Actually virtually every Islamic country aside from Lebanon bans, practically or officially, the construction and even reconstruction of Christian churches. Take for example Egypt, where Coptic minorities must apply for a permit to renovate an existing church or build a new one, but it seems in virtually all cases these permits are denied. Even in secularized Turkey the construction of Orthodox churches for the ever-shrinking Orthodox population is practically banned.
I thought there were a few Muslim countries with recognized Christian minorities. Palestine has a fairly hefty one (being where Christianity started and all) and I thought Iran had a constitutionally protected one as well.
In any event Saudi Arabia is by far the worst offender, being only a few steps up from the Taliban in terms of religious tolerance.
Yeah, well, I don’t know if classical Swiss architecture actually exists, either. Like Geneva has a lot of large boxy modernist (but no longer very new) rectangular buildings that have nothing whatsoever to do with chalets.
I haven’t been there recently, I admit, but I remember my impression was mostly of 60s and 70s style office building and apartment architecture, nothing quaint or particularly “Swiss” about most of it at all.
Moving on from the hypocrisy of Saudi Arabia complaining about the inability to build mosques, I wonder if the next Swiss referenda will be “RESOLVED: Turks have funny accents and are no longer welcome to own homes”.
I believe that while those minorities are protected, per se, as per Islamic traditional law, there are still very strict regulations about building new churches, and very strong resistance against it by the contemporary Islamic establishment, and where this combination makes building new Churches in Islamic countries a mostly quixotic and vain enterprise.
If it was pistachios and camel-hair bristle brushes, then yeah. But oil? If you have oil, you can decimate your population by lottery or torture people for littering, we don’t care.
…and then FoRmat stood up and applauded.
One would hope that Switzerland would not be looking to Saudi Arabia for its policies on human rights.
37% of Swiss were for it in the polls running up to the referendum, but when you have 50% participation…
Also, of course a sufficient majority can decide anything - but that doesn’t mean that it should be possible to do that kind of thing in this manner (and might not be).
True, but not just Saudi Arabia, but basically every Islamic country, even those ostensibly leaning secular. And while the Swiss minaret thing is xenophobic, there are tens of millions of Christians in Islamic countries under far worse restrictions. It isn’t outlandish to point out that both sides need a dose of human rights.
Just sort of irrelevant.
… irrelevant if the real reason you disagree with the Swiss minaret ban is to score points against your perceived political and class opponents.
Dude. I live in the wrong country.
Oh wait, are we doing that “Islam is a race” thing again?
No, irrelevant because it’s a weak attempt to make this into some kind of tit-for-tat bargaining, which it isn’t.
I disagree with the minaret ban because it’s an obviously xenophobic/racist move by right wing populists to stoke the flames of intolerance. And because I put this into a greater European context where integrating/adapting to the current situation is a very important issue, and stupid moves such as this often seems to win the day.
The only reason to bring in the behaviour of Middle East countries into this debate would be if it was about repressive regimes there supporting extremists here, but which is not actually the question at hand.
“Theocracies do it” is as irrelevant an argument to our position as “terrorists do it”, except possibly as an argument that we shouldn’t, but that does not seem to be the position you champion.
Not really, but the issues are quite tightly bound, which the image linked by Dan earlier shows:
I would be interested to know some of these examples of things like this minaret ban winning the day, because my perception, at least in the UK, is that moves like this are bitterly fought over, and generally not allowed to take place. I imagine the reason for this is the fear that a vocal argument might lead to tension between communities, though I’m not entirely convinced ignoring, or suppressing, the problem is much of a solution.
The only reason to bring in the behaviour of Middle East countries into this debate would be if it was about repressive regimes there supporting extremists here, but which is not actually the question at hand.
“Theocracies do it” is as irrelevant an argument to our position as “terrorists do it”, except possibly as an argument that we shouldn’t, but that does not seem to be the position you champion.
I would argue that the behaviour of Middle Eastern countries is probably one of the motivating factors behind this vote. People are not, on the whole, objecting to Muslims because they tend to be brown and come from ‘somewhere else’ (though I would readily agree that there are a small number of people for who this is a problem), but because the countries where they are in the majority tend to be rather lacking in the freedoms that have been hard fought for over centuries in Europe. I’m not saying that that is the sole reason behind the reasons for the ban, but it does contribute to the mistrust which has clearly been a motivating factor.
So the proper response is to deny them some freedoms.
It’s so obvious!
No. If you note, I didn’t say that. I was merely pointing out that the voting over the minarets can not be entirely removed from the context of Islam in the rest of the world.
Also I think given the context, the word ‘freedoms’ might be over egging it a touch. Granted it is a freedom of sorts that is being infringed, but it is not a freedom to worship, build places of worship or express themselves freely (other than in an architectural sense).
I’m not sure if there’s any confusion here, but just to be clear: The sheep poster is from a different issue a few years back and has nothing to do with the minaret vote (except that it’s by the same guys).
Strict regulations on the building of mosques was the norm in Switzerland already. That’s why they only have 4 minarets despite a population of 300,000 Muslims. What they have done now is to take it a step further and legislate against one religion. They now have laws that are worse than Iran’s. That’s not exactly something I think anyone should be defending.
I can’t imagine how anyone would try to put context on this if the Swiss voted to ban Jews from putting domes on their synagogues.