# Switzerland bans minarets **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366 "2009-11-29T19:19:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Dorothea\_Book](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dorothea\_Book](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorothea_Book)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/301 "2009-12-03T00:02:40Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > We read in news stories that Swiss feminists were in favour of the ban. Feminists in every western country know instinctively that Sharia law and Islam are threats to all women have fought for and gained over the past 100 years. Well some undoubtedly were. But we read in the news story also that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Switzerland are moderate and even secular. So Sharia law is not really at issue is it? > [@](#): > > The simple fact is that Islam is NOT just another religion, any more than the Nazis were just another political party. That’s a really problematic analogy (see my last post). > [@](#): > > If you want more information, I recommend two books by Bruce Bawer, “While Europe Slept” and “Surrender, Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom”. A book full of anecdotes and with virtually no footnotes, correct? > [@](#): > > How do you fight a force like this without destroying the very freedoms you want to preserve? That is a legitimate question if applied to Islamic extremism rather than to Islam. > [@](#): > > Any ideas? For you, yes. Get to know some Muslims. Befriend them. Ask them to discuss this issue with you. Oh and yes, I have gay Muslim friends. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/302 "2009-12-03T00:04:05Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > I find it impossible to believe, for example, that every single member of the NSDAP (the Nazi Party) which had some 5 or 10 million adherents in the 1930s, was a militaristic, agressive, warmongering, racist, anti-semitic fanatic. There MUST have been some wonderful, exemplary people in a group that large. And there must have been millions who joined the party just to protect their jobs, because of societal pressure, etc. I’m sure there were some, too. I find it difficult to credit the idea that 82 percent of them were really swell folks, though. > [@](#): > > One critic of the minaret ban noted in an article published in the (Canadian) Globe and Mail yesterday that according to recent polls, 82 per cent of French Muslims “believe that violent attacks on civilians are never acceptable under any circumstances.” > > Let’s just look at that statistic another way, shall we? Eighteen per cent of the 3.5 million Muslims in France, or 630,000 Muslims living and moving around freely in that country, do NOT agree that violent attacks on civilians are never acceptable. > How many people did it take to bring about 9-11, by the way? How small, in your view, does that percentage need to be before we can stop worrying about these people “moving freely about our country?” I’d also wonder, among that 18%, what they would consider an acceptable reason for attacking civilians. I can come up with a few scenarios in which I’d approve of attacks on civilians, under sufficiently pressing circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/303 "2009-12-03T00:06:31Z")
It’s not such an outlandish view, is it? Look at any discussion of Hiroshima to see what a large percentage of people do not believe that violent attacks on civilians are never acceptable under any circumstances. Universal claims are hard to maintain. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/304 "2009-12-03T00:09:44Z")
That was, in fact, precisely the scenario I had in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/305 "2009-12-03T00:24:07Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Let’s just look at that statistic another way, shall we? Eighteen per cent of the 3.5 million Muslims in France, or **630,000 Muslims living and moving around freely in that country, do NOT agree that violent attacks on civilians are never acceptable.** > How many people did it take to bring about 9-11, by the way? I agree it’s a worrying statistic, though I suspect as Der Tris does, that should you pose the same question to adherents of other religions - and probably even non-believers, you’ll still get a percentage that’s significant. It could possibly be significantly less, but I have no data to back that up. Cast the question in terms of immediate war, and I would think the percentage across the board would go a up to much higher than 18%. Anyway, let’s say muslims are 3 times as likely to condone violent attacks on civilians under some circumstances. What’s your plan? Ban islamic towers? Forbid their religion? Kick them all “back to where they came from” even though more than half was born “here” (wherever they are)? All those actions are directly affecting the 82% that aren’t a danger in the sense you’re describing. Disregarding the chance that they might get pissed off enough to “convert” to the violent point of view, what have those people done to deserve that? I do think parts of the muslim religion are worrying, but legislation is IMO not the right tool to use, unless we’re talking about immediate threats to people’s savety and there’s plenty of law already in place to deal with that regardless of religions or other motivations, and with regards to specifically religious threats, the US had got it right in the first place when it was made a secular state. You really don’t need or want much more law than that. What is worrying me at the moment is not Islam in particular, it’s the assertion that people who are considered “wise” or “holy” or “learned” or just plain “faithful” should be treated with respect even when they put forth the most rediculous claims or do the most disgusting things. When people go around believing that status is more important than considered reasons, and that it’s alright to disregard evidence or arguments and even be insulted by them because they contradict your deeply held beliefs, that’s when things go wrong. And in the case of the US and the Netherlands at least, it doesn’t look like it’s the muslims who are providing the largest base that’s pushing in that direction. Some of them shout quite loudly, though. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/306 "2009-12-03T01:18:48Z")
just curious: The people that are chastising Switzerland and the Swiss for this are the same ones that have serious problems with requiring the President of this country [The U.S.] to be natural-born, right? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/307 "2009-12-03T01:20:46Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > just curious: The people that are chastising Switzerland and the Swiss for this are the same ones that have serious problems with requiring the President of this country to be natural-born, right? It’s a stupid requirement, yes. Then again, I’m not a US citizen. ETA: again, many if not most muslims in Switzerland and the Netherlands (and I would imagine, the US too) are in fact born in those countries. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/308 "2009-12-03T02:00:22Z")
> [@Dorothea\_Book](#): > > Your statements here are a bit inconsistent, no? On the one hand you think it unlikely that voters were motivated by anti-immigration sentiments per se–only by dislike of minarets “everywhere”–and on the other you are troubled by those who perceive the issue in light of a battle to preserve Swiss culture. > > Of course, it isn’t rational to believe that Swiss culture would vanish because of a few minarets but then, as you yourself suspect, some of these people may envision mass building of minarets–untrue, but evoked by some of the publicity used to campaign for this measure. > > I think what you ignore is that while many doubtless know that the actual threat (cultural or otherwise) posed by minarets is minimal, they’re motivated to deal some kind of symbolic blow to a group of people they consider outsiders (regardless of what those people actually do and where they were born). > > I don’t think it’s possible to disconnect that kind of irrational aversion to anti-immigration sentiments. > > Why it would need to be in order to make sense to you? That is, why do you believe that anti-immigration is _not_ a factor here? I think I was unclear. I was trying to be open-minded and make sense of possible reasons for this ban that were not anti-immigrant. Two reasons presented were aesthetics and preservation of culture. I am certain that the only reason why somebody voted yes was because they were against immigration and wanted to do something about it. It really doesn’t matter to me why somebody might have supported the referendum. The basis for having the referendum and the consequences of the referendum are nothing more than bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/309 "2009-12-03T02:08:32Z")
Dorothea, it is obvious that you have never read either of the two books I quoted by Bruce Bawer, or you would not assume they are: “A book full of anecdotes and with virtually no footnotes, correct?” I do not happen to have my copy of \*While Europe Slept \* here with me right now because it is at my other home. BTW, that book was a National Book Critics Award Finalist, and as I remember it was well researched. But I do happen to have a copy of “Surrender, Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom” in front of me. It contains 11 pages of index and a grand total of\*\* 276 footnotes and references\*\*. The author says that to make it easy for readers to verify his assertions and quotations, he has listed sources, whenever possible, that are available online. Finally, I will leave you with his last paragraph from the above-mentioned book. “…there’s no guarantee that Western Muslims, in meaningful numbers, will ever openly and actively champion freedom and defy jihadists; to do so, after all, is alien to every value with which many of them were raised. But we certainly can’t expect them to take a stand for liberty if the rest of us don’t stand up for it ourselves.” So you know some gay Muslims. Big deal. Hitler knew some gay Nazis. Ernst Röhm, the head of the _Sturmabteilung_ (the Brown Shirts) was such a close friend that he was the only adult Hitler adressed as _du_ instead of _Sie_. But when the Nazi ideology kicked in, this did not perevent the 3rd Reich from murdering untold thousands of homosexuals as “moral degenrates”. Let’s hope for the sake of your Muslim gay friends that they never find themselves in a country in which Islam rules. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/310 "2009-12-03T02:43:06Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > “…there’s no guarantee that Western Muslims, in meaningful numbers, will ever openly and actively champion freedom and defy jihadists; to do so, after all, is alien to every value with which many of them were raised. But we certainly can’t expect them to take a stand for liberty if the rest of us don’t stand up for it ourselves.” WTF? I don’t ID as Muslim because I wasn’t really raised as anything but my family is Muslim, and I don’t know a single person who was raised with the kinds of values you think they are. Have you ever met a single non white person, ever? This thread is starting to get seriously creepy. Is it possible to have a thread without comparing an entire religion to Nazis? And did people come up with this kind of convoluted thinking process for justifying bigotry and hatred when hating the Jews was in vogue? ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/311 "2009-12-03T02:55:22Z")
> [@Dorothea\_Book](#): > > Exactly who in this thread is advocating the adoption of Sharia law? Exactly what European government is suggesting that Sharia law be adopted? In this thread, nobody. The point I am making is that the rather farcical and ineffective minaret referendum in Switzerland needs to be understood in a much broader context of people in western democracies pushing back against a movement that more and more of us are starting to see as a great deal more than just another religion in our pluralistic society. To that extent you will see that attempts to inject Sharia law into our western legal systems in one form or another have taken place in Canada, Britain and a host of other western countries. Look it up if you don’t believe me. In the Province of Ontario, Canada, it was proposed as a “voluntary” mediation system in family law. Yeah, right. I am sure that a veiled immigrant Muslima who does not even speak English and is surrounded by her family would have made a free and voluntary choice. The measure almost passed in Ontario about 2 years ago until people like me as well as ex-Muslims started marching in the streets to oppose it, after which our gutless government withdrew the proposal and went back to the amazing concept that people who live in Canada are under Canadian law (how racist!) > [@Dorothea\_Book](#): > > So let me get this straight–you are now equating the entirety of the European Muslim population with the members of the Nazi Party? Perhaps I should explain the concept of an analogy, Dorothea. The vast majority of Germans (62%) never voted Nazi in any free election. And it is unlikely that all, or even most, of the 5 or 10 million card-carrying Nazis were fundamentally evil people. Naziism was fundamentally evil and an assault on civilized values. But when the time came we did not declare war on Hitler or the Nazi Party. We were fighting Naziism, but we declared war on Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/312 "2009-12-03T02:59:51Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > Let’s hope for the sake of your Muslim gay friends that they never find themselves in a country in which Islam rules. Or Christianity, for that matter. Islam is hardly uniquely hostile or brutal towards them. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/313 "2009-12-03T03:15:54Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > WTF? I don’t ID as Muslim because I wasn’t really raised as anything but my family is Muslim, and I don’t know a single person who was raised with the kinds of values you think they are. **Have you ever met a single non white person, ever?** What a strange question. I guess I could look in the mirror, since part of my ancestry is black and part is Indian as well as European. Or I could look at several of my co-workers and friends and neighbours. Lotsa non-whites there. But could you please tell me what the fuck Islam has to do with whites, non-whites, races or racism? There are European Muslims who are blond and blue-eyed. There are Muslims who are blue-black. And every shade in between. This is why the charge of racism against those who warn the west about Islam is ridiculous. Muslims are not a race. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/314 "2009-12-03T03:24:30Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > This is why the charge of racism against those who warn the west about Islam is ridiculous. Muslims are not a race. But it is often largely treated as such. Muslim is the religion those \*\*\*brown people \*\*\*have. And then there’s the raving about Obama being a “secret Muslim” - he must be a Muslim! He’s brown! ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/315 "2009-12-03T03:31:48Z")
> [@Dorothea\_Book](#): > > Why isn’t any of this registering for you? Is it somehow enjoyable to air naked prejudices in cyberspace behind a shield of anonymity? > > (Or is this the kind of stuff you also enjoy sharing with your friends and co-workers. I don’t mean to get personal here, but I find your views really hard to digest.) I usually sit around with my co-workers complaining about fundamentalist Christians pushing Creationism, or the Catholic church opposing birth control, or the Republican party for almost everything they do. I guess it’s OK to do that, but Islam gets a free ride. When South Africa practiced Apartheid, people of all races in a wide variety of countries led boycotts and marched in demonstrations in opposition to those policies. Christians in the US were horrified by the American bigamist sects that abused young girls and the weight of both public opinion and the law came down hard on them. I just don’t see the same sort of thing happening in Islamic countries with regard to women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, or female genital mutilation, or Muslim on Muslim violence, or terrorism. Instead we see it when cartoons are published in Denmark that depict Muhammad. And of course “all” Muslims aren’t misogynist any more than “all” conservatives are freakin lunatics. But in both cases I hear crickets chirping on the topic of their extremists. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/316 "2009-12-03T03:42:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But it is often largely treated as such. Muslim is the religion those \*\*\*brown people \*\*\*have. And then there’s the raving about Obama being a “secret Muslim” - he must be a Muslim! He’s brown! Yeah, this. Plus look at those awful ads linked to earlier. The brown hands snatching up passports. The white sheep kicking out the black one. I don’t know why I’m surprised to hear all this inane ranting, though. The first time I heard it on the Dope was in the racism/bigotry thread where the question about how we can get rid of racism was asked and the answer was that the black community needs to stop acting so fucked up. It’s sad how far we go to blame the victim when it comes to racism and bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/317 "2009-12-03T03:44:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But it is often largely treated as such. Muslim is the religion those \*\*\*brown people \*\*\*have. And then there’s the raving about Obama being a “secret Muslim” - he must be a Muslim! He’s brown! So I guess by that logic Winston Churchill, who spent the 30s warning about Naziism, must have been a Germanophobe or at least an anti-white racist, since most Nazis were white and German? In fact, he was called an alarmist and war-monger during most of the 30s. People did not throw racism charges around as much back then. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/318 "2009-12-03T04:00:01Z")
If you want to read more about the push-back of those who want to defend western values, see the interview with Mina Ahadi, Chair of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims, [http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/](http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/) Especially interesting is her comment: “The minaret is merely a symbol of a justifiable fear of political Islam. So it is good that Swiss citizens have intervened in this situation and said a clear “No.” I would also like to see a broader discussion in Germany about female genital mutilation and the rights of children.” By the way, Freudian Slit, please note that I am about the same colour as this woman. So much for your question about whether I have ever seen a non-white! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/319 "2009-12-03T04:05:32Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > So I guess by that logic Winston Churchill, who spent the 30s warning about Naziism, must have been a Germanophobe or at least an anti-white racist, since most Nazis were white and German? In fact, he was called an alarmist and war-monger during most of the 30s. People did not throw racism charges around as much back then. A ridiculous comparison. The Nazi Party was much smaller and much narrower in variation than Islam ( or Christianity, for that matter ). And it was composed of white people because they hated everyone else, of course. If you want to make a proper comparison between an evil political party like the Nazis and a religion, picking a religious sect like Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church works better. Much better defined than “Islam” or “Christianity”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366/320 "2009-12-03T04:07:27Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > If you want to read more about the push-back of those who want to defend western values, see the interview with Mina Ahadi, Chair of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims, [http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/](http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/) > > Especially interesting is her comment: “The minaret is merely a symbol of a justifiable fear of political Islam. So it is good that Swiss citizens have intervened in this situation and said a clear “No.” I would also like to see a broader discussion in Germany about female genital mutilation and the rights of children.” Well, she’s a fool for supporting her enemies then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switzerland-bans-minarets/519366.md?page=17)