Anti-minaret poster campaign divides Swiss cities

[Franzl]

Retribution.

Yet again, you're going around in circles here.

Retribution for what? Do you support punishing people for something out of their control?

This is like wanting to throw both husband and wife in jail if the husband is convicted of murder.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Disgusting.

Good. It's about time the Muslims learned that if they don't tolerate Christianity and atheism, we won't tolerate their religions here.

So you want to be as stupid and intolerant as them ? What a formidable libertarian !

So you admit Islam is intolerant? What a formidable social liberal!

Radical islam is intolerant, as radical christianism and radical atheism. Radical islam is just more vocal.

Religion altogether is intolerant, in most cases.

So let's forbid to build churchs !

You're one of my favorite posters. Just wanted to get that out there.

Reciprocal.

[k-onmmunist]

I love it when a circle jerk comes together!

[k-onmmunist]

Retribution.

Yet again, you're going around in circles here.

Retribution for what? Do you support punishing people for something out of their control?

This is like wanting to throw both husband and wife in jail if the husband is convicted of murder.

Aforementioned laws against 'apostates'.

[Hash]

Fail thread.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting to see how different Zürich proper voted from just about everywhere else nearby - 36% yes is the lowest of all the municipalities on that one map.

You want to boycott something asthetically unappealing and sort of Swiss, I suggest banks.

[opebo]

Yes!

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

How pénible.

And what surprises me it is all journalists/commentators opening on "oh! surprising!".

And lol at the mix between Islam/Muslims/Quran/Saudi Arabia/Salafist/Other things expressed here by a poster.

And far less lol to Xavier Bertrand (figurehead of the UMP) directly going on: "yes they can have mosques, but, do they really need minarets after all??". How would I call that? Ah, yes, slightly sickening.

One more time identity issues are dooming the minds of people. Oh f***...

And me, even before that I heard about the existence of that referendum, a few months ago, who was in Limousin, going through the countryside, and, telling me, "oh, how lovely would these villages be with mosques with minarets along with the churches".

My point of views make that I wouldn't be particularly glad of the expansion of monotheism, then of Islam, and now, because of silliness of some guys who feel under siege of Muslims but who are in fact only under siege of their TV images and of torrents of words of which i don't particularly like the choice and combination, i find myself advocating for them, just because this is a question of right and of tolerance. It will be hard for us to give some lessons in that realm if we speak about notions that we would control less and less.

Fear makes you being silly, especially when you don't really know what you fear about. And, you know, I'm fed up with this...

Yes, pénible.

[Lunar]

This is disgusting, that's all I have to say.

[Lunar]

actually, I'll address one comment on the opposite side of the debate within this entire thread which I feel is a bit more on the substantive side:

I don't see what's so disgusting about this. The Swiss should be able to control the architecture in their country. They already have laws banning buildings from obscuring the view of the Alps, and this is just another law to preserve what a majority of Swiss see as the image of their country. Similarly, I wouldn't have a problem with Iraq or Saudi Arabia banning Swiss architecture in their cities.

Because it's a PROXY to attack a minority.  Just like when the United States decided to make marijuana a crime because it was a habit of Mexican-Americans or when San Francisco made male ponytails a crime because Chinese-Americans wore them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

edit: also, literacy tests in the south with grandfather clause exceptions would be acceptable in the abstract but when put into the specific CONTEXT of the South were horribly fucking disgusting, racist, and oppressive.  If you want to pull this into the abstract, you can, but you are de facto endorsing oppression by doing so.  You should not ignore the INTENT or CONSEQUENCES behind a law...we both know this is not to preserve the scenic Swiss countryside (which I've visited and think is beautiful, even if they found my hochdeutsch a bit weird).

It's simply a disgusting manifestation and mixture of left-wing and right-wing xenophobic pretentiousness in the worst kind of ways.

[Lief 🗽]

Yeah, I don't deny any of that. Hell, the people running the anti-minaret campaign made it abundantly clear that the issue didn't have anything to do with architecture or even preserving Swiss culture, but instead ran a pretty virulently anti-Muslim, xenophobic campaign.

What I'm saying is that nations and cultural groups should have the right to preserve their culture institutions. If a bunch of Europeans started building Gothic-style churches in Baghdad or Riyadh, I think that the locals there would support a similar ban. Obviously xenophobia, racism and bigotry should be not condoned, but if we separate these from the equation here, I don't believe that there's anything wrong with the actual law (though it is a little stupid to amend the constitution to enforce this; a regular statute should have sufficed). Unfortunately, as you pointed out, at least in this situation (and I think this is a problem with these sort of populist, anti-immigrant movements of the right throughout Europe), separating the bigotry from the desire to preserve cultural institutions is basically impossible.

[2952-0-0]

It seems like the German-speaking part of Switzerland was not denazified like the rest of Europe was 60 years ago.

[Rob]

I don't see the problem with fighting back against organized religion.

[Lunar]

I don't see the problem with fighting back against organized religion.

Maybe we should just slaughter ever Turk in cold blood and just be done with it.  As long as the means with which you accomplish your goals, no matter how disgusting and immoral they may be, get you there, right?

Maybe we should just outlaw religion, you fascist.  At least that way you wouldn't be supporting discrimination (and the ensuing violence) against minorities while you can still suppress freedom of thought.

[Rob]

Maybe we should just slaughter ever Turk in cold blood and just be done with it.

I don't think all Muslims are Turks.

Maybe we should just outlaw religion, you fascist.

Who would have guessed that Swiss minarets get Lunar more excited than anything else that's been debated on this forum? Did you get laid for the first time in the Wangen bei Olten mosque, or something?

[Хahar 🤔]

Oh dear, this thread went downhill fast.

It seems like the German-speaking part of Switzerland was not denazified like the rest of Europe was 60 years ago.

Austria's just the same.

[Tender Branson]

Oh dear, this thread went downhill fast.

It seems like the German-speaking part of Switzerland was not denazified like the rest of Europe was 60 years ago.

Austria's just the same.

The big difference between Austria and Switzerland is the fact that the Austrian government is not allowed to ban the construction of minarets, because it would be against Freedom of Religion, against Human Rights and against various International and EU treaties. In Austria, state governments may limit the construction of buildings who do not properly fit the city image (Raumplanungsverordnung). That´s what Carinthia and Vorarlberg did, but it wasn't actually a "ban on minarets", it`s just the fact that the Raumplanung would have to issue a permit for construction. A 25 meter minaret for example could be ruled as violating the city image by the authority, just like a 50 meter pink tower would when used as a residence. Therefore a ban of mosques and minarets like in Switzerland is completely out of question in Austria.

[Lunar]

Maybe we should just slaughter ever Turk in cold blood and just be done with it.

I don't think all Muslims are Turks.

Most of them in Germanic European countries are.  But way to nit pick when I just launched a rhetorical cannonball.

Maybe we should just outlaw religion, you fascist.

Who would have guessed that Swiss minarets get Lunar more excited than anything else that's been debated on this forum? Did you get laid for the first time in the Wangen bei Olten mosque, or something?

I've never held back when I feel passionately about disgusting attitudes.  Look up some of my threads on gay rights if you want to see me cussing at people to see I've done it before.  If you were just defending slavery or something immoral like that (to take an extreme example), I'd ignore your post as it wouldn't be worth responding to.  Populist xenophobia is something I've always been pretty vitriolically against.

But you didn't address my two hypothetical questions.  How about we just slaughter all Muslims in Europe?  Just a little mini-pogrom, it probably wouldn't even be as bad as the Holocaust, but it might come close.  It'd go a long way towards fighting organized religion, the only principle you seem to believe in in life.

[Хahar 🤔]

If there was a referendum like this in Austria, what would the results be?

[Tender Branson]

If there was a referendum like this in Austria, what would the results be?

There is none, there have only been 2 referendums in the past 60 years (one against nuclear energy and one for the EU-membership).

The sentiment in the population is the same, it would probably be approved by about the same margin. Maybe 65-35 or 60-40.

But the main difference is that Switzerland is a direct democracy and we are a parliamentary democracy and you cannot find a majority in parliament to enact a ban. SPÖ/ÖVP and Green MPs would all vote against it, with only FPÖ and BZÖ in favor.

[Хahar 🤔]

And that is why the Swiss system is terrible.

[Tender Branson]

And that is why the Swiss system is terrible.

Well, the European Human Rights Court will probably strike down the law anyway if brought before them, because it`s most likely violating the European Human Rights Convention.

Then it will provoke a reaction from the Swiss politicians, because they won't risk that Switzerland is thrown out of the European Council.

But first I guess the case will be brought before the Swiss Supreme Court.

[Tender Branson]

More on the Austrian political process for a ban on minarets:

Currently, only FPÖ and BZÖ support a ban on minarets here. They have 30% of all seats in parliament. For a ban to become law, parliament would have to vote in favor of the ban with a 2/3 majority. SPÖ+Greens alone have 42% of all seats, so this is completely unlikely. FPÖ-leader HC Strache is now talking about a so called "Volksbegehren", which is a petition to parliament every eligible voting-age person in Austria can sign. More than 100.000 signatures automatically lead to dealing with the issue in parliament. The last step would be a referendum on the law (issued by the Austrian President), but currently the "wrong (leftwing)" President is in office. For example, if Strache's petition for parliament gets 1.500.000 signatures and parliament debates and votes on the issue (lets say 35% in favor), a right-wing president could argue that this is not the will of the Austrian people and could issue a referendum. But simply put, Heinz Fischer would not issue such a referendum.

[Lunar]

The Vatican, extremely admirably, has come out against this.  

Can someone who knows more about the area tell me about how they think Swiss Catholics differentiate with Swiss Protestants (roughly equal populations) about this issue?  Thanks, I admit my ignorance about the demographics of this despite my outspoken opposition to the results and my single visit to Zurich and Liechstenstein.    

I'm also interested in this subject because I am considering grad school in the Netherlands with my EU citizenship helping the process, and the NL is also experiencing a rise in anti-immigrant attitudes against the Moroccans as well as the Turks.  I asked my Dutch teacher about it today outside of class and she posited that immigrants have a tendency to not fit in with Dutch [socially liberal] attitudes and expressed this lack of integration as a "problem," which I  disagreed with.  So this isn't just me yelling at a wall about something I don't care about.  I'm trying to grasp my mind around the broader European political situation (which goes far behind Switzerland, which is only at the forefront because of its direct democracy, in my probably ignorant opinion) in the long term.  

[Lunar]

Yeah, I don't deny any of that. Hell, the people running the anti-minaret campaign made it abundantly clear that the issue didn't have anything to do with architecture or even preserving Swiss culture, but instead ran a pretty virulently anti-Muslim, xenophobic campaign.

What I'm saying is that nations and cultural groups should have the right to preserve their culture institutions. If a bunch of Europeans started building Gothic-style churches in Baghdad or Riyadh, I think that the locals there would support a similar ban. Obviously xenophobia, racism and bigotry should be not condoned, but if we separate these from the equation here, I don't believe that there's anything wrong with the actual law (though it is a little stupid to amend the constitution to enforce this; a regular statute should have sufficed). Unfortunately, as you pointed out, at least in this situation (and I think this is a problem with these sort of populist, anti-immigrant movements of the right throughout Europe), separating the bigotry from the desire to preserve cultural institutions is basically impossible.

[warning, this probably won't be coherent]

I'm not sure if I entirely agree with you, but I think we largely see eye to eye.  If this was not of a discriminatory subject matter, say, the Swiss banned making houses out of lego blocks, while it would be weird, I don't think there'd be much objection.  I'm not sure if it's their "right" as a country to determine which styles of architecture are legitimate, but I don't really care too much about that.  I do think they are in place to demand that the prayer calls (the ones that woke me up at 5am most of the time in Indonesia despite living in one of the most Christian areas of Java) don't violate noise policies, but those laws are already on the books.   So I'm willing to tolerate a little amount of discrimination under the auspices of reasonableness, but I don't think that the minaret ban falls under this in any way whatsoever.  

I'm willing to acknowledge that basic laws regarding building construction are going to be inherently discriminatory towards people who like to build weird buildings but that's not what this is about  

As has been stated, there are less minarets in Switzerland than the fingers you have on one hand, so this policy is not directly oppressing even most Swiss immigrants, but it is a proxy for xenophobia and for that reason should be opposed...I don't think I want to delve into the property rights side of this debate at all since it's the weakest point I could make.    

I think the grandfather clauses after the American Civil War are a great example of something which is more or less inoffensive in the technical sense withdrawn from the context and implication of the law, but when put into practice was horribly offensive, to say the least.  

To be honest, banning minarets is not a big deal in and of itself and affects a relatively small percentage of the population who would be attending services at newly built mosques.  But the broader implications of this are significant.  

And we in the United States are no better.  I'm pretty sure Lawrence v. Texas was in the 21st Century.  

And I'm willing to be schooled on this issue, if anyone wants to substantiate why this law is acceptable better than I've seen thus far I'd actually truly appreciate it.  I'm the opposite of an expert in the Swiss situation.  I can only speak of this law from what I know about Europe and what I know about broader principles, but I've read a few articles about it and I'm pretty damn disgusted.