Swiss voters took a stand today in a special referendum and voted to ban the construction of new minarets, the high rise Muslim towers that issue the Islamic call to prayer five times a day at earsplitting volume.
The referendum was supported by the Swiss People's Party,now the largest party in Switzerland, which wants tighter reins on Muslim immigration into Switzerland , and passed overall by almost a two to one majority. In some cantons, the vote was as high as 68%.
Here are a few quotes, courtesy of feminist Phyliss Chessler,who reveals that non-Muslim Swiss women were overwhelmingly opposed:
Julia Werner, a local housewife said:
“If we give them a minaret, they’ll have us all wearing burqas. Before you know it, we’ll have sharia law and women being stoned to death in our streets. We won’t be Swiss any more.”
And, Julia Onken, a Swiss feminist leader, warned that failure to ban minarets would be “a signal of the state’s acceptance of the oppression of women.” She sent out 4,000 emails attacking Muslims who condone forced marriage, honour killings and beating women.”
They must have been taking a close look at what's going on in Britain and Sweden.
A ban on minarets is very different than a ban on mosques. Minarets, which Islamist Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan aptly referred to as 'Muslim Bayonets' are designed expressly to show Islamic dominance and have a quite different effect from the ringing of church bells on Sunday. The minarets are designed to tower over most buildings in a neighborhood, and the muzzeins use highly amplified loud speakers to blast out the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer five times daily. And the wording of the Adhan trumpets the superiority of Islam over all other religions:
"Allah is most great. Allah is most great.
I testify that there is no God but Allah.
I testify that there is no God but Allah.
I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
Come to prayer! Come to prayer!
Come to Allah! Come to Allah!
Allah is most great. Allah is most great.
There is none worthy of respect except Allah..
Like I said, a quite different message from hearing church bells on a Sunday.
Minarets are not necessary in the least, if their supposed purpose is to call worshipers to prayer. The same thing could be accomplished by posting a schedule in the mosque or the local Muslim paper.And why should a 'call to prayer' be necessary at all? Religious Christians understand when Church services or Mass is scheduled and show up accordingly.Religious Jews pray in a minyan three times a day like clockwork and light sabbath candles each Friday night at a set time without the necessity of highly amplified loudspeakers calling them to do so.
But then, they're not attempting to assert their domination over people who worship differently then they do, or take over their countries either, are they?
The Swiss have decided that tolerance has its limits where what amounts to cultural imperialism is concerned. If some Muslims insist that a minaret is an absolute necessity for their religious observances, there are a great many countries available where these Muslims can live exactly as they wish.
Certainly they have more religious freedom by staying in Switzerland than Jews or Christians in almost all of the Islamic world!
There may be hope for Europe yet.
13 comments:
By far the majority of Muslims in the world live in tolerant Islamic countries like Malaysia, India, and Indonesia.
The intolerant Islamic countries are those propped up by the West - Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc..
So the Swiss have just given a kick in the teeth for over a billion secular Muslims worldwide whose feelings are now bound to be hurt -
If the Swiss really wanted to fight bad practices then they should not help the dictators of the world to hide and stash away the billions looted from the poor - that is profit from money stolen from the destitute and impoverished.
There are only four Minarets in Switzerland catering for 400,000 Muslims (mostly European and Turkish) who are secular and peace loving.
Concentrate, you good and honest Swiss folk, not on phoney issues like Minarets but big ones like passing a law banning your banks helping Tax evaders from every country in the world, including Great Britain.
Anyway we want Muslims to reform should we not set an example, with our tolerance.
Maybe the US & other nations should follow Swiss style direct democracy?
The Swiss just voted to ban minarets on mosques and this is a great exercise of their unique form of direct democracy regardless of your views on the subject. But my question is why do the Swiss get to overrule their politicians and parliament and here in the US, we don’t have that right?
Let’s bring Swiss style direct democracy to the United States so Americans can vote on the Wall Street bailouts, government health care, whether to audit or abolish the FED, or require Congress declare war before we invade another country. Read why Switzerland is free and America is not and help restore citizen control over the US government and Congress currently under control of special interests. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/holland9.1.1.html
Good for Switzerland ! Parts of Europe have awakened !
--dragon/dinosaur
This is certainly encouraging. We can only hope and pray that it is a sign of things to come. There may be hope for Europe yet. I pray there is hope for America as well.
Hello Anon - 7:56 PM,
I find several things troubling about your viewpoint.
While I agree with you about the West propping up dictators, unless you are advocating a wholesale re-colonization of these countries ( I doubt you are), there is very little the West can do.
There is a culture here that supports tyranny, and I personally think it has much to do with the kind of mindset Islam tends to promote. Even the countries you mention as 'tolerant' bear that out..in Malaysia, the Chinese non-Islamic minority is subjected to special laws designed to favor Muslims, in Indonesia Christians in places like Aceh regularly suffer persecution and India,with a ten per cent Muslim population can hardly be classifed as a 'Muslim country.'
Second, I find your attempt to blame the Swiss who are selling a product - in this case, banking services combined with confidentiality - for the crimes some of their customers commit.
In psychological terms, this is known as displacement. Or to put it a bit plainer, there's no sense blaming the banker instead of the scum stealing money from their own people in the first place.
Lastly,minarets are neither an issue for the secular Muslims you cite or for religious Muslims..it's about politics and domination, and there is nothing stopping Muslims from checking their watches to find out what time to pray.
If some Muslims insist that they need a minaret to fulfill their religious obligations and it is of such supreme importance to them, the last time I checked Switzerland had open borders and there are a great many countries available where these Muslims can live in their chosen fashion.
Certainly they have more options even staying in Switzerland than Jews or Christians in almost all of the Islamic world!
And now that I think of it, th ewahabi doctrine that many of these mosques preach,with its built-in hatred of Jews and other unbelievers might also have a little something to do with people's reluctance to vote for further encroachments on their western societies.
Tolerance tends to beget tolerance, you know.
Regards,
Rob
This is a Zionist plot and will fail like other policies...
eeeeek!!! It's the JOOOOOS!
Yes anonymous, it's all the fault of the Zionists and the tennis players.
Malaysia IS NOT TOLERANT. There is an indirect ban on the construction of church and not church bells. Existing church are built hundred of years ago and no new church will ever be given a permit. One church has applied for permit for the past twenty years in Malaysia, and up until now they are not given permits.
They are no tolerant muslims countries only lies they tell you.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, church built by indigenious people who converted are destroyed and demolished by authorities and the the muslims will start blaming why the they are christianizd but not islamized?? They don't see the demolition of church as a crime but the fact that this people choose christianity. Even if Europe wants to fight for freedom of religion, look properly at who is the victims in the Muslims world of Southeast Asia and Arabian peninsula. See how hundred years old church , buddhist temple and hindus temples get seconhand treatment. Not allowed to be build, forced to relocate in the middle of nowhere. e don't see the whole world getting worked up for us but now tyou are getting all worked up for religion with a history persecuting minorities. Looks the minority in Muslims countries are doomed
Yeah, in the countries you mention, they just don't openly banned church, they just make life difficult for other faiths, so it's not enough to warrant international attention. Being a Malaysian, i honestly feel its Swiss right to ban anything they want, since the Muslims are doing it to. Even if you say the Muslim countries are denouncing the act,but which Muslims country really shouted "discrimination" at the top of their voice?? They can't make too much noise unless they want the oppression in their home soil be revealed so most of them just would " oh, it's sad" but none really say they would lead an army of protesters because they are not practising what they preach. There is no tolerant Islam in Malaysia, Indonesia, Dubai or any other Muslim nation, i puke whenever people say Muslims are tolerant.
The Arabic "Ash-hado an La Ilaha Illallah" translates correctly to (as you wrote):
"I testify that there is no God but Allah"
The last statement in the Adhan just as "Ash-hado an" (I testify) removed. Yet, you changed the complete translation to the following:
"There is none worthy of RESPECT except Allah".
Makes one wonder what else you've fabricated on your blog to promote and justify your Islamophobic ideology.
Secondly, coming from Pakistan, I find it very disturbing that you think banning minarets is justfied. Indeed, there have been an increasing number of attacks on non-Muslims by militant terrorist groups, which is deplorable and completely unjustified, yet non-Muslims are protected under law just as Muslims are. We have churches and hindu temples all over the country where non-muslims go and worship freely. No one is banned from calling worshipers by ringing a bell, as is their usual custom.
Hello Hamza,
I actually ran the Arabic by a few native Arabic speakers,including one (admittedly apostate)from Saudi Arabia.They all pretty much agreed on the translation given above, and seeing that Arabic isn't your native tongue either, I think we can agree to disagree, especially given the way Islam generally treats non-believers in areas where it has control. Your native country is a superb example,unfortunately.
'Churches and Hindu temples all over the country where non-muslims go and worship freely'? Countless churches have been burned, and the Hindu/Sikh minority in Pakistan, which was originally almost 25% of the population in 1947 has declined to less than 2%,almost all of them in Sind...because they were ethnically cleansed by the Muslim majority after partition, after the initial violence on both sides had settled down. On the other had, the Muslim minority in India has stayed fairly steady at 10%.
There may still be temples, but there are very few worshipers. And I wouldn't even care to speculate how long a Jewish synagogue in Islamabad or Lahore would last before it was firebombed and everyone inside murdered.
Second, as far as my 'Islamophobic agenda' goes, I don;t think that as a person of goodwill you would deny that within Islam, rather than being a fringe element those 'radical terrorist groups' have a great deal of support in the Muslim world because there is unfortunately a mainstream reading of the Qur'an and hadiths that entirely justifies it.
And while many Muslims like yourself may deplore it, for the most part their voices are silent, even when it comes to pro forma condemnations that many times seem insincere. When non-Muslims see how a significant amount of Muslims behave, even to fellow Muslims ( remember the genocide in the 1970's in Bangladesh?) they conclude that Islam is simply not interested in playing nicely with others and their natural instincts of self preservation are aroused.
After all, sharia forms at least a part of the legal codes of most Muslim nations, and as we know sharia mandates an inferior status for non-Muslims.
Perhaps if the majority of Muslims took a much more outspoken role in voicing their opposition to Muslim faith directed violence and misogyny and if Muslim countries treated non-Muslims,their right to proselytize and their churches and religious edifices with the same respect mosques, Muslims and Islam are treated in the West, that attitude might change. On that path lies peace for all of us,in G-d's name.
I think that the Swiss were well within their rights to ban minarets. They are not necessary for the practice of Islam, and broadcasting what amounts to a call of Muslim superiority 5 times a day at earsplitting volume is quite different from the sound of church bells, and much more intrusive.
Thanks for dropping by.
-Rob-
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