Swiss Ban of Minarets Driven by Fear of Muslim Intolerance

By a healthy 57.5% Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of minarets, the Muslim towers associated with mosques that look a bit like tall, thin mushrooms. The resulting uproar was violent and immediate. Voices representing both Muslim and non-Muslim factions chimed in overwhelmingly against the ban with such language as “anti-immigrant scaremongering” and “xenophobic.” The really startling thing is that Switzerland has a long history of tolerance. So what’s up? Why did a traditionally tolerant nation overwhelmingly approve such a symbolically intolerant law? Or maybe the better question is: “what happened to thoroughly piss off the easy going Swiss?”

Oh, gee, I don’t know. How about the waves of militant fundamentalist Islam currently sweeping Europe and the world? Or maybe it’s because Islamic beliefs are at direct odds with core non-Islamic concepts of freedom and human rights. Just consider the flap a few years back over the cartoons of Muhammad! This alone resulted in violent protests and death threats. Over a cartoon? This same warped sense of reality caused a director to be murdered for a 10-minute movie critical of the treatment of women because the Koran allows husbands to beat their wives! Hell, imagine what would happen if Monty Python followed up Life of Brian with Life of Muhammad? How about WWIII?

The Swiss vote was less about Muslim architecture than it was the very real fear of how Islamic demands are impacting western constitutional societies. Consider the case of a judge in Frankfurt, Germany who refused to grant legal aid for a wife of Moroccan origin seeking an immediate divorce because she was severely beaten by her Moroccan husband. The judge, apparently in a grossly misguided attempt to be “sensitive” to Islamic traditions, denied the women her claim because according to the provision in Qur’ān Sūrah 4, 34, beating wives was common in the culture of origin of the parties!

Then there’s Sharia Law, the Islamic legal code that mandates horrendous, beastly practices including bodily dismemberment, flogging and stoning. Muslims continue to practice female genital mutilation, forced adolescent marriages (underage rape) and polygamy. They seek to force, violently if necessary, non-Muslim societies to adopt their vial practices. The really scary thing is that they are succeeding far too often.

The Islamic world has made it clear that it will tolerate no other religions or legal codes that conflict with their beliefs, which is basically any non-Muslim. No constitutional freedoms of speech, expression or association are to be allowed. What’s more they expect the rest of world to fall into line with their intolerance. This religion continues to aggressively export their culture of violence, hate and intolerance. Although Switzerland has so far had it much better than the rest of Europe, they see it coming and they are scared to death! Given the stakes how can one blame them?