Showing that it can outsneer the New York Times any day, Switzerland’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung headlines this story “Zurich’s Right fears rise of “Koran schools.'”
I see. So the possibility that Muslim schools in Switzerland may become “universities of jihad,” or that Muslims in Switzerland may hold the radical Muslim convictions that no government has any legitimacy unless it governs according to Islamic law, and that Muslims must wage war to overthrow such governments — those are all just “fears” of the “Right.” It doesn’t matter how many Muslim spokesmen are on record saying that they want Sharia. To pay attention to them is to betray one’s allegiance to the “Right.”
Anyway, the NZZ says that “voters in Zurich are set to decide on controversial new laws that would lead to the official recognition of non-Christian faiths, including Islam. But the proposals are being challenged by politicians from the Right, who have been accused of running an inflammatory campaign.”
Surprise, surprise. “The People’s Party claims that cantonal contributions — which are given to all recognised religions — would be used by Muslims for fundamentalist religious teaching.”
Well, there are precedents.
“Party literature even shows a montage of the Zurich Münster with its tower replaced by a minaret and the words ‘it’s a question of time’.”
There are precedents for this also, abundant ones in history. Swiss multiculturalists are outrageously self-deceived if they believe that Muslims have discarded the elements of their religion that call upon them to expand the hegemony of Islam by force. In the words of a legal manual approved in the 1990s by the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Muslim community must make “war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians . . . until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).
Nevertheless, “both the three recognised Churches and the country’s anti-racism commission have heavily criticised the [People’s Party] campaign. In a joint statement, the three Churches said that opponents’ assertions were simply not true, because funds were not given for religious lessons.”
This is specious. Islam makes no distinction between the sacred and the secular. If they were forbidden outright to give “religious lessons,” radical Muslims would teach jihad under the guise of politics or civics or history or any number of other things.
“Gioia Weber from the Federal Commission against Racism told swissinfo that this was the case, adding that the Right’s campaign bordered on being racist.”
Gioia, radical Islam is not a race. It is an ideology.
Meanwhile, “Markus Notter, director of justice in canton Zurich, said that assertions that cash could be used for ‘Koran schools’ were simply false. He said there were strict requirements that needed to be met before a religious community could gain official recognition. These automatically rule out sects, splinter or fundamentalist groups.”
With all due respect, I wonder if Mr. Notter and other Swiss officials are sufficiently informed of the root causes of radical Islam to be able to distinguish between “splinter or fundamentalist groups” and those deserving of official recognition. In reality, there is no great schism between moderate and radical Muslims. Signs are not posted outside mosques denoting their “moderate” or “radical” status. And even if Notter did get condemnations of terrorism from his groups, would he be able to distinguish between genuine ones and counterfeits?
These are the kinds of questions that ought to be asked now in Switzerland and all over Europe. Careful and detailed answers should be known by every leading governing official. I doubt such an effort is being made.
“The law for recognising religions sets out that among other things, a Church must carry out charitable activities. It is not allowed to have any political or economic goals.”
This stipulation is certain to collide with Islam’s traditional character as a political and social system as well as an individual faith.
“The faith in question must also have been active in Switzerland for 30 years, be organised democratically, recognise the Swiss legal system and exercise religious tolerance.”
Will the institutionalized inferior status of the dhimmis count as tolerance? Probably. (Thanks to LGF.)