Switzerland makes a u-turn, a right one?

A request for a building-permit in 2005, in a small municipality in eastern Switzerland, eventually resulted in a huge controversy. People didn’t only actively seek ways in which to prevent Muslims from adding a minaret to their mosque, they even went to as far as the Federal Supreme Court in preventing the six meter high tower to be built. They lost.

But only the first round as we saw this week. On November 29th, the Swiss-people voted in a referendum on a constitutional amendment that forbids building any new minarets and voted in favor with a 57,5% majority. Also a majority of the cantons, needed in order for the law to be approved, turned out not to be much of a problem: 19,5 out of 23 passed the bill (cantons are member states of the federal state). This made it even more surprising, for many polls told us that the referendum would probably rid us of this strange proposal. As it stands, it will be implemented. No one doubts that this will not be the end of the issue.

It’s a peculiar issue, for when such massive opposition to building minarets arises, you might start to think that they are a prominent aspect of the Alp-country’s landscapes. However, they are not. Switzerland currently holds only four of them, and since it is a free, democratic and secular state this seems no big deal. Still, it bothers people.  Not because of inherent objections to Islamic religion, or so the argument goes, only because the minaret is in their eyes a symbol of Islamic law, and therefore incompatible with Swiss’s legal system. This sound is echoed by MEP Oskar Freysinger (Swiss People’s Party), who clearly states that “we don’t have anything against Muslims”, before elaborating on minaret’s as a symbol of aggressive imperialism rather than open Islamic tendencies.

As in many places, right winged politicians are doing well. Since this is a general election year, hard-liners, as a replacement for overly optimistic one-liners such as ‘yes we can’, are doing well, adding more weight to the prejudices many people already hold. Unsurprisingly, Dutch Geert Wilders was quick to congratulate the Swiss nation with this decision. He even proposed holding just such a referendum in the Netherlands. Luckily, there are many people who seem to reason their way out this upheaval. Zurich, Geneva and Basel, the countries three biggest cities, all voted against. Street protests have been organized, protest banners reading claims as ‘this is not my Switzerland’; ‘I did not grew up in this country’. The largest political parties have firmly pressed citizens to vote against this plan too, backed by the Vatican, as both saw it as a real threat to religious peace, stability and freedom.

And there is more. Economic interests for instance. Arab nations, whose majority adheres to Islam, are huge investors in Swiss businesses and innovation processes. It is not unlikely that they will refrain from doing so in the future. Economic interests are trampled by those of morality however, as the old saying tell us: Rights trump utilities. And that is something definitely true in this case, even if it is a false generalization. Whatever the faults of Muslim fundamentalist might be, we cannot and should not make peaceful living Muslims a target. There are many discussions whether it is even possible for Islam to be combined with democratic freedoms and values, but that does not mean we have to dispose our own values.

A last remark or question, to which the answer is still unclear, is whether this new step by the Swiss is actually legal. They might not be a member of the European Union, but they have signed several international treaties that bear on freedom-rights. Whether it clashes with this will depend on how essential a minaret will be judged to be for religious practices and expression, as well as on the extent to which this new law is a result of unfair discrimination.

All that has happened misses the actual point though. It borders on arbitrariness and stupidity to forbid building buildings. Solve problems where they need solving, don’t create more reasons to create more problems. And how can a minaret be a symbol of oppression if we do not recognize it to be just that? It is a building that many believers attach value to, even if it is not essential in religious practices. We should realize that when problems arise, when it comes to women treatment to name one, it will make no difference at all whether a building does or does not exist. It is practices and values we need to worry about.

(I am a fervent atheist. I do not support any religious doctrine; I just think this will do more harm than good)