Minarets in Switzerland

[Tuckervill]

Can someone please explain to me why minarets are such an issue in Switzerland? Do they feel the same way about crosses and steeples or other religious architecture?

I'm having trouble understanding how architecture is equated with ideology, and therefore banned. Maybe I don't understand minarets.

Karen

[shootingstar]

I interpreted the issue with some of the Swiss in power, as fear of Muslimization. Big question is would they see several Buddhist temples in their country as a threat to their political security or societal values? Despite their avowed freedom of religion.

Perhaps alpinerabbit TE member can comment since she lives in Switzerland.

I hope things have changed in Switzerland in past 20 years. I heard slightly differently from a Canadian woman who lived and worked there for 7 years. She worked for the Canadian embassy. She did have a finely tuned sense of 'social justice' and could sense inequities in certain social situations if such situations arose.

She was/still is fluent in German (and French) since that is her mother tongue. Hence socialized with locals there, got to know some interesting stuff. Some of it was not pleasant....there is an underlying paranoia by some Swiss who have been there for generations..of 'foreigners' or recent immigrants. Things would be different or tolerated, I suppose if one has a healthy amount of money or more "Westernized".

Let's hope that the official desired ban on minarets represents a few folks there, not all.

[Tuckervill]

I interpreted the issue with some of the Swiss in power, as fear of Muslimization.

Ya, I'm surprised they are so overt about it. That's the part I don't understand.

Apparently a majority of the folks DID support the ban, since it passed.

Karen

[PscyclePath]

Western Europe has a lot of immigrants who have come from Muslim countries in search of a better life. When I lived in Germany in the late 80s, there were large ethnic communities of Turks moving there, much as Mexicans come here to the U.S. looking for a better way of life. These folks often retain a lot of their customs and dress from their home countries, as well as their religion.

There's no strict separation of church and state in Western Europe, like we have here (which is one reason why we're over here and they're still over there for the past 230 some-odd years). The major churches, Catholic and Protestant, receive tax funds from the government, and in return, a lot of the social services provided by human services agencies in U.S. are provided by the churches in Europe. Islam is "different," and they're somehow behind all those crazy jihadists running around back in the Islamic countries as well as exporting their violence to Europe. Switzerland (& Germany) is a place where your neighbors get all out of sorts about you running your lawn mower too early ona Saturday morning, much less the howling Arabic call to prayer at o'dark-thirty every day of the week. Your average western European just flat doesn't cotton to that kind of carrying on.

Think of all the uproar and outrage that our current politicians are raising about ILLEGAL ALIENS!! here in Arkansas, as well as the other states. The Swiss ban on minarets stems from the same sort of xenophobia, only the European countries often don't have the same constitutional protections as the U.S., and they have the community solidarity to get those sorts of laws introduced and enacted.

I loved living in Europe for the six years that I was there... but one thing it really impressed on me is how precious are the constitutional privileges that we have here.

This is definitely not a PC description of the issues, but it is my observations from living in those sorts of communities for an extended time...

Tom

[shootingstar]

Well, it's always better people express what they really feel.

One of the Sikh temples in a surburb of Vancouver, just recently elected a young woman to provide leadership. Kinda cool. She sounds like a bright young woman, pursuing her university math degree here locally.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1365825/

Could you imagine your 19-yr. daughter providing such leadership and power brokering with the older, traditional men?

[Tuckervill]

(Tom, do you know who/what organization puts up those anti-illegals bulletin boards outside of Conway all the time? Have you noticed them? Someone with bucks to spend I guess.)

I really just can't fathom anyone making minarets an issue in my part of the world (they would complain about SOMETHING, but it wouldn't be architecture). We have many many churches and other places of worship around here. I happen to think some of them are hideously ostentatious to the point of obscene. But, I'm trying to imagine if someone started a petition to keep a mosque out based on the existence of minarets. Wouldn't they know that eventually someone would try to put limits on THEIR freedom to build their place of worship?

Perhaps it is because there are FEWER religious people in Switzerland, not more, and so the non-religious don't have a dog in the fight?

Karen

[Tuckervill]

I'm pretty sure my town doesn't have a Sikh temple. Or a mosque. Or a Jewish temple. I don't even think there is a UU congregation. But there must be some nearby (Fayetteville), near the campus. I have seen some people in traditional dress from other cultures.

Karen

[OakLeaf]

But, I'm trying to imagine if someone started a petition to keep a mosque out based on the existence of minarets. Wouldn't they know that eventually someone would try to put limits on THEIR freedom to build their place of worship?

Uh..... no. Sorry to be blunt, but bigots by definition can't or won't see beyond the end of their own noses.

Every time our newspaper runs a feature about a Hindu or Muslim holiday celebration, for instance, the reader comments are just appalling. I mean, the unvarnished racism of the reader comments is *always* appalling, but specifically in the context of religion, public attitudes are no different in the USA than what we're seeing from Switzerland.

W/R/T Tom's comment - I don't think you can paint all of Europe with the same brush concerning constitutional protections, but you certainly have a point. Another thing to remember is that secularism in Europe is very, very different from what it is in the USA. Where we're more about "freedom to," they take more of a "freedom from" religion approach.

[shootingstar]

Well, it happened just a few days ago, Oak in local press. The local press was happily reporting the fact that China will make it easier for their folks to visit British Columbia as tourists.

The barrage of some negative, dumb comments at end of article is amazing but not surprising.
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/c...286/story.html

Demographic makeup of Vancouver and Toronto is here, based on the latest census:
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/english/c...CSDFilter=5000

It means Metro Vancouver & several suburbs= 2+ million, of which 380,000+ Chinese descent, 180,000+ South Asian descent.

Toronto is Metro Toronto ( including Oshawa, Pickering, Mississauga, etc.) 5+ million. And see the rest in terms of realities.

Of course, some of those numbers would include international students, 4th-generation Canadians (some who haven't even been to Asia yet), recent landed immigrants (No, we don't call them "aliens". That truly is not a Canadian term. It's "landed immigrant". Or "foreigner" if one truly doesn't have any formal papers to live in Canada temporarily. The term, "illegal aliens" is inaccurate in Canada. They are not extraterrestial creatures. The word "alien" if my history memory serves me right, was used for the Chinese immigrants in the early 1900's in North America.)

Even I was surprised by the numbers.. I will confirm anecdotally: I didn't see much of South Asian-Canadian cyclists at 5 different bike commuter locations throughout City of Vancouver, where I volunteered this spring and fall. Many do live out in the suburbs...where it's possible to buy the all-Canadian dream of a decent home and have a car.

There's a whole whack of outreach work on cycling ..if the interest isn't there already.

Sorry, I'm trying to make this cycling-related.

[lph]

As some of the folks on my local bike forum pointed out - the shocking thing is not that they voted 52 % against minarets, but that religious expression was considered an appropriate subject for a referendum.

It's not as if the opposite situation would be minarets popping up everywhere. I'm assuming here that they have similar laws concerning building, planning, noise pollution etc that would govern any new public building. But this isn't a political forum so I'll shut up.

Switzerland is very unusual in Europe, they have a lot of referendums. I don't know much about how it works in practice. Maybe alpinerabbit can tell us more.

[Tuckervill]

LPH, YES! That it is something to be discussed and voted on? Really?

I know there are bigots in the US. I live in the South. However, I think many of them have learned that they are in the minority, and they best keep their mouth shut. Most of them that I know express their opinions privately, and don't petition or campaign actively against other religions. There is a strong anti-illegals sentiment here, as Tom suggested, but I really think they're ignored until they can't be.

Karen

[channlluv]

I think all those comment sections just prove that there are a lot of really ignorant people in the world as yet, and they all seem to have access to the same Internet I do, which makes reading comment sections really frustrating.

Roxy

[bmccasland]

My Dad, bless his pointed head, is one of those who threw a royal hissy fit - forwarding some email trash to everyone he knew - complaining about the Celebrate Eiad (sp??) stamp. I pointed out that the stamp has been out for a while, as it's 42 cents, and postage is now 44 cents, and wasn't our country (USA) founded on religious freedom??

Funny he didn't reply, as he usually does.

For my sanity, I generally don't open his emails if I see his name as the sender and FW in the subject line. But that one snuck past my self-censorship.

This is the same man who explained to me why a black family was living in the house next to us on base in Michigan. We had just moved from Louisiana to Michigan (and I was entering 6th grade), and next to Major B., a pilot, who happened to be black. I remember Dad explaining that Major B. earned the right to live in officer's country and that the military didn't segregate neighborhoods. I've come to realize that Dad must have been siething inside - but on the outside he was singing the company song.

Yeah, he's my Dad, and I love him. Even if he's a real jerk sometimes.

[Trek420]

.... I know there are bigots in the US. I live in the South. However, I think many of them have learned that they are in the minority, and they best keep their mouth shut. Most of them that I know express their opinions privately, and don't petition or campaign actively against other religions.

As someone who considers myself thrice blessed; Jewish, Female and Gay I'm very aware of the existence of hate groups. The green dots/areas on the map below are people who pledged to stand up against hate.

The red dots are documented hate groups.

http://www.splcenter.org/center/petitions/standstrong/

Pretty much everywhere. I've seen it, met it, lived it, hear it daily. Hate is very ugly .... be a green dot please

[KnottedYet]

I know there are bigots in the US. I live in the South. However, I think many of them have learned that they are in the minority, and they best keep their mouth shut. Most of them that I know express their opinions privately, and don't petition or campaign actively against other religions.

They just go to other churches on Sunday and kill people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxvil...hurch_shooting
Or go to other states and protest in front of other churches, schools, synagogues, and Jewish daycare centers. (including mine)
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/407211_hate0614.html

Kind of a bummer for the rest of us, really.
So we do things like this: http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/

Knottedyet - very very proud to be a Unitarian.