from Copenhagen. This first cast is world class, in form and substance,
interviewing experts from all continents who examine critical aspects
of the crisis, specifics about countries, regions, needs and solutions.
It merits your attention. -Ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/opinion/05stamm.html
Switzerland's Invisible Minarets
"We Swiss sacrificed our good standing as a multicultural and open-minded
society to ban the construction of minarets that no one intends to build in
order to defend ourselves against an Islam that has never existed in
Switzerland."
By PETER STAMM
NY Times Op-Ed: Dec. 5, 2009
Winterthur, Switzerland
THREE years ago I was invited to the Tehran International Book Fair;
afterward I traveled around the country. The mosques I visited were so empty
as to give the impression that Iran was as secular as Western Europe.
It wasn't until I took a trip to a place of pilgrimage in the mountains that
I saw large numbers of the faithful. The traffic started piling up even
before my group reached the town of Imamzadeh Davood. A few of the pilgrims
were making the trek on foot, together with the sheep they intended to
sacrifice. The narrow streets were bustling just as at Christian places of
pilgrimage: booths crammed with junk, groups of teenagers taking pictures of
each other, every nook and cranny packed with candles lighted by believers
in the hope their wishes would be fulfilled.
I was received by the mayor and invited to dinner — the first Swiss he had
ever met. He showed me the mosque and led me to the tomb of the saint. I,
the unbeliever, was allowed into places where even pilgrims were not
permitted. During my three weeks in Iran, my faith, or rather the lack
thereof, was never an issue. However bellicose the political face of Islam
often appears, in everyday practice what I experienced was a religion of
hospitality and tolerance.
Switzerland, on the other hand, appeared alarmingly intolerant last weekend,
when 58 percent of our voters approved a ban on the building of new
minarets. When the minaret referendum was proposed by the rightist Swiss
People's Party, no one really took it seriously.
Some consideration was given to having it declared invalid on the grounds
that it was unconstitutional as well as a violation of the European
Convention on Human Rights, but in the end the government agreed to allow
the referendum to go forward, probably in the hope that it would be roundly
defeated and thereby become a symbol of Swiss open-mindedness. So certain
were the politicians of prevailing that hardly any publicity was fielded
against the initiative. As a result, the streets were dominated by the
proponents' posters, which showed a veiled woman in front of a forest of
minarets that looked like missiles.
Minarets have never been a problem in Switzerland. There are four in the
entire country, some of which have been standing for decades. (One of them
is in my city but I've never seen it.) And only two other minarets were
being planned. Most mosques are in faceless industrial districts where no
one notices them. But perhaps that is exactly the problem. Islamic
immigrants don't live with us but beside us, just as French, German, Italian
and Romansch-speaking Swiss live alongside each other without a great deal
of animosity — or interaction.
The average Swiss citizen has no real contact with Islam. Headscarves are
seldom seen on the street, and chadors are practically nonexistent.
Moreover, when young proponents of the ban talk about problems with Muslims,
they almost exclusively mean young men from the Balkans, who come across as
male chauvinists but are almost never active members of Muslim communities.
Most people encounter Islam only through the news media, which don't report
on the Muslims in our country but focus on terrorist attacks in Afghanistan,
Iranian plans for an atomic bomb and Muammar el-Qaddafi's absurd proposal to
abolish Switzerland.
It's hard to find one overarching explanation for why the Swiss voted as
they did. Similar referendums have brought surprises: 35 percent of voters
wanting to do away with the army, for instance, or 58 percent approving of
same-sex partnerships. The prevailing Swiss attitude is both conservative
and liberal: on the one hand everything should stay the way it is, on the
other everyone should be able to do what he or she wants.
What's most conspicuous in these referendums is that we are a nation of
pragmatists, inclined to our dour obstinacy, and we owe our success not to
grand ideas but to problem-solving. So focused are we on getting things
done, it almost doesn't matter if the problem isn't a problem, or if the
solution risks sullying the country's reputation. We Swiss sacrificed our
good standing as a multicultural and open-minded society to ban the
construction of minarets that no one intends to build in order to defend
ourselves against an Islam that has never existed in Switzerland.
Perhaps Muslims here are more Swiss than the rest of us might think. They
too will solve the problem we've made for them: they are likely to swallow
the results of this referendum, do without their minarets and continue to
assemble for prayer, unnoticed and unperturbed.
Peter Stamm is the author of the novel "On a Day Like This." This essay was
translated by Philip Boehm from the German.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
***
From: Sid Shniad
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/grossman021209.html
The Swiss and the Muslims
Victor Grossman, Berlin
Monthly Review: 02.12.09
The Swiss, known for cheese, Alps, watches, chocolate and secret bank
accounts, at least two of which are full of holes, have now added a sixth
important product: intolerance. 57.5 percent of its 8 million population, or
of those who went to the polls, voted to forbid minarets next to Muslim
mosques.
As nearly everyone agreed, the minarets themselves were not so important.
The 400,000 Muslims living in Switzerland now have only four minarets. Their
architecture disturbs almost no-one, nor do muezzins call loudly over the
rooftops five times a day. The minarets are symbols, and while few who voted
for the ban said so openly, what many thought was: "There are too many
damned furriners in our Christian republic anyway. We can't even understand
their foreign lingo. Keep 'em out!"
Several sad ironies are involved. One is linguistic. Switzerland has four
official languages to begin with, which should breed tolerance, especially
since German-speaking Swiss, and it is they who voted most frequently
against the minarets, have a folksy dialect which sounds rather quaint to
people in Germany but is so difficult to understand that Swiss films shown
there require sub-titles. Variety in cultures is a good thing, intelligent
people generally believe, but it involves tolerance toward other people's
cultures.
Another ironic note is more tragic. Christianity is no constitutional
requirement in Switzerland; religious freedom is supposed to be the rule.
But it was Swiss authorities equally determined to keep their country
Christian who turned away Jewish refugees from neighboring Germany during
the Hitler years, resulting in death to many or most of them.
This shameful episode, though most other countries at that time were equally
guilty, makes the decision by over half of Swiss voters especially
disturbing, and not only because it was a victory for the far-right Swiss
People's Party. Like cheese and watches, such intolerance promises to be an
export product whose political effects recall the crippling medical effects
of thalidomide, or Contergan. And far too many in other countries are overly
willing to buy this poison.
Among those rejoicing were the Berlusconi backers in Italy. A leader of the
government party Lega Nord fantasized for the media: "Flying high above a
Europe now almost fully Islamized is the flag of courageous Switzerland,
which wishes to remain Christian."
The daughter of that old racist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who now heads his Front
national in France, expressed her warm satisfaction. Geerd Wilders, the
handsome blond and rabid Dutch film-maker currently building a party based
on Islamophobia, said: "We need a referendum like that in the Netherlands!"
His brother-in-arms in the Danish People's Party echoed his sentiments. In
Austria, England, Spain and elsewhere there were fanatic nationalists,
racists and neo-fascists, both the jackbooted thugs and the suave, elegant
wheeler-dealers, to welcome this smoke signal from the Alps. They were the
extremists, of course, rarely with anything like majorities. But their
numbers were often tending upward.
Many German politicians were undoubtedly horrified. Others, thinking of
German history or counting the growing numbers of Muslim voters in urban
centers, were careful and quiet. Few were exuberant. But some, while not
explicitly approving the referendum results, betrayed their inner thoughts.
Referring to Swiss voters, Wolfgang Bosbach, a key leader of Angela Merkel's
Christian Democratic Union, said: "Their worries must be taken seriously!"
He was quickly slapped down, but his message got through even the thickest
shaven skulls.
Muslimphobia is not unknown in Germany. In one borough of Berlin enraged
demonstrations, egged on by a Christian Democratic candidate, opposed
building a mosque and modest minaret. Now completed and in use, it causes no
troubles to anyone. A menacing rally in Cologne against a new mosque was
prevented by a counterdemonstration of almost all parties, unions and
religious groups, but its sponsors did manage to form a new local party and
win city council seats for their unholy crusade. The list of those warning
against the fictional monster of Islamization, recalling "Yellow Peril"
campaigns on the US West Coast, contained a few surprisingly prominent
names.
If unemployment figures in Germany grow worse and social assistance is
further cut by the new government, part of any angry protests can be
misdirected, not against those guilty of the misery, the banks, corporations
and politicians obliged to them, indeed, their whole system, but instead, as
so often in history, against those who are suffering even more. Eighty years
ago it was the Jews who were blamed, discriminated against and then
murdered. The Jewish community today, although its size has increased in
recent years, is hardly large or conspicuous enough to serve this purpose
sufficiently. It is still on the neo-Nazi list, but the main attacks,
usually verbal thus far, are directed against Muslim communities, which
include about 2 million people of Turkish descent, but also many Kurds,
Africans and Arabs from Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and other areas.
This problem for immigrants is clearly international, involving long-lasting
pressures of northern and western economies and cultures on those of the
south and east. Experience in many countries indicates that large immigrant
groups usually can integrate into their host country but the process often
lasts two or three generations. Until then their differing appearance and
culture, and the results of poverty and oppression, are all too often
utilized to prevent unity among poor people and working people.
Even if the referendum vote should be reversed by the Swiss Supreme Court or
the European Court of Human Rights, to which all European countries belong,
even Switzerland, the 57.5 percent result of those who bothered to vote has
done damage enough to any Swiss reputation for tolerance, while encouraging
the most dangerous elements of political life in all Europe.
December 1, 2009
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