More on this story. "Mixed Swimming Worries Swiss Muslims," by Hadi Yahmid for Islam Online, October 26:
BERN — A Swiss court ruling against exempting Muslim students from compulsory, mixed swimming classes has sparked a hot debate over respecting the religious beliefs of minorities.Unlike sharia law and its dhimmi codes, such as the Pact of Omar, no doubt."Muslim students in Europe should be granted the right to take swimming lessons that fit their religious beliefs," Chakib Benmakhlouf, head of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), told IslamOnline.net.
"Some Western countries violate the principles of freedom by laws and court rulings that transgress on the rights of their minorities."
A Swiss court turned down on Friday, October 24, a request by a Swiss Muslim father to exempt his two sons from attending mixed swimming classes.It argued that exempting students from mixed swimming classes for religious reasons must be very restricted.
Equality between the two sexes and the success of the integration process should be given priority over religious considerations, argued the court.
The verdict runs counter to a 1993 court ruling which allowed the exemption of a Muslim schoolgirl from attending mixed swimming lessons that violate her religious tents.
There are more than 340,000 Muslims in Switzerland, which has a population of 7.4 million.
Islam is the second religion in the European country after Christianity.
Necessity
Some Swiss schools have taken measures to encourage Muslim students to attend swimming classes by allocating separate pools and changing rooms for boys and girls.
But many Muslim students had to dropped out from the mixed swimming classes when such accommodations were not make.
Sheikh Ounis Guergah, the head of the fatwa section of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), said people should strike the right balance.
"In principle, people should ne be very rigid when it comes to children who have not yet reached puberty," he told IOL.
"But even in this case, parents must teach their kids modesty and chastity."
Sheikh Guergah stressed that the case is different with adults and grown-ups.
"We recommend that they dress the way Islam dictates," he said, noting that international swimmers in the Beijing Olympics wore swimming suits that almost covered all their bodies.
The scholar said Muslim students should abide by their religious dressing code as much as possible and seek exemption when possible.
"But if this will lead to expulsion from school as was the case in many French schools, it would be in the best interest of students to attend these (swimming) lessons."
You don't have a "right" to impose your own laws on somebody else's country.
You don't have a "right" to change the rules of somebody else's educational system.
You don't have a "right" to change the standard of public behavior in somebody else's culture.
And if you don't like it, go home!
There are some very conservative Christians -- some of whom probably reside in La Suisse -- who do not care for "mixed bathing," either. Does ANYONE think that ANYONE would even consider for ONE MINUTE catering to their wishes in this same situation? No. The Christians would either not send their kids to one of these schools, OR they would have accepted that mixed bathing would be part of the curriculum. Only with Muslims, do we see the Western elite -- both in Europe and in the US -- strangely bending over backwards to accommodate the every whim of a semi-educated, bearded "Imam" (or his followers) obsessed with anything sexual. This is especially laughable when one considers that these same Imams will simultaneously DEFEND both the right of husbands to strike their wives and of fathers to "honor kill" their daughters who date unbelievers without their permission. (Note: Such teachings are virtually unknown within Christianity.)
Once again in Europistan do we see the muslims trying to subvert the local, state or national laws for the benefit of the few, the muslims. These people need to get over it and conform to the laws of the countries that they are living in. If the muslims do not like it then they are free to leave at any time. I wish they would! This is a prime example of stealth jihad in action. It is too bad more Europistani countries do not take actions like this to force the sniveling muslims into reality, or out of the respective country. Here in the U.S., we are unwilling at times to stand on our laws and principles, against the rabid muslim horde that is subverting our country from within.
The muslims want to come into a country and ruin it from the inside out with lawsuits and crying foul over the slightest issue. The goal is to establish islam, sharia law and a
society based on a dhimmi way of slavery. The muslims will always react the same, poor us, we are being discriminated against, we only want to live in peace(at the cost of EVERRYONE'S freedom), and we do not accept your religions or laws but you can convert to islam, or be killed! islam equals slavery, discrimination against women, honor killings and other horrors that are all too well documented around the globe.
Are Swiss Muslims afraid of the water? It's not like that scene in the "Wizard of Oz", is it?
There is always the danger of where it might all end.
Here, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy6I1oXIIpw
Stories like this just make me that much more grateful to the black Americans who endured the degradation and inhumanity of segregation so that we could have in place an immutable law stating that separate can never mean equal and that segregation can never occur in America. Not that that stops the MSA/MSU for lobbying for separate housing (like anyone lives in graduate housing besides 30-year-old Muslim pedophiles anyway) and separate eating facilities. It's in their Constitution that they have to keep pushing for that crap, but futility was always their thing, like opposing the Afghanistan invasion after 9/11. I think it's awesome that the Swiss have mandatory swimming in school. I had to go to another school after school to be on the swim team because my school didn't have one.
The verdict runs counter to a 1993 court ruling which allowed the exemption of a Muslim schoolgirl from attending mixed swimming lessons that violate her religious tents. (sic)
..............................
I realize that the above is a typo, but I couldn't help but imagine a pool full of poor girls trying to swim in billowing burqas and not drowning. I suppose this would be the next step--can't have the "faithful" swimming next to Infidels in bikinis and speedos (or even modest one-piece swimsuits and baggy trunks)--even if they are same-sex.
This is not far-fetched--many adult women in the Muslim world, if they are allowed at the pool or on the beach at all, have to go swathed in yards of fabric to preserve their "modesty".
How long 'til we find this in the West?
News flash for all 7th century Mohammadean Swiss cavemen. Get the hell out of Europe if you don't like their culture. Go back to the world that your culture ruined.
Jdamn wrote:
Stories like this just make me that much more grateful to the black Americans who endured the degradation and inhumanity of segregation so that we could have in place an immutable law stating that separate can never mean equal and that segregation can never occur in America.
...........................
Would that it were so. The Seattle public pools have segregated Muslim swim times, as does Rutgers University. Perhaps there are others, by now.
Here's a link:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/06/muslim-hours-at-municpal-swimming-pools-in.html
I thereby remove the swizz judges as beinjg religious and mortal unfit to be than fit unblas judge. The judges need to goto than reeducation school to learn correct thinking and reasoning which is potical correct.
Parlez en anglais ou va-t-en!!
Do you mean you would "thereby remove" their heads?
OMG Gravenimage! I thought they only did that crap in Australia. I know about the Muslimah-only hours at Harvard's gym, which is totally unconstitutional, but a public school is something else. Someone needs to challenge the legality of that. I think the DEOCR could handle cases like that, but only someone who has been affected can actually file a suit. The DEOCR is actually pretty cool, in my experience. They're not too concerned with political correctness, at least in my dealings with IU, and I know that the DoE is not cutting Islamic schools too much slack, so I put far more faith in them than I would in, say, the ACLU.
"Parlez en anglais ou va-t-en!!"
-- from a posting above
You can vouvoyer or you can tutoyer but to begin by vouvoying and then, just after the conjunction, tutoying the same audience in the same sentence, is to become far too familiar far too quickly. Neither Emily Post, nor her French equivalent, would approve.
On a Hawaiian vacation, I saw a Muslim female in full swimming kit: what appeared to be a loose, ill-cut Hazmat suit, which flapped and bound around her wrists and ankles, and a tightly wrapped headbag. Her hair had been bunched on the top of her head beneath the bag, which gave her entire physical appearance a bizarre, alien quality. Her father and younger brother were sporting Speedos and enjoying the sun.
The female was no more than eleven years old.
Selfishness of the supreme. An oxymoron.
Selfish..."I want what I want when I want it'.
Selfless...'You will get what I've got when I get it'...
There are the selfless supremes, and the selfish supremes. Islam has few of the first and loads of the second.
Islam is a very selfish religion, claiming everything in existence for itself, and it's submitters.
Individual Mohammadans are selfish in their desire for Allah's Paradise, so much so, many are willing to kill, and be killed to get there.
Mohammad may not have been the most selfish man who ever lived, but he's right up there at the top. Selfish for money, power, prestige, and women.
'Selfish' is the basis for the demands we are familiar with.
'Selfish' is a basis for abuse.
Islam is built on 'selfish'.
'Selfish is ugly'...
Learn to say NO, don't give in to ugly...
I'd like to help out; since they're offended by having to swim with normal people, the sons of the desert are welcome to use my septic tank in complete privacy.
DefenderofIslam
posted his babble talk
.....I thereby remove the swizz judges as beinjg religious and mortal unfit to be than fit unblas judge. The judges need to goto than reeducation school to learn correct thinking and reasoning which is potical correct......
Do us all a favor ..... go and first learn to write English before you post your rubbish, and honestly who cares what you want to remove ....
But again before you want to re-educate any qualified Swiss Judge ....
Re-Educate Yourself ..... then talk or write again Moonbat
You are the joke of the day ....
Gabrielle you just lost what ever citzenship of what nation you have. Donot forget to tell your local voteing office that you cannot vote anymore.
I thereby remove the swizz judges as beinjg religious and mortal unfit to be than fit unblas judge. The judges need to goto than reeducation school to learn correct thinking and reasoning which is potical correct.
Posted by: DefenderofIslam at October 26, 2008 8:04 PM
"reeducation school" - is this an admission that Islam and fascism have something else in common?
The Swiss are great believers in preparedness.
Let the Muslims drop out of swimming; let's hope the mixed archery and marksman classes provide stumbling blocks, also, for the sake of Swiss nationalism.
Did you know that several Swiss cantons collect taxes for the Vatican? Kind of a reverse jizya.
"Gabrielle you just lost what ever citzenship of what nation you have. Donot forget to tell your local voteing office that you cannot vote anymore.
What the heck does that mean? What did I miss?
Can someone translate this, for me? Do we have someone posting to this board who has the power to revoke citizenship of other posters, even when their country of origin is not specified? Gee, I thought my government was scary!
There are some very conservative Christians -- some of whom probably reside in La Suisse -- who do not care for "mixed bathing," either.
Indeed there are. There are many conservative Catholic websites that quote these words, attributed to Enrique Cardinal Pla y Daniel, former Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain: "A special danger to morals is represented by public bathing at beaches, in pools and river banks . . . Mixed bathing between men and women which nearly always is an approximate occasion of sin and a scandal, must be avoided."
Does ANYONE think that ANYONE would even consider for ONE MINUTE catering to their wishes in this same situation? No.
Well, they should. If the state is going to tax conservative Catholics, so that in many cases they are financially compelled to send their children to state schools, then the state should at least ensure that the children do not have to violate their consciences. I am perfectly willing to accommodate Catholics, Mohammedans, or others who don't want their children compelled to participate in mixed bathing, so that I have a leg to stand on when I don't want my children compelled to attend mixed sex education classes where they are shown how to put condoms on bananas.
This is not far-fetched--many adult women in the Muslim world, if they are allowed at the pool or on the beach at all, have to go swathed in yards of fabric to preserve their "modesty".
>i>How long 'til we find this in the West?
Actually, it was the norm in the West until the last century. Those Europeans who defeated the Musselmans at Tours in 732, at Lepanto in 1570, and at Vienna in 1683 would have been appalled to see what is generally worn on beaches and at swimming pools.
Seamus -
"Disrobe the images!"
- from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
"tutoyer" or "vouvoyer"
You're right Hugh. I realized my mistake too late. I decided not to correct it as I thought it would be too much French on top of DefenderofIslam's "lingo," whatever that may be. I stand corrected.
DefenderofIslam -- your name tells that you have bitten off more than you can chew. Have much fun with that English idiomatic phrase.
They have private schools in Switzerland, do they not?
Don't like what the public schools do? Then teach them swimming in a private school. Or opt out of swimming class. There are other forms of exercise.
The Swiss are a Western Society. In Western Societies, we teach girls along with boys. They learn to deal with each other at an early age. They don't relegate women to a second class citizenship.
If it is reasonable for them to demand Western Society accommodate them, then it should be reasonable for the West to change Middle Eastern countries to something more tolerant. Perhaps we should demand that Christian Missionaries teach at the local Madrassa.
Yeah, that'll go over real well...
Seamus
If one understands Catholic - and, generally, Christian ethics and concept of the individual and of personal responsibility - one would never, as you appear to be trying to do, attempt to press an equivalence between supposed 'conservative' Catholic ideas about modesty in clothing and conduct, and Muslim ideas about what people should or shouldn't wear, along with Muslim attempts to totally segregate men from women in public.
There might be a superficial similarity between the usual practice of sharia-based societies and the practice of a small percentage of strict Catholics (or perhaps of the Amish?), but the underlying anthropology and ethics of the two groups are radically different.
Christian ethics is inner-focused, with a strong emphasis on personal, individual responsibility, and a universal ethics (the Golden Rule), whereas Muslim 'ethics' (if one may call it that) is completely external, abrogates all personal, individual responsibility, and concerns itself with 'halal' and 'haram', the 'permitted' and the 'forbidden' (and there are things permitted by Islam that are anathema to Christianity - for example, polygamy, and sex with prepubescent girls).
What is more: even at their most 'covered-up', in pre-modern times, western women were never as covered-up as Muslim women normally were, nor were they so completely excluded from public life as women are in sharia-compliant Muslim societies even today. There has never been, in Western countries, anything even remotely resembling the extreme segregation of men from women that is practised in, for example, Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Women's faces were always visible; necks, shoulders, arms, and varying degrees of decolletage were exposed, even in the Middle Ages. Never was their hair completely hidden, as it is under the hijab.
Take a look at a selection of Madonna paintings between, say, the 11th century and the 19th. From quite early on, she is shown with head uncovered; and just think about those delightful paintings that depict her giving suck to the Child.
I would argue that most modern Western Christians are indeed quite happy to swim in mixed company at the beach or at the pool without thinking twice about it, precisely *because* for Christianity, morality comes from within and is indicated more by conduct than by dress. This 'inner focus' has given Christianity considerable flexibility.
One may be modest in a bikini (on the beach or at the pool, that is, in a place where such dress is customary) and a slut in a shapeless sack that covers one from neck to ankles. It's all in the body language and in what one does with the eyes, whether one signals 'come hither' or 'keep your distance, mind your own business', and most intelligent Western men have learnt how to tell the difference.
From the point of view of health and safety, and economy, and women's time, it is a good thing that the hot, heavy, limb-clogging movement-restricting high-maintenance multiple layers of clothing that Western women had to wear in earlier eras, have been done away with. They disappeared in the 1920s; they're gone, and they're not coming back: good riddance.
(Perhaps Hugh can find us an online clip featuring Noel Coward's famous song about Uncle Harry, who went to the South Seas as a missionary; speaking as a modest Christian matron, I must say I have always been highly amused by the denouement of that little ballad).
In any case: if it's a primary school, mixed learn-to-swim classes for boys and girls is perfectly acceptable. Six-year-olds don't flirt! And I would doubt that even ten or eleven year olds are exactly prone to the demon lust.
Even at secondary school, I wouldn't place co-ed swimming classes and swimming carnivals (involving races and diving competitions and so on, which of course *are* segregated by sex) in the same category as your 'straw man' example of the sex ed condom demo.
When *I* attended Years 11 and 12 at a church-run private school in a country town in Australia, our swimming classes were co-ed, down at the local municipal pool, in the chilly early morning hours.
Those hours were hardly conducive to lust: I mainly remember being chilled to the bone, floundering desperately along whilst watching competent swimmers, male and female, zipping up and down the lanes like motorboats. My male classmates were far less pleasing to look at in their speedos and goose-pimples, than in their full parade-ground Cadet get-up (white shirt, beret, tie and magnificent Scots kilt - it was a Presbyterian boarding school), but since they were all what we unkindly called 'boofheads', with no conversation whatever, I went through high school quite free of lustful thoughts about any of them.
"Some Western countries violate the principles of freedom by laws and court rulings that transgress on the rights of their minorities."
Maybe the Swiss just don't want to wait until NOT PAYING JIZYA becomes "transgressing on the rights" of a particular minority that has invaded their country; on top of the usual many other demands that most of our spineless political leaders bend over backwards to meet, such as allowing those SHARIA COURTS to open in the UK, for example.
There might be a superficial similarity between the usual practice of sharia-based societies and the practice of a small percentage of strict Catholics (or perhaps of the Amish?), but the underlying anthropology and ethics of the two groups are radically different.
So you're saying that if Christians who believe mixed bathing is immoral ask for sex-segregated swim classes, we should accommodate them, but if Mohammedans who believe mixed bathing is immoral ask for sex-segregated swim classes, we should deny them? Or are you saying that those Christians who object to mixed swim classes should have their consciences run roughshod over just as we run roughshod over every religious minority that hasn't bought into the modern outlook?
seamus
The state primary school that my two youngest attend, is situated opposite a Catholic primary school.
They don't have a swimming pool on the grounds; ours does.
They have a deal with us, that they can use our pool for swimming lessons.
During the warmer months, periodically a 'crocodile' of small and not-so-small pupils from the Catholic school trots past on its way to swimming lessons in our pool. The boys and girls march side by side with their little bags containing towels, togs etc. Girls change in the girls' change room, boys change in the boys' change room, and they all jump into the pool together for their lessons
Had any of the parents at that school kicked up a stink about co-ed swimming lessons, and demanded sex-segregated lessons instead, I am quite, quite sure that it would have hit the local rag in no time.
I have *never* heard, here in Australia, of *any* Catholic parent attempting to withdraw their son or daughter, if studying at a state primary or secondary school, from co-ed swimming lessons.
Can you cite specific, recent news stories, from the UK, Canada, or the United States, in which Catholic parents have attempted to do what those Muslim parents have tried to do in Switzerland?
Or in which they have attempted to lobby local seaside councils or municipal councils to achieve the imposition of male-only and female-only swimming areas or swimming sessions.
Links, please. Or at least: news outlet, names, dates, places, times.
You quoted an alleged Spanish bishop above, supposedly fulminating against the seething immorality promoted by men and women, boys and girls going down to the beach or the municipal pool to swim at the same time (he'd better not come to Bondi, Manly, or Mooloolaba, he'll have a heart attack). Question: the date of this statement?
To be perfectly frank: if he said that, and if he said it in this day and age, as opposed to, for example, 1890 or 1910, I think the man is a fool. I am a practising Christian. I was a virgin when I married; so was my husband. And in fact: my husband proposed marriage to me on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, just after we had been happily frolicking in the river together...and I was wearing a bikini, if you really want to know...!
Who the *hell* is this stupid Spanish bishop, that he would, if he could, make laws to forbid me, and my husband, and our four children, two boys, two girls, aged 18 to 8, from going to the beach TOGETHER and swimming TOGETHER; that he would forbid my husband (who is a stronger swimmer than I am) from going into the surf with our little daughter, or going to the pool to teach her to swim?
I have been going to Australian municipal pools and sea beaches - lousy with bikinis and speedos and the occasional topless female - since I was three. They are happy, noisy FAMILY places: mums, dads, grandpas, grandmas, aunties, uncles and cousins, and, yes, the teens and the twenties, surreptitiously flirting; even women in skimpy swimsuits and sarongs, publicly breastfeeding their naked infants and toddlers. And you know what? - I found, and find, NONE of it offends my moral sensibilities at all.
Indeed, I have a lovely old photograph of my grandparents, from the 1930s, in their togs, at the beach, hand in hand, during their courtship. They were perfectly chaste - I know, because I've read the love letters they wrote during that courtship.
All the Christian churches conduct beach camps for upper primary and junior high-school age children; at those camps the boys' and girls' dormitories and bathrooms are separate, yes, but everyone goes down to the surf in a joyful mixed mob, supervised by the men and women leaders whose job it is to count heads and make sure nobody gets drowned.
To be perfectly frank: I suspect that people with the sort of views you're describing would be a very tiny minority out of all the Catholics in the world, and certainly a vanishingly small minority among Australian Catholics!
You quoted an alleged Spanish bishop above, supposedly fulminating against the seething immorality promoted by men and women, boys and girls going down to the beach or the municipal pool to swim at the same time (he'd better not come to Bondi, Manly, or Mooloolaba, he'll have a heart attack). Question: the date of this statement?
The bishop made his statement in 1959, but you can find it quoted approvingly on many conservative Catholic websites today, so there clearly are some Catholics for whom mixed bathing would be a violation of conscience. Are you saying their consciences should be disregarded because they are "fools" or "stupid"?