On December 24, the Arab American News published a piece called "Minaret ban indicates evolving fascism" by Ali Moossavi, in which Moossavi, with a Charles-Johnsonish flair for defamation, characterized those concerned about the Islamization of Europe as neofascists. Predictably, Moossavi paid no attention to the fact that there is no similar reaction in Europe against Hindus, Sikhs, or other immigrant communities. Moossavi doesn't consider, of course, the fact that many young Muslims in Europe identify publicly with the global jihad and against Western ideals of freedom and democracy.
Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union responded with this letter to the Arab American News:
Mr Moossavi has completely failed to understand the reasons for the Swiss vote in favour of a ban on the construction of minarets. The call for a referendum was certainly provocative and the Swiss People's Party, the SVP, is certainly on the right of Swiss politics. But the SVP does not have the level of support which on its own would have brought them victory in the referendum.The Swiss in general are a tolerant, liberal people, and are not racists. But living as they do in the heart of Europe, they can hardly be unaware of what is happening around them. The vote was quite simply a reaction to the ever more shrill demands of Europe's Islamic leaders for special rights and special treatment. Examples are legion: special areas set aside in the workplace for prayers - in company time; demands for an alternative system of justice based on sharia law for the settlement of family disputes that would deny women equal treatment; and the fact that while not all Muslims are terrorists, most terrorists we have seen in Europe recently have been Muslims.
The Swiss were also provoked by a recent call by Muammar Gaddafi for Switzerland to be broken up because the Geneva police had had the temerity to arrest his son for beating a servant, followed by the unjustified arrest of two Swiss businessmen in Libya in retaliation.
Most of all, however, the Swiss have been provoked by the failure of Europe's Muslims to play by the rules; to enter into debate about the merits and demerits of Islam, but instead to take to the streets, banners screaming for the overthrow of democracy and freedom, at every insult to Islam, real or perceived.
The other reason for the success of the vote was that it does not infringe the right of Muslims to practice their religion. It was merely symbolic. Muslims are completely free to build mosques and worship in them as they please without any interference. It is no hardship not to have a minaret. To put this into perspective it should be compared with the plight of the Christians in Iraq and Egypt who face daily violence, with priests being murdered, churches burnt and worshipers harassed.
No, Mr Moossavi, this was not racism or fascism, it was a protest vote and a wake up call to Europe's Muslims to lower the tone.
Roy W Brown
Lausanne, Switzerland
"No, Mr Moossavi, this was not racism or fascism, it was a protest vote and a wake up call to Europe's Muslims to lower the tone."
And lowering the tone will resolve the problem of demographic transformation and Islamization?
Yes the Swizz are facsot racist than they vote show it. As Robert Spencer is than racist for being anti-islamist and hateing all muslim an I donot buy your bs about not hateing muslim.
Defender of Insanity,
One question: What race is islam?
Muslims will have a legitimate complaint about the Swiss vote against new minaret construction (the 4 minarets already built being allowed to remain) when the number of steeples in Saudi Arabia becomes greater than zero.
"Predictably, Moossavi paid no attention to the fact that there is no similar reaction in Europe against Hindus, Sikhs, or other immigrant communities."
Then I remembered this:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/religion_in_switzerland/index/Some_religions_are_more_welcome_than_others.html?cid=42424
I wonder why some are welcomed and the muslims are not??????
Dear Warm & Fuzzy defender of islam,
The world will be safe when the idiotic cult known as islam is called by a proper name - Was-lam.
The world of Kafirs,
Dear Defender
If that is the world you want to live in then there are 57 countries where you can practice and perpetrate your hatred. Choose whatever of the 57 cesspools you want and then the civilized world will not trouble you.
The vote, Roy Brown says, was "merely symbolic" but the behavior of Muslims since that vote has confirmed and deepened the worst fears of those Swiss who voted in favor of the ban on minarets, and won them new support, and what's more, public opinion polls in several countries of Western Europe, including Great Britain and France, show that 3/4 of the populuation favor such a ban.
And if that ban was "merely symbolic" what it was symbolic of was fear and great and growing hostility --- justified fear of, and hostility toward, Islam and, naturally, those who take its texts to be holy, including such passages as Qur'an 9.5 and 9.29 and another hundred similar passages in the Qur'an, and hundreds of Hadith, and dozens of important incidents in the life of Muhammad, details of the life of someone regarded by Muslims as the Perfect Man, al-insan al-kamil, but details that horrify most non-Muslims.
I have no doubt that in voting to ban the minaret, the Swiss were voting to limit, or perhaps even ban, mosques (which all over Europe, in any case, need to be monitored by the security services night and day, at great cost), and they were certainly voting to limit the number, and the power, of Muslims in Switzerland, as most French would now wish, after sad and instructive experience, to do in France, and most British would wish, after a similar self-education, to do the same in Great Britain, and in those two countries that elevated Tolerance to the level of an informal religion, the Netherlands and Denmark, the fear, dislike, and general unsettlement about Islam that can only grow, has become the main feature, practically the only thing many people can think about when they think about domestic politics, of public -- and even private -- life. That is the damage the large-scale presence of Muslims has done. It has disrupted, and will continue to disrupt unless that presence is deliberately decreased and kept small enough to be manageable, all of life for everyone, including those who do not dare to publicly state the truth.
Hugh mentions:
" I have no doubt that in voting to ban the minaret, the Swiss were voting to limit, or perhaps even ban, mosques (which all over Europe, in any case, need to be monitored by the security services night and day, at great cost), ....."
of course, not monitoring them will cost much more....
DefenderofIslam,
Why are all you outraged Mooslims so baad at speeling and gramma? We see it over and over again. Is it that you just don't care that you present yourselves as illiterate and uneducated in an argument? Or is it just that olde tyme superiority complex at work? Perhaps it's too much time spent head bangin' and too little time spent learning? Besides, why bother devoting years to getting an education when Allah, in all his wisdom, could just take that knowlwedge away from you tomorrow, if it suits him, right?
So truckin kep on, dood!
Defenderofislam
Why the bad spelling and gramma, but anyhoot, off that subject - you accuse us "right wing" europeans of being racist, anti-islamist and hateing all muslim, yes we are anti-islamic, but we do not hate all muslims and we are certainly not racist - explain to me what race is Islam again?
But on the other hand, I have seen Muslims here in Britain being sexist, racist and intollerant of others. The cartoon protests contained violant threats that the pro-islamic British government did not act upon "an I donot buy your bs about not hateing Christians nd Jews nd otha non belivers"
Notice a lack of Saudi largesse in the area of mosque building in Switzerland. In other Western countries, Saudi money is ladeled through shadow corp after shadow corp, and poured in the window of huge mosques that would put Oral Roberts to shame.
Notice (from video in linked new article) that most mosques are humble buildings, and old warehouses.
When the local Muslims are left to build on their own, they can't afford it, can't do it, must get corrupt politicians to get them funding, or rely on the Saudis. The Saudis, seeing that no minarets signifying dominance are forthcoming from the Swiss, have decided to tighten the purse strings there.
What a laudable method. I wish we'd thought of it. What does America have if not overwhelming, overburdening zoning laws?
It's just laundering: they zakat they collect doesn't go to pay off the mortgage of the old church, like it did in my neighborhood...we had a big fun mortgage burning party. They send their money to Hezb-allah and the like and in return, the Saudis et al send them rent money. How disgustingly paternalistic.
I can't imagine being a Muslim male and being proud to take my family to those slummy little holes you see around town where they go for "prayer".
Sorry Hugh, but I can't resist...
When I see you write: 'al-insan al-kamil' I think of the likes of 'defenderofislam' and their propensity to misspell or misappropriate ze Engleesh. What I see in the above quote reads as 'insane' and 'camel'. And for reasons that I can't quite figure out (yet) these 2 humble words offer an apt description of the 'flounder' of Islam. It's no wonder that almost everybody who knew him laughed at him. Who wouldn't laugh at al insan al kamel?
May we all enjoy a prosperous and safe New Year for 2010!