A friend pointed me to this article, Outrage on Swiss minaret vote, but how do Muslim states handle churches?. You don’t need to click, you know the score. To be a kuffar in a non-Muslim land isn’t always the most pleasant experience. Instead of imagining, you could probably just ask a black person who lived in the South before the 1960s what life was like, as that probably is a good analog to the lot of Copts in Egypt (or, Shia in Saudi Arabia). There is variation. Southeast Asian nations have large non-Muslim minorities, and in Indonesia Muslims can convert to other religions. But even in Malaysia, where 1/3 of the population is non-Muslim, and which is rather tolerant country set next to the “core” Muslim nations of the Middle East, Islam has primacy in the national culture.
But for Muslim majority countries (more than 50% Muslim), with Albania as an outlier, you need to grade on a curve. Actually, you don’t need to grade on a curve, but then you would observe that several Muslim nations are as officially atheistic as North Korea excepting their one God. Looking at discussions online there are those who praise the Swiss (generally on the Right) and those who abhor them (generally on the Left). The issue of double standards has cropped up, with the Right pointing out that on a universal scale Switzerland is quite tolerant indeed. But for the Left, a double standard is necessary, because two wrongs don’t make a right, and civilized nations should not be judged by the values which barbarians uphold. Oh wait, no good thinking liberal would actually say in public that Western nations are civilized and Muslim nations are in the main barbaric, but that’s really the implicit framework. When it comes to religious liberty Muslim nations are invariably in the “Special Kids” class. They have their own Special Olympics, whereby autocratic Syria dominated by a heretical quasi-Muslim sect is a champion of pluralism, serving as a haven for fleeing Iraqi Christians.
For all the talk of multiculturalism, no one really accepts this on a deep level. There is always a standard of values. Some of the most vociferous Left multiculturalists in fact are strong believers in the distinction between the civilized and barbaric, they simply draw lines closer in. For example, “heteronormative Red State patriarchal Christian” is a long-winded way of saying heathen or infidel. To many multicultural Leftists I suspect non-Western cultures are like the mythical Prester John, a potential ally against the near enemy. But like Pester John the ally is an illusion and fantasy, just as Western Leftist’s pretense toward cultural neutrality and acceptance of differences is predicated on fundamentally “Eurocentric” norms and values.
Note: In regards to the Swiss minaret issue I probably lean to Rod Dreher’s position. They really need to address the structural issues at some point.
It’s an intriguing proposition. Accepting intolerance because “they can’t be expected to do any better” is a pretty derogatory point of view.
At a minimum the Swiss government appears to have become the equivalent of a homeowners’ association concerned about what color you paint your house or how well you maintain your lawn because they’re afraid of declining property values.
Otherwise, it looks like they’re just punishing their muslim population for the actions of muslim dominated governments in other parts of the world.
It sounds like a little excessive case of international transference if you ask me.
the swiss actually have local referendums on whether people should be given citizenship. or did last i checked.
Otherwise, it looks like they’re just punishing their muslim population for the actions of muslim dominated governments in other parts of the world.
this is part of it. but european muslims are not all anodyne. the most famous swiss muslim is tariq ramadan, and though his stuff in english is very abstruse (he’s a french speaker) and not nearly as radical as what you would find in the muslim world, i don’t think any non-muslim reading it would feel comfortable with the underlying presuppositions. one could say that about religion in general, but muslim majority states have a consistent habit of repressing minority religious viewpoints.
though if it is true that the majority of swiss muslims are balkan refugees, the transference objection is pretty strong.
The message really is one of “adapt or leave”, the minaret was just very nicely chosen as a very concrete and visible embodiment of that issue.
The European Left is mostly multicultural and literally operates under the assumption that a street scene of women in burqas and bearded men dressed in traditional clothing chattering away in Arabic around a bazaar towered over by a massive mosque with its loud calls for prayer is as European as any other scene. Needless to say majorities in most European countries do not agree. That scene is perceived as an unacceptable loss of a sense of home, identity and culture. Culture is of course what modern European countries essentially formed around, without German culture or French culture there really is no sense in having something called Germany or France. The multicultural Left is probably happy to give up such things as nation states, the average European isn’t as the Swiss vote showed.
It’s not the scene in itself which would anger many Europeans as much as it is the fact that it accompanies a demographic pressure that has “orientalized” many European cities in the last decades and shows no sign of slowing down. Couple that with the known terrible realities of life in the Middle East and the cruelties all too common in those societies and Islam’s previous attempts to conquer Europe and the still prevalent rhetoric of Islamic world domination and you have a threat scenario.
People know how life is in Saudi Arabia, people know how women are treated in those societies and people hear how “honor killings” and the hyper-masculine aggression of many males in those cultures have reached our shores already. Demographic pressure, religious conversion appeals and aggressive supremacist posture scare the locals. If the locals weren’t white Europeans this would not shock anyone in the slightest. The idea of being a stranger in your own land is a horrible one to almost everyone, no matter where they are from. The idea of being a stranger in your own land who might be told how to behave by foreign intruders is probably a worst case scenario.
Europeans are asked to accommodate Muslims at their cost now, how far would it go once Muslims form big power blocs in these European countries? The numbers are moving in the direction. The Left calls it fear-mongering, racist bogeyman and all that. There’s a problem with the race card though, a lot of people who have a problem with Islam’s expansion of influence have no problem with Chinese or Indians or non-Muslim black Africans. Really, it’s about culture and it being the glue holding our societies together. Culture affects laws, culture affects education, economy, everything.
The Left thinks they can have the West without the cultures that make up the civilization we call the West, they dislike us (and themselves) for colonialism, the patriarchy and what else but at the same time enjoy the fruits of its advances without thinking or gratitude. And really I believe the flaw in their thinking derives from being intellectually homeless. They are the rebellious teens of the West who reject their elders’ mores for all their flaws and thus have no cultural anchor anymore and like to pretend they exist as individual free agents unburdened by any relations to country or ethnicity or any particular national culture. As a result they fail to comprehend the basic “nitty gritty” of human group relations and entirely underestimate impulses of group loyalty and traditionalism especially in outsider groups who they identify as fellow victims of their hated elders. Since Muslims are identified as a “victim group” they can’t be bad and if they do bad things it clearly is the West’s fault and not really indicative of any problem with them, if people point out the obvious flaws in that it’s just nefarious designs. Their paradigm is so determined in its anger at their own Western ancestors that they can literally not comprehend that there could be an outside threat which could end up hurting all of us. Outsiders are cool and good, it’s us who are the problem. All the way to the Caliphate (to put it polemically). By the time they realize what happens to outsiders in that society and culture it’ll be too late.
Europeans are attacking a symptom of the problem, not the cause. If they fear Islam, the solution is to have a strong immigration policy that sharply limits people from certain countries. Instead, they want to ban minarets and headscarves and pretend that the problem will go away. Violating Muslims’ right to free expression will just radicalize them more.
@David Hume
Tariq is a pretty smooth debater who regularly wipes the floor against adversaries on french and swiss tv. I heard his reaction to the referendum and poor tariq was dumbfounded, lol. I’d never heard him sound so defeated !
I had a relative who came over from switzerland the other day and we somehow got talking over a drink about politics. My relative is a biracial ( half black half white) swiss guy who’s not hurting at all over there . Great job and plenty of money to travel and enjoy life.
The guy started talking some half formed cant about how it was so bad that islam was being persecuted in switzerland and he asked me if i had ever heard of tariq ramadan.
I could tell that my relative had probably *never* spoken to anyone who did not defer to islam !
As for me, I could hardly understand why a non believer black guy from switzerland would feel the need to side with the poor muslims. I must have shocked him because we were supposed to meet again for beers and whatnot while he was here but I never heard from him again !
The french speaking internet is really abuzz about this whole thing.
Lastly, take a look at the bottom paragraph at the link, which is an excerpt from a reader’s letter :
http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/ab9deaee-df8b-11de-ae68-f7996b0b22ba/Apr%C3%A8s_le_vote_sur_les_minarets_la_pol%C3%A9mique_enfle
For those who can’t speak french: This is a left wing ashamed-to-be-a-swiss kinda guy who’s quoting Carlyle on the evils of democracy !
You wouldn’t believe a comment that i read : Some left wing “ashamed to be swiss” guy actually quoted Carlyle on the evils of democracy !
Love the Prester John precedent. It helps tone down my anger at the multicultis who can’t tolerate a smiling fundamentalist Christian because he doesn’t tolerate death-bent Muslim exclusivists. I’m enjoying viewing the multiculti as a lab rat disected by future meta-historians rather than as a colleague who should be capable of ideological coherence.
As for the issue at hand, the minaret thing is a wonderful though tiny step towards Democracy and towards shosing a group of bad guys their place. I’m as much a fan of the Umayyads and Abassids as anyone but political Islam today is a problem and the m,ulticulties need to be made to swallow their own vomit while the primitive masses use their lesser minds and educations in the service of stomping down at their borders and saying, “No.”
I live in Turkey, which is about as open-minded or “live-and-let-live” a society as your going to find in the Muslim world. About five years ago, I knew some Christians who attended a storefront church in Ankara which wound up being fire-bombed. This was not an international incident, and I’m guessing you never heard about it on CNN.
In 2006, a Catholic priest in Trabzon was shot to death while praying by a young man shouting “Allahu Akbar.” These things happen. Most people here see it as a shame, but some don’t.
In 2007, three workers at a bible publishing company in Malatya (two Turks and a German) were hog-tied, tortured with knives, then executed by Muslim extremists, or whatever you want to call them.
The Turkish government restricts the activities of the Eastern Orthodox Chruch, and closed its seminary in Istanbul in 1971. Despite repeated requests, the government refuses to allow it to re-open. I could be wrong about this, but what I remember having read some years ago is that while the Orthodox church can maintain their already existing sanctuaries, it can’t build any new ones, or at least the government makes it overwhelmingly difficult to do so. I believe it would be nearly impossible under current circumstances in Turkey to construct anything that architecturally resembled a church. I can’t say that for a fact, but as somebody whose lived here for six years, I’d bet money that the government would find a reason to stop it.
Hence, I can’t get particularly worked up about the Swiss minaret ban. As one Swiss supporter of the ban put it, if people want to see minarets they can go to Turkey, for one-fifth the price of visiting Switzerland.
I should say in conclusion that I’m not Greek nor of Greek ancestry, nor am I particularly religious. I like living in Turkey, find most of the people here pleasant and easy-going enough, and have never felt personally threatened as a non-Muslim living here. My wife is Turkish, and my kids go to school here. So I’ve chosen to live here, without regrets. But the idea that countries such as Switzerland are more intolerant of “outsider” religions than are Muslim societies is a real stretch. And countries like Saudi Arabia, are of course, absolutely off the charts when it comes to intolerance, religous bigotry, and pig-blind arrogance over the fact that Allah decided to place their nearly uninhabitable shithole of a country on top of a big oilfield.
Oh well, I guess you go with what you’ve got.
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@John
The Swiss already have one of the strictest immigration policies in the world.
They are attacking “the problem” from both ends.
I have not followed the issue closely (all intelligent people will stop reading now – bye!), but the issue that hasn’t been discussed at the forums I’ve been to is the concern that the Moslems will try to subtly and not so subtly reshape the skylines of the European cities that are currently welcoming them with open arms.
It is not too big of a stretch to imagine that the most distinctive feature of any given European city could conceivably be an enormous, minaretified mosque in the not-too-distant future.
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