[Reader-list] Minaret ban marks start of tough Swiss debate on Islam

[ohm at zedat.fu-berlin.de]

So far it's mainly the pogrom-atmosphere and readers' comments on
newspaper websites that have the déjà vu-effect on me, but it might well
be that Switzerland is also in a more substantial fashion on the way of
becoming the Gujarat of Europe, and this is very scary, not least because
it would prove that with Gujarat a new form of globally relevant
anti-minority politics that does not seek to abolish but that essentially
draws on democratic mechanisms has been established...
Very concerned - Britta

---------------------------------------
Dr. Britta Ohm

Institute of Social Anthropology
University of Bern
Laenggassstr. 49a
3012 Bern
Switzerland
+41-(0)31-631 8995 (main office)
+41-(0)31-631 8997 (direct line)
britta.ohm at anthro.unibe.ch


Solmsstr. 36
10961 Berlin
Germany
+49-(0)30-69507155
ohm at zedat.fu-berlin.de




>  Minaret ban marks start of tough Swiss debate on Islam
>  By Imogen Foulkes
>  BBC News, Geneva
>
> Link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8386456.stm
>
> *In Switzerland the soul-searching has begun following Sunday's nationwide
> referendum in which voters surprisingly backed a plan to ban the
> construction of minarets. *
>
> No-one can quite understand how a proposal widely regarded even by its
> supporters as destined for failure at the ballot box actually came to be
> passed.
>
> That, however, according to political analysts, may have been part of the
> problem.
>
> Opinion polls showing a majority of voters would reject a ban were only to
> be expected, says Zurich political scientist Michael Hermann, when most of
> the Swiss media had already categorised a ban on minarets as politically
> incorrect and its supporters stupid.
>
> "People aren't necessarily going to tell pollsters the truth if they think
> it makes them look ignorant and intolerant," explained Mr Hermann.
>
> *Unease underestimated*
>
> What many Swiss politicians are beginning to realise this morning is that
> they underestimated the concern among their population about integration
> of
> Muslims in Switzerland, and about possible Islamic extremism.
>
> So while the right-wing Swiss People's Party campaigned hard, warning in
> meetings up and down the country of the possible introduction of Sharia
> law
> in Switzerland, the middle ground and left-wing parties did very little.
>
> There were few posters, and none to compete with the People's Party's
> eye-catching and controversial offering, which showed a woman shrouded in
> a
> black burka, a map of Switzerland behind her, black minarets shooting out
> of
> it like missiles.
>
> Elham Manea, founder of the Forum for a Progressive Islam - an
> organisation
> dedicated to Muslim integration in Switzerland - is disappointed not just
> with the outcome of the vote, but with the debate around it.
>
> "The way the discussion was conducted was simply polemic," she said.
>
> "We didn't ask the right questions, when we talked about integration
> problems for immigrants with an Islamic background.
>
> "For example what is the size of political Islam, how big is the problem
> of
> forced marriage? Do we have that problem? Yes we do, we know we do, but
> which groups are practising it, and how do we deal with it?"
>
> The problem for Ms Manea, and many Swiss Muslims, is that the ban on
> minarets does not really address any of these problems and may even
> isolate
> the community still further.
>
> "My fear is that the younger generation will feel unwelcome," she said.
>
> "It's a message sent to them that you are not welcome here as true
> citizens
> of this society and that could leave the ground open for Islamic extremist
> groups who are just waiting to exploit that sort of frustration for their
> own ends."
>
> *Nervous government*
>
> Meanwhile Swiss cabinet ministers who had advised, and confidently
> expected,
> voters to reject a ban, have woken up to newspaper headlines calling the
> referendum a slap in the face for the government, and a "catastrophe" for
> Switzerland.
>
> They are now facing the delicate task of explaining the voters' decision
> to
> Muslim countries with whom Switzerland has traditionally good trade
> relations. Within government circles, there is the expectation that these
> relations will be damaged and that the Swiss economy may suffer as a
> result.
>
>
> So concerned is the government by the decision that Swiss Justice Minister
> Eveline Widmer Schlumpf, watching the results come in on Sunday afternoon,
> apparently told her advisers there ought to be some restrictions on what
> the
> general public can actually vote on.
>
> This, for Switzerland, is political dynamite. The country's system of
> direct
> democracy is sacrosanct. The people are allowed to vote on any policy and
> to
> propose policy themselves, which is what they did on minarets.
>
> The fact that there is little evidence of Muslim extremism in Switzerland
> and that the banning of minarets would be unlikely to prevent extremism
> even
> if it did exist, does not really matter. The real issue is that there was
> clearly unease among the Swiss population, particularly among rural
> communities, about Islam.
>
> The People's Party played on those fears while the Swiss government did
> not
> address them at all. Now Switzerland's image abroad, and its relations
> with
> its own Muslim community, may bear the consequences.
>
> There are already indications that, buoyed by the size of the vote in
> favour
> of the ban, the Swiss People's Party is planning further measures.
>
> Hermann Leu, a local People's Party representative from Thurgau canton,
> described the size of the vote in favour as "a clear sign that the Muslim
> community must get on with integrating itself right away".
>
> Proposals from some towns include banning the burka, setting up committees
> to identify imams who preach "hate", detaining and deporting them, and
> banning school dispensations in which Muslim children stay away from
> swimming lessons or take time out for prayers.
>
> Switzerland's debate about Islam has now well and truly begun but perhaps
> not in the way Swiss Muslims would have wished it.
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