[Reader-list] When the Swiss Voted to Ban New Minarets, This Man Built One (WSJ/E)

[Patrice Riemens]

from the Wall Street Journal (Europe)
Original at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126264916012115609.html#


When the Swiss Voted to Ban New Minarets, This Man Built One
Mr. Morand Put It on His Roof, Shined Spotlights on It and Thumbed His Nose


By DEBORAH BALL and ANITA GREIL

BUSSIGNY, Switzerland -- In November, Switzerland voted to ban the
construction of new minarets, the towerlike structures that adorn mosques.
A week or so later, in an apparent act of defiance, a new minaret
unexpectedly sprang up here.

But the new minaret is not attached to a mosque; this small town near
Geneva doesn't even have one. And it's not the work of a local Muslim
outraged by Switzerland's controversial vote to ban the structures, which
often are used to launch the call to prayer.
[drawing Miranet Tower top]

Instead, Bussigny's minaret is attached to the warehouse of a shoe store
called Pomp It Up, which is part of a Swiss chain. It was erected by the
chain's owner, Guillaume Morand, who fashioned it out of plastic and wood
and attached it to a chimney. The new minaret, nearly 20 feet high and
illuminated at night, is clearly visible from the main highway connecting
Lausanne and Geneva.

"The referendum was a scandal," Mr. Morand said recently at his cavernous
warehouse, near pallets piled high with shoe boxes as pop music played on
an old stereo system. "I was ashamed to be Swiss. I don't have the power
to do much, but I wanted to give a message of peace to Muslims."

Mr. Morand's provocation has attracted national interest as Switzerland
grapples with the fallout of the referendum. On Nov. 29, 58% of Swiss
voters approved the ban on new minarets, thus sparking a fresh debate
around the world over the integration of Muslims in Western society. While
civic and religious leaders in many Muslim countries denounced the ban,
the feared backlash against Swiss interests around the world hasn't
materialized.

In Switzerland, the debate over the referendum is still hot. On Dec. 13,
hundreds of Swiss Muslims protested the vote in Bern, the capital.
According to Swiss legal experts, it is next to impossible to contest the
outcome of a referendum. Indeed, on Dec. 18, a Swiss federal court refused
to hear a plea by two Swiss citizens to nullify the vote.

But one Swiss Muslim leader has already requested that the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, consider whether the ban violates
international law on freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
[Entrepreneur Guillaume Morand stands in front of the minaret he had built
in Bussigny, Switzerland. ] Anita Greil

Entrepreneur Guillaume Morand stands in front of the minaret he had built
in Bussigny, Switzerland.

Meanwhile, Mr. Morand's gesture has rallied Swiss citizens upset by the
vote. There are only four minarets in Switzerland, the most prominent one
in Geneva. Only four of Switzerland's 26 cantons, or states, voted against
the referendum, including Vaud, the canton in which Bussigny is located.
Bussigny, a sleepy commuter town of 8,000 just five miles from Lausanne,
voted 52% against the ban. Bussigny has three Christian churches but no
mosque, so the roughly 150 Muslims of the town must travel to Lausanne in
order to worship in a mosque.

When the referendum passed, the ban on the construction of new minarets
instantly became Swiss law, but the government didn't define exactly what
constitutes a minaret. The law simply bans the construction of new ones. A
parliamentary report outlining the issue before the vote says a minaret
can exist without a mosque and without any religious function. Indeed, one
of Switzerland's four existing minarets is a free-standing structure not
attached to a mosque.

Mr. Morand, a Lausanne native who does not actively practice any religion,
decided the day after the vote to build his minaret.

His business partner, an architect by training, searched the Internet for
the right style of minaret, settling on one common in Turkey. After
discarding a first design because it would have weighed 770 pounds , he
settled on a second that used a large slice of a hard plastic tube to make
the base. He fashioned a cap from pressed wood and painted it gold, topped
by a gold crescent.

It took Mr. Morand's workers half a day to raise the 265-pound minaret up
four floors and over the lip of the roof. He then installed two 500-watt
spotlights to light it at night.

As Mr. Morand, who has been making shoes since 1989, and his team set the
minaret into place, the police, alerted by a neighbor, arrived. They took
photographs and quickly left.

Mr. Morand, a wiry 46-year-old who goes by the nickname Toto and dresses
in jeans and a leather jacket, has dipped his toe into political causes
before, taking out newspaper ads opposing the expansion of an incinerator
with the slogan "Lausanne is not a trash bag." He has also refused to
travel to the U.S. since the start of U.S. military campaigns in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Pomp It Up minaret, however, stands as his biggest political statement
yet. The reserved Swiss have largely not confronted him, though he has
received some nasty letters. "Are these the sort of wonderful Muslims
you're defending?" wrote a man from Geneva, enclosing a newspaper clipping
on fiery sermons by radical imams in Switzerland. Mr. Morand proudly shows
off the letter.

Instead, news of Mr. Morand's minaret brought out supporters. A Muslim
doctor from Geneva sent chocolates. "Thank you for restoring my faith in
Switzerland," wrote an admirer on a postcard bearing an image of a
minaret.

"It's great," Tawfiq El Maliki, spokesman for the Islamic Center of
Lausanne, said of the minaret. "A lot of people didn't agree with the vote
and they're searching for a way to show how they feel."

Even though Mr. Morand's minaret seems to be in violation of the law,
local authorities are trying not to see it that way. The police never came
back after their visit, and local prosecutors don't plan to file charges.
A spokesman for the Justice Ministry said it has no plans to take legal
action against Mr. Morand. The ministry views the minaret as a temporary
structure.

Claudine Wyssa, the town's acting mayor -- who called Mr. Morand's action
infantile -- doesn't think the do-it-yourself project qualifies as a
minaret and plans no legal action.

"It doesn't violate the law," she said in an interview. "It has nothing to
do with Islam. A minaret needs a mosque. In this case, there isn't one.
There's just a shoe warehouse."

Mr. Morand doesn't plan to remove the minaret. "I'm leaving it up," he
says. "If they want to come and take it down themselves, I won't fight it.
But I'll take photos of them doing it and send them to the media. Then
they'll have to take responsibility for it." In the meantime, he has added
several new spotlights to his roof to better show off his handiwork.

Write to Deborah Ball at deborah.ball at wsj.com and Anita Greil at
anita.greil at dowjones.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A29