"Muslims associate the Christian symbol with the bloody medieval crusades to conquer Jerusalem and the Holy Land...."

- I know it's semantics, but it should be "Re-conquer", not "conquer".

Posted by: Rogster at April 2, 2008 2:28 PM

I suppose owning a Swiss Army knife is offensive as well.

Posted by: tanstaafl at April 2, 2008 2:33 PM

When Muslims look to the sky and spot the Northern Cross, are they also outraged, and suddenly are driven to throw stones and scream All Ackbar at the sky?

Why don't informed Westerns engage their outrage at the insulting nature of Islamic symbols? Why must most of us always try to express "respect for all religions" in our mild handling of these instigators of crude arrogance and blood-curdling sophistry?

Oh yeah, we're dirty racists and ignorant islamophobes. I almost forgot.

Posted by: DunawayKa at April 2, 2008 2:43 PM

I suppose owning a Swiss Army knife is offensive as well.

Posted by: tanstaafl above
------------------------------------------

They are offensive when non-Muslims have them. They are acceptable when they're being used by a Muslim to cut off a kaffir's head.

Posted by: Provoslavni at April 2, 2008 3:09 PM

What flag does the Swiss Embassy fly in Riyadh?

Posted by: MP at April 2, 2008 3:10 PM

I guess the Pope's request is not being honored by the saudis to be tolerant. From the saudis I expect no less than a primative response - a moronic ignoramous would shine in that land.

Posted by: R_not at April 2, 2008 3:32 PM

Honestly - the muslims act like Victorian spinsters, who fainted when someone used the word 'trousers'!

What are all those muslims doing who live in Switzerland? They'll have to see the Swiss flag everywhere, all the time, the Swiss like putting their flag up, even at private houses. Haven't heard of mass muslim demands as yet for the Swiss to change their flag.

And when can we expect the demand that all crosses be removed from the tops of church spires, because they're offensive?

Posted by: Calon Lan at April 2, 2008 3:53 PM

They'll have to ban the millions of croissants consumed every morning by infidels knowingly or unknowingly(mostly)celebrating the defeat of the Turk in 1683 outside the gates of Vienna. Indeed, the croissant must be available in Starbucks (Jewish owned) in Saudi Arabia. Oh, the ironies abound!

Posted by: johndoe at April 2, 2008 4:01 PM

I believe that the Muslims are not so much offended by a cross because it's connotation with the Crusades but more precisely because it is the hated symbol for Christianity. Mohammedan animosity is stirred by this symbol in quite the same way that a vampire is repulsed by either the light of day or the sight of a cross.

Posted by: descendantofacrusader at April 2, 2008 4:25 PM

descendantofacrusader,

Not suprising that Muslims cannot stand the Christian Cross because they know that it is a symbol of victory and the reality that the Christian faith, despite the recent report about Islam being larger then the Catholic Church, with all the other churches combine with the RCC is still the largest faith.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at April 2, 2008 4:43 PM

What are the Saudis gonna do? Tell Busacca to go blow? I don't think so.

Posted by: Shy Guy at April 2, 2008 4:55 PM

For goodness sake, he's not dressing up as Richard The Lionheart.

It's a tiny whistle.
With a tiny cross of the flag of Switzerland.

FFS

Posted by: Celsius at April 2, 2008 4:58 PM

What flag does the Swiss Embassy fly in Riyadh?

Posted by: MP at April 2, 2008 3:10 PM

Posted by: Shy Guy at April 2, 2008 5:03 PM

Calon Lan said

What are all those muslims doing who live in Switzerland? They'll have to see the Swiss flag everywhere, all the time

Exactly. One more reason why it is simply too inhospitable for Muslims to try to live in the corrupt land of the kufirs. There are too many filthy reminders of the filthy infidels and their filthy corrupt habits.

Muslims do not belong in Dar al-Harb. We need to help them see that.

Posted by: special_guest at April 2, 2008 5:30 PM

There are 360,000 Muslims in Switzerland out of a population of 6m. Most are from Kosovo, Albania and Turkey. I live in a small town here and it has two mosques, one run for Balkan Muslims and the other for Turks. They are not that unified and tend to ghettoise into racial segments. I get the impression that non-Middle Eastern Muslims are less concerned about the cross symbol on the flag than the Arabs are.

Posted by: johndoe at April 2, 2008 5:44 PM

Speaking as an atheist and as someone who spent a year of my life in Switzerland:

Vive la Croix Blanche!

Posted by: non-croyant at April 2, 2008 7:23 PM

You're in Switzerland, johndoe? I lived in Fribourg for about a year back in 1994-1995.

There were a few Muslims at the Uni but not all that many. Has that changed in the last decade or so?

Posted by: non-croyant at April 2, 2008 7:26 PM

There was quite an influx of Muslim immigrants from the Balkans in the 90s. Now Blocher and his SVP party (something like Wilders and the freedom party in the Netherlands) have attempted to put a stop to excessive immigration but their last campaign concerning the proposed expulsion and deportation of foreign criminals was criticised for being racist and Islamophobic. No surprises there. His party is also campaigning and may push through a referendum on outlawing the construction of minarets. We shall see.

He has to deal with the likes of Calmy-Rey, the foreign minister, recently seen donning the headscarf in Teheran and doing deals with the devil himself. A shocking and shameful episode in the history of modern Switzerland. The most overt and explicit display of collaboration and co-operation with an enemy of freedom since the Swiss financing and arming of the Nazis.

Another disgraceful recent event here in Switzerland was the appointment/election of Jean Ziegler to the Advisory Committe of the Human Rights Council. He is an anti-Semite, pro-Palestinian, and has fraternised with Castro, Ghaddhafi and various dictators. More about that can be found at unwatch.com. I wrote to Calmy-Rey last year protesting her invitation to Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, to visit Switzerland and then to Ahmadinejad to share perceptions of the Holocaust.I gathered from her reply that she hadn't even read the Hamas charter. She proudly stated that Switzerland gives around 30m chf a year to NGOs in Gaza for humanitarian purposes. And we all know where that money goes. She is clearly a degenerate, morally bankrupt woman. Switzerland is not really a country..it's a business and it seems the Swiss do not mind doing business with a country that wishes to destroy the US and 'wipe Israel off the map'. The Swiss are openly doing business with a genocidal regime. Enough said. The Swiss live in a bubble and cling on to their phoney neutrality,but the jihad is here. Tariq Ramadan, one of the most dangerous men in the world, is a Swiss citizen, as is his brother, who openly advocated the beating of wives and the stoning of adulterers, and still walks free. But I think the average Swiss citizen is waking up to the Islamic threat slowly but surely.

Posted by: johndoe at April 2, 2008 8:41 PM

Lol Johndoe. To be honest that doesn't sound like the xenophobic Switzerland that I knew.

You mentioned refugees from the Balkans - one of my best friends was a refugee from the Balkans who was going to school in Fribourg. He was a Serb from Croatia. At the moment when I met him, when he told be he was a Serb, I inwardly, but I hope not outwardly, cringed.

I'm laughing out loud now at the memory of that reaction; I was a sucker for all the propaganda of the time.

His cousins had intermarried with Swiss. His parents were living in Germany. Now he and his parents are living in Florida because his parents followed the advice of one of my friends from the States who was visiting me in CH and suggested that his parents enter the Green Card Lottery, which they won.

I wrote an affidavit on my friend's behalf supporting his claim to political asylum (his family was threatened by Croatians) so that he could join his parents here.

It has been over ten years now and his mother has become a US citizen.

Interesting the way events unfold in life.

Back to the Swiss - they did seem no-nonsense to me. Considering that they lost the bid for Sion to host the Winter Games because of charges that they were discriminatory towards immigrants, it's hard to believe that things have sunk so far.

At the time I sorta agreed with that sentiment, but in retrospect I am respecting the attitude of the Swiss more and more. I was heartened when I heard that they weren't going to allow minarets.

I'd really like to visit again soon. Are you Swiss johndoe, or do you just live there?

Posted by: non-croyant at April 2, 2008 9:01 PM

"Yes, well, I associate the sword on the Saudi flag with the bloody swords of the jihadists who conquered the Islamized the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, Eastern Europe, Persia, India, etc. etc." -- Robert

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: alexon at April 3, 2008 2:02 AM

non-croyant....I'm British and living and working in CH for the time being. I have no intention of returning to dhimmified and abased Blighty. As DH Lawrence once said for different reasons: 'as lice abandon a dead animal, I leave England'. Sad.

There is a high crime rate among Kosovan and Albanian Muslim immigrants here and this is creating ill-feeling towards them, understandably. But I think the Swiss see them more as an ethnic group rather than as Muslims. It seems that many Europeans perceive them as secular and fail to appreciate their background as Muslims and therefore are blind to the brutal conditioning...domestically and socially... that spawns such dysfunctional behaviour. It's the usual historical ignorance. Serbs seem less problematic and I'll give you one guess why!

20% of the population here is foreign. The Swiss have depended on guest workers and foreign labour to do all the donkey work for them and this workforce is clearly an indispensable part of their economic success. So they are still happy to import cheap labour, hence the continuing influx. However, I think they should listen more to Blocher, educate themselves about Islam and keep Muslims out. Rather welcome Christian Eastern Europeans instead. It's not just a question of being sensible but also of cultural survival.

Back to the referee's whistle. The Swiss love their flag...it's everywhere here hanging out on poles in front of many houses. This kind of nonsense over the whistle will get their goat to be sure and will wake them up to the mental illness in the Muslim world. The Islamists are shooting themselves in the foot once again.

Posted by: johndoe at April 3, 2008 9:34 AM

Johndoe,

When I was there I think the Portuguese were their cheap labor.

I've spent months of my life also working and living in Islington, and have spent more than a few days in Italy and Greece, and you're right - the Swiss do fly their flag more often than anywhere I have been - the only rival would be here at home in the US.

Another blog I read linked to an article celebrating CH today.

Posted by: non-croyant at April 3, 2008 12:26 PM

But Muslims associate the Christian symbol with the bloody medieval crusades to conquer Jerusalem and the Holy Land.. it could be because also the Crusaders kicked the behinds of the Muslim caravan raider's and of course Muslims tend to whine a lot when they lose

Posted by: crusader at April 3, 2008 12:38 PM