Swiss minaret ban gains momentum

Thats pretty sad. Conservatives make me sick

format_quote Originally Posted by Supreme

You can understand their concerns, however; no Muslim country (well, Saudi Arabia, but that never counts) has banned anything to do with churches; beautiful churches exist in Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and the like, yet the populaces of those countries aren't asking for a ban on churches.

In Egypt copts find it very difficult not only to build new churches but also to repair the old ones. If I am right in true islamic state minorities can't build new temples, they must use the ones already built or Im wrong? Besides, that swiss law will ban only building new minarets, and those already existing will stand further.
Of course that this new ban is against freedom of religion, but we traditional catholics, orthodox jews and muslims all agree that freedom of religion is against our religions, its a man made doctrine created by the enemies of the faith.

Swiss referendum 'reflects unease with Islam'

Comment by Tariq Ramadan:

My compatriots' vote to ban minarets is fuelled by fear

The Swiss have voted not against towers, but Muslims. Across Europe, we must stand up to the flame-fanning populists.

It wasn't meant to go this way. For months we had been told that the efforts to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland were doomed. The last surveys suggested around 34% of the Swiss population would vote for this shocking initiative. Last Friday, in a meeting organised in Lausanne, more than 800 students, professors and citizens were in no doubt that the referendum would see the motion rejected, and instead were focused on how to turn this silly initiative into a more positive future.

Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people's fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?

There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.

Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.

At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.

Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?

The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.

Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe

Source

format_quote Originally Posted by Amadeus85

In Egypt copts find it very difficult not only to build new churches but also to repair the old ones. .

You are so very full of crap. I am asking you once again to refrain from speaking about places where you have never been and know nothing about.. the way you use the term copt around like it is a religion already tells me how so very full of **** and under-educated you are!

on a separate note: I think swiss Muslims should do what they can to show solidarity and get these cretins where it hurts.. I don't know by what means, could be economic or what not, but it shouldn't be made to slide.. the rest of the Muslim world should show solidarity as well by banning products or whatever else diplomatic relations.. I really think all these little crusades and buttons being pushed here and there is going to come crashing on Europe very soon. The Muslim world when awakened and it is stirring as we speak will be a force to be reckoned with.. if they are looking for an Armageddon, this is then a very good start!


May Allah swt make Muslims victorious in every spot of the earth

ameen

format_quote Originally Posted by Gossamer skye

You are so very full of crap. I am asking you once again to refrain from speaking about places where you have never been and know nothing about.. the way you use the term copt around like it is a religion already tells me how so very full of **** and under-educated you are!

on a separate note: I think swiss Muslims should do what they can to show solidarity and get these cretins where it hurts.. I don't know by what means, could be economic or what not, but it shouldn't be made to slide.. the rest of the Muslim world should show solidarity as well by banning products or whatever else diplomatic relations.. I really think all these little crusades and buttons being pushed here and there is going to come crashing on Europe very soon. The Muslim world when awakened and it is stirring as we speak will be a force to be reckoned with.. if they are looking for an Armageddon, this is then a very good start!


May Allah swt make Muslims victorious in every spot of the earth

ameen

Skye, You have quoted only short part of my post, and the one which is, I guess, convenient to You. It doesnt change the fact that muslims in muslim world make it hard for christians to build churches, from Morocco to Indonesia, and I accept this fact, because this is a muslim world. I would expect same understanding for situation in Europe, and forget the secular constitutions, because constitution which goes against natural laws is just a piece of paper.

format_quote Originally Posted by Amadeus85

Skye, You have quoted only short part of my post, and the one which is, I guess, convenient to You. It doesnt change the fact that muslims in muslim world make it hard for christians to build churches, from Morocco to Indonesia, and I accept this fact, because this is a muslim world. I would expect same understanding for situation in Europe, and forget the secular constitutions, because constitution which goes against natural laws is just a piece of paper.

There isn't much substance to what you write.. other than that, this has nothing to do with building churches or secularism, even if I were to accept that at face value, it is about removing a lively part of your existing churches .. say I go to Egypt and demand that they remove alters from churches and push for a state wide ban.. mind you 'Midan al gamai3' in Egypt literally has more churches than mosques even though it is entitled the mosque square ...

let's make true your wishes and cut down the over-sized monstrosities that have blemished the Muslim identity in Islamic countries ey.. Let's see how well that will be perceived

a frank waste to mar Egypt with pagan imageries and to waste perfectly gorgeous sites overlooking the water with such eye sores!

what a joke. really, its humorous.

They only have three mosques there or so, it must be really threatening.. hope this campaign too blows in their face insha'Allah as the interest increases in Islam.. the harder they try, the more more people convert to Islam insha'Allah

^ lol, yes it usually goes that way, innit :X

format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar

The Swiss people have traded their integrity over such trivial issue and a non-existant problem.

They have shown their true color.

Mhmm, so You wanna tell me that Islam is not privileged religion in Indonesia right...?

format_quote Originally Posted by KAding

2.2% of the population is Muslim. There are close to a hundred mosques in Switzerland.

Or to use your kind of language: "you are so full of crap"

Ah, but there are only three or four minarets in the whole of Switzerland regardless of of the percentage of Muslims and they seem so threatening, that it can only elicit a guffaw from the rest of us!

There are only four minarets among the tens of thousands of church spires in Switzerland but the SVP campaigned against them as a symbol of Islamic political influence, which it claimed could eventually undermine the nation's Christian values and democracy.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225805496535

so I'd still say it is you that is full of crap

all the best of course