which is likely to involve or even be run by Muslim Brotherhood activists, who will capitalise on the by now pretty much justified sense of being hard done by that Swiss Muslims must feel.
This is a dismal dismal outcome.
As Tariq Ramadan has said, the minaret in Switzerland is just another symbol (like the French burqa’) that is being latched onto by those with irrational fears for the future who are corralled by those who know that manipulating fear is the best way to get the vote out.
In my mind, I’m linking this with the ‘election’ of Malcolm Pearson (inviter of Geert Wilders) as new Ukip leader. It seems, spurred on by BNP ‘victory’, Ukip sees that branching out into islamophobia maybe a vote winner. Blocher’s SVP started life as a fairly centrist party for the farmers. I wonder whether an outfit like Ukip might be able to make itself the perfect trumpet of the right-wing press, especially if the Tories get tied up with running the country. A party that thrives off popular fears could make Britain’s political future very ugly.
I wonder if it’s the result of 10 years of having Muslims exclusively represented by shouting mentalists on the telly or whether they just don’t fancy the possibility of having a call to prayer down their earhole at 5am every morning.
Given that the latter option is presumably negotiable, I suspect the moral of this story is “don’t allow your “identity” be hijacked by a media/bourgeoisie-endorsed coalition of destructive nutters.”
I would endorse Scrath’s comments.
Fuck off religion, full stop.
I do not want to have my local bunch of Christos shoving their beliefs down my throat, and I do not want the likes of Ramadan doing the same.
When I see the women in burqas being dragged along to the local Mosque I know this is more than a symbol.
Wow! David T defending Muslims against socialists. Now I’ve seen everything.
He’s right. Scratch is wrong to suggest that the Swiss have genuine concerns about being woken up by the call to prayer, it doesn’t happen in Britain where there are more mosques than you can shake a hammer and sickle at. Andrew Coates thinks he’s having Islam shoved down his throat, maybe that would be true if they constructed one outside your front door.Yes burqas are a symbol of oppression, but you’re not going to convince Muslims to abandon them by persecuting their religion.
“Switzerland is no more racist…” Maybe. But it would be nice to set the bar at “…would like to be less racist”.
Wow,
Coates finally thinks what the fuck and joins the BNP.
Surely the point here is that Muslims are being singled out by this ban, they are being persecuted. This is not an attack on all religion, but a specific attack on Muslims. Surely socialists must speak out against this, I mean surely!
I remember the hysteria in Oxford when it was suggested that the mosque on Manzil Way might broadcast a call to prayer.
I don’t recall any of the people who were so angry about this because of the ‘noise’ being overly concerned when I pointed out I was woken up every weekend and several times during the week by early morning church bells.
“Scratch is wrong to suggest that the Swiss have genuine concerns about being woken up by the call to prayer, it doesn’t happen in Britain where there are more mosques than you can shake a hammer and sickle at”
I didn’t suggest that.
I pointed out that it was probably negotiable. To its credit, I never heard a peep from the mosque down the road from where I used to live.
Dave,
A provocative post, I’m not sure I would agree with your statement of “But it isn’t necessarily evidence that Switzerland is any more (or any less) racist than anywhere else.”
I think it is evidence that the referendum system in Switzerland can be used by rightwing parties to advance their own agendas.
It does show that the xenophobia which is push by the SVP (the largest party in the Swiss parliament) found a certain resonance with many Swiss, and I suspect if the EDL or other far right groupings could use such a mechanism in Britain then you might see similar figures, maybe not as high.
But ugly xenophobia is not confined to Switzerland alone.
Despite the notional figures on places of worship, etc, they don’t tell the whole story, from reports the vote and the ban have increased alienation amongst Muslims in Switzerland, etc
Those Swiss who back this measure (and in truth the government was against it as were many other political and religious groups) should dispense with their vulgar prejudices and siege mentality.
This measure should be fought tooth and nail, Muslims have the right to freedom of religion as anyone else does in Switzerland, even if it gets up the nose of some Swiss.
I’ve said for years that Andrew Coates was on a journey to a very unpleasant destination and, as SteveH notes above, he has finally arrived.
Rather than go on a predictable witch hunt leading to a slanging match, why not try to advance some arguments?
and maybe in passing discuss the implication of this ban, etc?
Switzerland has always been racist. Its people live in small valleys separated by big mountains – not exactly the geography of open-mindedness. A reminder of Killer’s law of geography: in order for a country to be liberal, its coastline must be longer than the square root of its area. Switzerland has no coastline.
In fact it started my interest in politics. At age 11, on holiday in Hayling Island (I think) I read a Reader’s Digest article about the place in which one of its citizens was quoted as saying of its gastarbeiter: “we wanted workers, and we got people”.
The minaret is a sign of political religious dominace over others. Muslims will freely admit to this. Muslims are free to worship in Switzerland just like other religions fantacists. The Switz should be commended. The Switz are lucky as they do not have the unelected European politically correct giving them orders. I might even visit Switzerland now. My faith in the human race has been restored.
DavidT, The muslim brotherhood will be happy one way or another. They are the suicidal brigade. The cutting edge of Islam.
The SVP’s actions are about winding up Muslims and increasing xenophobia and should be opposed.
The SVP are like the EDL. but in suits, and if you can see thru the English Defence League’s motives then it shouldn’t be too hard to see what the SVP is getting up.
Mike,
“Switzerland has always been racist. Its people live in small valleys separated by big mountains – not exactly the geography of open-mindedness.”
You sound like the anti Jim Denham but with more wit. Switzerland has historically been pretty advanced in its economics and its thinking, so this is a worrying development.
Speaking of Denham I can’t wait to hear his ‘thoughts’ on this subject, his brain is probably haemorrhaging over the idea that ‘rural Catholics’ voted most strongly to ban these symbols of ‘Islamo fascist reaction’.
“Rather than go on a predictable witch hunt leading to a slanging match, why not try to advance some arguments?”
Motes and beams, Morality, motes and beams.
Lobby,
I nearly fell off the sofa in hysterics when I saw that quote from Modernity.
Surprisingly I find myself agreeing with him on this subject, though I think I agreed with him on the last subject but that didn’t stop him going into a hysterical denunciation of my position. So maybe I don’t agree with him, who knows!
Mr. Osler is obviously worried about his visitor numbers judging by the past 2 articles. The Minaret story must have been manna from heaven, and the connection with the Faith schools debate should not be ignored but hell I won’t go there.
JOHNNO, ‘rural Catholics,rural Muslims’any difference? Or just the interpretation!
Shame on you Andrew C.
This has everything to do with xenophobia and nothing to do with secularism.
Behave.
As I understand it, only 55% of the electorate voted in the referendum: so, what’s the point of view of the remaining 45%? Democracy is a wierd thing though. We have a ‘first past the post’ system in this country, which means that whoever gets the largest vote is elected, even though more people may have voted against them than for them. Are you saying that the Swiss should not be allowed to hold certain opinions because you disagree with them? Foar example, if the majority of people in this country, voted to burn witches (or reinstitute some archaic law) would political theorists argue that it was undemocratic to implement such a decision? Where are the boundaries of democracy?
Andrew Coates has finally got his brain working properly! Yippee!
Is David Osler really thinking hard? So a party advocating mass repatriation will come to power – “A suitcase and an air ticket for every Muslim!” So? Is that likely to be a calamity?
Is mass “repatriation” [which, of course, usually involves the "repatriation" of those being "repatriated" to a country which they have never seen and which their parents or grandparents were only too eager to leave] really so terrible?
Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania [and Kaliningrad] do NOT have a German minority problem these days. The remaining Greeks in Turkey [in steady numerical decline] as well as the remaining Turks in Greece [steadily increasing in numbers] are quiet and untroublesome.
Booting people out of Country A or Territory B is not a pretty spectacle, but it solves the immediate problem well enough.
If you doubt this, close your eyes tightly and try to imagine a Muslim-free Britain!
“If you doubt this, close your eyes tightly and try to imagine a Muslim-free Britain!”
The word Judenrein springs to mind.
Stand in Kaliningrad, as Kant’s city of Koenigsburg is called now, and imagine it German-free.
You DON’T have to imagine! It is!
You can try doing the same in Danzig, Memel, Karlsbad and Stettin, too.
Try imagining Fiume Italian-free.
See? Easy, isn’t it?
Plenty of places have undergone race-replacement, a process which is under way even now in Oldhamistan and Berlinistan.
My point is that the mechanism can be thrown in reverse if the political will is there.
It is a bit rich of David T to argue that
“unless progressives are very careful about their allies “, things will get out of hand. He is very clearly alled to the anti Muslim bigots: His website is very friendly to the right wing bigots of the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC). CSC boss Douglas Murray gave a speech including the following:-
“Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop”
And a claim that political correctness and relativism where the “AIDS of the West” leading to the the “opportunist infection of Islam” which is “deadly”
And a call for “ conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”
Yet David T quite recently published a post on his website defending this speech by Murray as a defence of “equal rights”.
“Plenty of places have undergone race-replacement, a process which is under way even now in Oldhamistan and Berlinistan.
My point is that the mechanism can be thrown in reverse if the political will is there.”
Of course it can! Machine-guns, gas chambers and mass deportations have already proven their effectiveness in removing unwanted races.
It is, however, much cheaper to remove idiots and racists from blogs. A bit of tighter moderation from Dave Osler, and this blog could be Bill Corr-free.
See?
Some people are only capable of squealing “racists!” and “bigots!’ and “Islamophobes” rather than actually THINKING and discussing matters such as mass expulsion calmly and reasonably.
Did it escape your attention, Paul Fauvet, that the Czech reluctance to sign to European Treaty stemmed, in part, from an apprehension that the dispossessed Sudeten Germans would appear in droves waving their title deeds and door keys?
By the way, did anyone notice how – in his piece in the Grauniad’s ‘Comment is Free’ section – Brother Tariq Ramadan was so keen to refer to himself as Swiss-born and so on. Several times.
Who knew that people whose proclaimed first loyalty is to the Muslim ummah were and are quite so loyal to a kuffar entity which is generous enough to issue them with travel documents?
On rereading this …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/comment.politics1
… the thought struck me yet again that a Muslim-free Britain would be a far safer and more relaxed place in which to live.
Did anyone mention muggings? Now THERE’S another subject altogether.
Bill Corr wants us to discuss mass expulsion “calmly and reasonably”.
I wonder if the Tatars whom Stalin expelled from the Crimea discussed their fate “calmly and reasonably”.
Or the Poles and Germans deported in their millions during and at the end of World War II.
Or the Croats and Bosnians expelled from their homes by Milosevic’s fascist thugs.
For “mass expulsion” is a mealy-mouthed euphemism. The correct terms are ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Did it escape your attention, Paul Fauvet, that the Czech reluctance to sign to European Treaty stemmed, in part, from an apprehension that the dispossessed Sudeten Germans would appear in droves waving their title deeds and door keys?
So racial expulsions create a massive amount of resentment and store up problems for the future?
What do you propose to do about those of mixed parentage? A ban on miscegenation (if your English isn’t as good as the average foreigner, that means inter-racial procreation)and a racial classification board like they had in South Africa?
Geez, that bigot Bill Corr has arrived, he’s renowned for polluting threads with his racism.
Bill Corr, fuck off and do it now.
Bill Corr is obviously a Nazi, but what worries me more is Andrew Coates, who extraordinarily claims to be a Marxist.
Let us imagine it is Germany 1933, a newly appointed chancellor, Adolph Hitler begins to sign the first anti Jewish decrees. Now let us imagine an underground Communist party meeting of the same year, where a young ‘Marxist’ called Andrew Von Coates addresses his brave comrades,
“Dear comrades, three cheers for Adolph, at last someone is standing up to these religious nutters. Fuck religion, I don’t want some Jew boys ramming their religion down my throat…..”
Naturally his comrades interject at this moment and inform him his career in the Communist party has come to an end, due to the volatile circumstances of the time they unfortunately had to kill him.
Back in the real world, ban Andrew Coates from the left, excommunicate the tosser.
Eddie and Simon the Tosser did ye read wot I wrote?
Fuck off religion.
If you imagine that I have any time for the Swiss, Germanophone, right, imagine on.
I cannae thole religion.
Full stop.
No, Skidmarx …
The Sudeten Germans, like the Germans of Memel and Danzig, the Italians of Istria and Dalmatia and the Japanese of Karafuto and the South Kuriles and the Finns of Viiborg have all shown the maturity to accept postwar political realities.
The former citizens of Sudentenland will NOT be yelling for ‘justice’ at the European Court. Whether for better or worse, the Czechs solved their minority problem in the late 1940s, as did the Poles and the Soviet authorities in what is now the Kaliningrad Oblast.
Ethnic cleansing is the harsh way of expressing established realities; a brisk ‘net search will take you to the map of a Greater Albania which exists in the imagination of Albanians in the Albanian diaspora. The map shows a Greater Albania which encompasses southern Montenegro, all of Kosova, some portions of Serbia contiguous to Kosova, about a third of Macedonia and a slice of Greek Epirus.
On irridentist grounds, a Greater Albania might easily emcompass all of these except the last. There are NO Albanians remaining in Greek Epirus for the simple reason that at the end of the Greek Civil War the Royalist armed forces solved the problem once and for all.
There IS a case for ethnic cleansing, even if the realities are often less than pretty.
A Taigrein, and geographically smaller, Norn Iron would have been spared a great deal of suffering; Martin McGuinness would have been slicing bacon and Gerry Adams pulling pints without causing the carnage they inflicted before a capitulationist peace conferred forgiveness and respectability on them.
It isn’t the sort of subject which decent people mention aloud, but ethnic cleansing is under way in South Africa right now.
Everyone knows about white farmers and their families being murdered week after week, of course, but nobody on the British or European Left has anything but contempt for ‘Boers.’
The Jews, having been well to the forefront of those guilt-ridden whites insistently demanding majority rule, are voting with their feet. The present-day Jewish population of South Africa is half what it was under the old political dispensation.
The better-off of the Asians of Natal are fleeing, eager to grab Australian and New Zealand passports while they still can.
Tragically, the Cape Coloureds, those people so detested and scorned by Winnie Mandela and her class of arriviste Bantu aristocracy, are stuck where they are; they have no homeland other than South Africa.
Call us all paranoid Mr Coates but if all you have to say on a subject like this is “Fuck off Religion” then your lack of concern over the actions of “Swiss, Germanophone” whatever?, or any further attempt at even articulating the problem is taken as support for the action and support for the persecuation of Muslims.
So I repeat ban Andrew Coates from the left, excommunicate the tosser.
While on the issue of freedom of religion, freedom to erect minarets or to vote against the erection of minarets, the issue of Yale University Press declining to reprint the ‘Motoons’ themselves in a book specifically about the Mohammed Cartoons Controversy in Denmark is likely to be of interest to some:
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2009/11/cartoon_controv_1.php
I added a note to the effect that reprinting the ‘Motoons’ in a book intended to be offered widely on public sale internationally might not be terribly clever. Some fanatic might take it into his head to firebomb the bookshop or throw acid into a shop assistant’s face. In any case, they can be found within seconds on the internet, even here on the Gulf.
It was over the “… someone might thow acid into a shop assistant’s face …” consideration that a cutout of Mohandas Gandhi did NOT feature on the cover of the Beatles’ ‘Sergeant Pepper’ album.
Is Ann On aware of ‘free speech’ and the need to allow opinions that you may disagree with to be voiced? Her (?) posts suggests otherwise.
Ann on seems to be freely pointing out Dave T’s position rather than trying to curtail free speech unless I am missing something?
So I thank Ann on for bringing this to light, power is knowledge and all that.
The political class in Switzerland is upset and angry that the Swiss people – or, at least, those of the Swiss people who chose to show up and vote – let them down:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8388793.stm
The members of the political class, who – like the Norwegian political class – are eager to join the EU if only the ignorant and suspicious people would let them, may well choose to find a clever way around this.
Wait and see.
What a genuinely pleasant surprise to see Modernity taling sense.
But how has dave Osler manageged to get himself in the position of being criticised for Islamophobia by David T !!!!
Maybe I wasn’t very clear – I certainly don’t understand Sue’s response, but maybe that’s because I did not spell out what I meant.
David T helps runs a website, “Harry’s Place”, which publishes a great deal of right wing and anti-Islamic propaganda, so I think he is not a good person to talk about “Progressives” carefully choosing their “allies”. David is saying that the Minaret ban goes to far – although his main concern seems to be that it goes to far and so gives the Moslem Brotherhood something to campaign about rather that it is a bad thing in itself. I am suggesting this is because his own allies include Douglas Murray and the Centre for Social Cohesion: David T’s website has published a defence of Murray’s reactionary, anti-moslem speech. It was not just a defence of his right to make the speech – I am sure we can all agree on Murray’s right to churn out his nasty bilge – but a defence of the speech itself. David T’s website claimed the speech itself was about “equal rights”, that the call for “stopping immigration from Moslem countries”, was a defence of “equal rights” – (if you think about it this is a kind of a ‘rights for whites’ type argument)
If you want more examples of the reactionary nature of David T’s website there are many. Those that jump into my mind include, for example a whole series of articles he hosted which suggested the Arabic language itself was deficient and full of deceit – “It’s not like European languages, which are basically verbal ways to convey information on who did what, where, when, how and why” , or the most “liberal” of his website colleagues trying to decide wether there was a “socialist case” for “assassinating” Yasser Arafat.
So I am saying that David T should clean his own stable before advising any “progressives” about their “allies”.
Ann On is not being accurate.
Douglas Murray is not anti-Muslim.
He sees a clear case for restricting Third World immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular because of the harm that mass Third World immigration – and particularly Muslim immigration – inflicts on British society.
Imagine for a moment that ALL the immigration into Britain from the subcontinent over the last 60 years had been of Pakistani and Indian and Sri Lankan Christians.
As for David T. and HARRY’S PLACE, he publishes all sorts of views, some of them well-thought-out and others downright bloody nuts.
Of course, there would still have been strains and stresses about housing, education and health services but there would have been little or no cultural antagonism or de facto segregation.
No demented preachers or terrorist plots or suicide bombers, either.
Bill Corr,
I am so glad you think some of the views at Harry’s place are well thought out.
Yes I think Bill’s argument that Murray is a good man and so is David T really clinches the argument. Friends like these…
I think Andy is being a little unfair on Dave O – Dave O says the ban is bad, and may encourage the anti-Muslim right . David T’s sudden “defend the Minarets ” call is actually a great welcome to the crazy world of David T- he says the ban is terrible because it might …..lead to a mass campaign by the Swiss branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is not a bad thing in itself, only that it is too clumsy and may help the Muslim Brotherhood (Swiss Branch). So it is not the bigotry and harm in the ban, the encouragement to bigots, it is the possibility that the MB might get somewhere. Presumably everything in David T’s world is judged against “will it help the Muslim Brotherhood” – except, oddly, the one crazy idea that really did help the Brotherhood – the Iraq war, which saw the Americans begging the Muslim Brotherhood to join the government, and gave the Brotherhood something to campaing on internationally
there would have been little or no cultural antagonism or de facto segregation.
No demented preachers or terrorist plots
Ever heard of Ian Paisley?
“Douglas Murray is not anti-Muslim.
He sees a clear case for restricting Third World immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular”
Has anyone else spotted the flaw in this?
Bill, I hope you are not a lawyer!
Anon said,
“Maybe I wasn’t very clear – I certainly don’t understand Sue’s response, but maybe that’s because I did not spell out what I meant.”
No mate it is because she is mental.
Bill may or may not be a lawyer. He is however, undoubtably a fascist. Hence the previous linking to the fascist site American Renaissance.
The really ghastly news today is that The One, on whom so many fanciful hopes – not all of them American – were focussed, has decided to expand the war in Afghanistan, rather than to ensure that every Afghan over the age of three possesses a serviceable weapon before abandoning the appalling Afghans to their self-decided fate.
No, Marko, I’m not a lawyer, alas. One hardly needs to be a lawyer to spot a fallacy.
Since I’m married to a non-white, I hardly qualify as a genuine fascist within-the-meaning-of-the-act, but that hardly matters. Anyway, doesn’t being a ‘real’ fascist involve wearing all sorts of exciting Tom of Finland / ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ / Robert Mapplethorpe leather-boy kit? I certainly fail THAT test!
In one discussion on the ‘American Renaissance’ site, I was called a Marxist Troll so it balances nicely with being called a ‘fascist’ here. A ‘Marxist Troll’ indeed – the oldest Trots here will recall Tariq Ali and his chums running a magazine called ‘Black Dwarf’ many decades ago.
On the mosque – minaret – Islamification issue, the doubleplusungoodthinkful are usually among those most willing to blurt out the truth, or something close to it:
http://bnp.org.uk/2009/12/eu-united-nations-and-turkey-gang-up-on-switzerland-following-minaret-ban/
The goodthinkful political class of Switzerland, with the shrieks of anguish of the capitalist class ringing in their ears, will do all they can to thwart the will of the Swiss people [i.e. the majority of those present-and-voting]
Marko – there is a difference between ‘restricting’ and ‘stopping’ – if one tells a child to restrict her intake of ginger buns, she does not have to cease and desist, simply to moderate her intake. My guess is that Murray wouldn’t mind a few dozen well-behaved Ismaelis, Ahmedis and Sufis arriving every year.
It is interesting to follow the various opinions on this Great Minaret Debate between well-informed people here and on Pickled Politics and on HP.
Over on Socialist Unity, there is nothing but sound and fury, tales told by an idiot and signifying nothing. Not just about Islam and Islamisation but about almost everything.
Nicely put Ann On. It is genuinely surreal that anyone can think that the main problem with this bigotry is that it might held the Muslim Brotherhood. What is doubly surreal is the idea of progressives setting up checkpoints to ascertain which Muslims are allowed to protest about this.