Moral of the story, don’t be anything but a German/French/Italian/Romanni(sp?) speaker, or a person of European desent in Europe.
Surely the Romani speakers have plenty of problems of their own…
Speakers of Romansh are probably OK (although they are a small minority).
Speakers of Romani, on the other hand, might very well face problems with assimiliation and acceptance if they moved to Switzerland.
Thank for the correction, I have always mixed the names up.
On occasion it’s nice to know that Americans aren’t the only ones who can be xenophobic.
Aa well as churches in UAE, Tunisia, Iran, Turkey, and Malaysia (among others).
In Switzerland, at least. In fact, don’t be of non-Swiss descent if you can help it.
The aesthetic argument some people are trying out here kinda falls down for me.
Totally 100% Swiss.* Must be preserved.
OMG doesn’t fit in with our heritage! Ban it!
*Apparently a 19th century import from Russia.
Der Trihs
I wasn’t particularly looking for answers. I was floating ideas that people will have to address at some point. The questions are difficult ones, and answers will certainly not be found on a forum like this. They are really refer to matters that must evolve - go through a process. Nothing is cut and dried.
As to foreign communities not assimilating, I didn’t particularly intend to make such an assertion. But since you hold me to it, it is true in many cases. In Britain, for example, there is a culture within a culture where brides are sent to the incomers’ homeland to marry, or that country’s mores and customs are followed regardless of the host country’s laws: where foreign religion has been used as a cover for subversion. This is assimilation? Contrariwise, I have several acquaintances here in France who have assimilated. There is no indication I can see that they are treated any differently by the native French than I am.
I am curious as to how and where incoming people are not allowed to assimilate. This is something beyond my knowledge and experience.
Another point was raised that Christian Churches are allowed in Muslim countries. It well may be so in some/many. My personal knowledge extends only to Egypt where I have friends who are Copts. Although they are approaching 20% of the population, they are allowed one TV slot in the year; their churches are generally becoming decrepit as they are not allowed to carry out major repairs as they require permission, which is, in their view, deliberately put on hold… A cathedral, on my last visit, was still in an unfinished state, after about 15 years, because the necessary authorisations were not forthcoming… But this is all beyond the scope of the original question. It does show that tolerance, wherever, can be far from straightforward.
I’ll finish with another two points to ponder: does a country (from government down to citizen) have a right/duty to protect and preserve its culture, religion, patrimony? How would America feel about having to deal with an Islamic European Union, OR about Islam becoming a majority religion within its own borders?
Please don’t assume I am taking one side or the other. I am not.
How is “defending the choice of the majority” = “undemocratic”? Now, if you are one of those people who are democratic until the other people (in this case, those you view as “illiberal”) win, then go ahead.
I don’t like this particular Swiss decision, but nobody can say it wasn’t democratic.
And, even if it were true that every majority or officially Muslim country was oppressive toward other religions, if oppression shouldn’t be accepted from them, why should it be accepted from majority or officially Christian countries?
I agree, actually. There isn’t the slightest hint of unfairness in this vote - it is nothing less than the freely expressed will of the majority of Swiss voters. It’s democracy in its purest form.
Which is precisely why we should not view democracy as the highest good in a political process. A good, certainly - a measure of democracy is a splendid thing, as it keeps governments reasonably honest and accountable to the people. However, the will of the people unchecked merely turns “the people” into a particularly many-headed tyrant. Say what you will about the American political system, but it takes this point to heart (at the federal level) - there are major checks on the majority will, implemented precisely to protect minority rights.
Exactly. Democracy is merely a means to an end. The end is liberty and equality under the law for all.
When democracy conflicts with those ideals, democracy must be suppressed. That’s why we have a Bill of Rights, and why the powers of the different levels of government are strictly defined.
Switzerland apparently doesn’t have religious freedom unless approved by 51% of the population.
With some terrible exceptions, the U.S. seems to be doing a better job of assimilating Muslims than the European countries are. In turn, this seems to be related to the fact that–again, with some unfortunate exceptions–we have no official or semi-official policy of telling Muslims they must abandon Islam in order to be “Real Americans”.
In my opinion, governments have little to no duty to protect “culture” or “patrimony”, and none to protect “religion”. They do have a duty to protect the physical security of the country; the rights, liberties, and secular welfare of the citizens; and the political order which maintains all of the above. Individual citizens (and voluntary associations of individual citizens) are of course free to protect (by peaceful, non-coercive means) whatever cultural and religious patrimonies they desire.
Personally, I would prefer a secular humanist Europe and a secular humanist America, but a majority Muslim country is no more alien to me and my values than a majority Christian or Jewish country is, IF the majority was accomplished by peaceful means and it respects a liberal political order (including such things as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, U.S. Bill of Rights, European Charter of Fundamental Rights, or Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). Given the current level of support for “Islamism” (Islamic politics and politicized Islam) and Islamic law in the Muslim world, it’s not completely ridiculous to fear that a Muslim-majority state would infringe on the rights of non-Muslims, in ways that Christian-majority states generally don’t (at least not any more). However, things like this minaret ban are not only unjust but also wrong-headed, as they are far more likely to radicalize Muslims than to liberalize them, and drive them into embracing Islamism and sharia instead of Western (political) values and equal rights for all.
This. What policies like the minaret ban show Muslims is that the values of liberal democracy are incompatible with Islam. That isn’t so, of course - but when a prominent liberal democracy does something this baldly calculated as a slap in the face to Muslims, it’s understandable when people believe that.
You know, people love to play the “what if America changes?” card. We do it with immigration, too - “What if America becomes majority Spanish-speaking because we’re too soft on immigration?”
It’s absurd - MEBuckner has it right. America isn’t a language, or a religion, or a skin color. What defines us as a culture is our commitment to liberal, constitutional democracy - a nation governed by the rule of law, informed by the will of the majority but protective of minority rights. If we become a Spanish-speaking state, then we will be a Spanish-speaking liberal constitutional democracy. If we become a majority Muslim state, then we will be a majority Muslim liberal constitutional democracy.
Our institutions require nothing at all to function, save only that men and women of good will respect and honor them. Everything else is window dressing.
Well, there is something inconsistent about the fact that he uses the name of a European conquistador who landed on Pacific islands and attempted to convert the natives to his own religion.
Can someone remind me why anywhere should, bearing in mind the amount of conflict it has caused since its invention?
Okay, fair enough, although minarets are a part of Muslim worship; how integral, I don’t know.
So if Israel, Egypt and Bangladesh banned churches with steeples, that would be a-ok with you?
And the United States in 1920 was free to tell its Jews not to build synagogues with Hebrew letters on the side?
But that’s the fear, isn’t it? That a majority-Muslim state would be illiberal–that the majority would have illiberal values, and would impose these values on the nation as a whole, through referendums and other legal means (just as Christians in the US impose their values through ballot initiatives and the legislature).
Of course the irony is that the Swiss chose to combat this perceived threat by implementing the very thing they feared–an illiberal infringement of liberty, tyranny of the majority.