The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas, not a rejection of Muslims.
WASHINGTON – The recent Swiss referendum that bans construction of minarets has caused controversy across the world. There are two ways to interpret the vote. First, as a rejection of political Islam, not a rejection of Muslims. In this sense it was a vote for tolerance and inclusion, which political Islam rejects. Second, the vote was a revelation of the big gap between how the Swiss people and the Swiss elite judge political Islam.
IN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS, SYMBOLS ARE IMPORTANT.
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What if the Swiss voters were asked in a referendum to ban the building of an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles as a symbol of the belief of a small minority? Or imagine a referendum on building towers topped with a hammer and sickle – another symbol dear to the hearts of a very small minority in Switzerland.
Political ideas have symbols: A swastika, a hammer and sickle, a minaret, a crescent with a star in the middle (usually on top of a minaret) all represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others.
On controversial issues, the Swiss listen to debate, read newspapers, and otherwise investigate when they make up their minds for a vote.
What Europeans are finding out about Islam as they investigate is that it is more than just a religion. Islam offers not only a spiritual framework for dealing with such human questions as birth, death, and what ought to come after this world; it prescribes a way of life.
Islam is an idea about how society should be organized: the individual’s relationship to the state; that the relationship between men and women; rules for the interaction between believers and unbelievers; how to enforce such rules; and why a government under Islam is better than a government founded on other ideas. These political ideas of Islam have their symbols: the minaret, the crescent; the head scarf, and the sword.
The minaret is a symbol of Islamist supremacy, a token of domination that came to symbolize Islamic conquest. It was introduced decades after the founding of Islam.
In Europe, as in other places in the world where Muslims settle, the places of worship are simple at first. All that a Muslim needs to fulfill the obligation of prayer is a compass to indicate the direction of Mecca, water for ablution, a clean prayer mat, and a way of telling the time so as to pray five times a day in the allocated period.
The construction of large mosques with extremely tall towers that cost millions of dollars to erect are considered only after the demography of Muslims becomes significant.
The mosque evolves from a prayer house to a political center.
Imams can then preach a message of self-segregation and a bold rejection of the ways of the non-Muslims.
Men and women are separated; gays, apostates and Jews are openly condemned; and believers organize around political goals that call for the introduction of forms of sharia (Islamic) law, starting with family law.
This is the trend we have seen in Europe, and also in other countries where Muslims have settled. None of those Western academics, diplomats, and politicians who condemn the Swiss vote to ban the minaret address, let alone dispute, these facts.
In their response to the presence of Islam in their midst, Europeans have developed what one can discern as roughly two competing views. The first view emphasizes accuracy. Is it accurate to equate political symbols like those used by Communists and Nazis with a religious symbol like the minaret and its accessories of crescent and star; the uniforms of the Third Reich with the burqa and beards of current Islamists?
If it is accurate, then Islam, as a political movement, should be rejected on the basis of its own bigotry. In this view, Muslims should not be rejected as residents or citizens. The objection is to practices that are justified in the name of Islam, like honor killings, jihad, the we-versus-they perspective, the self-segregation. In short, Islamist supremacy.
The second view refuses to equate political symbols of various forms of white fascism with the symbols of a religion. In this school of thought, Islamic Scripture is compared to Christian and Jewish Scripture. Those who reason from this perspective preach pragmatism. According to them, the key to the assimilation of Muslims is dialogue. They are prepared to appease some of the demands that Muslim minorities make in the hope that one day their attachment to radical Scripture will wear off like that of Christian and Jewish peoples.
These two contrasting perspectives correspond to two quite distinct groups in Europe. The first are mainly the working class. The second are the classes that George Orwell described as “indeterminate.” Cosmopolitan in outlook, they include diplomats, businesspeople, mainstream politicians, and journalists. They are well versed in globalization and tend to focus on the international image of their respective countries. With every conflict between Islam and the West, they emphasize the possible backlash from Muslim countries and how that will affect the image of their country.
By contrast, those who reject the ideas and practices of political Islam are in touch with Muslims on a local level. They have been asked to accept Muslim immigrants as neighbors, classmates, colleagues – they are what Americans would refer to as Main Street. Here is the great paradox of today’s Europe: that the working class, who voted for generations for the left, now find themselves voting for right-wing parties because they feel that the social democratic parties are out of touch.
The pragmatists, most of whom are power holders, are partially right when they insist that the integration of Muslims will take a very long time. Their calls for dialogue are sensible. But as long as they do not engage Muslims to make a choice between the values of the countries that they have come to and those of the countries they left, they will find themselves faced with more surprises. And this is what the Swiss vote shows us. This is a confrontation between local, working-class voters (and some middle-class feminists) and Muslim immigrant newcomers who feel that they are entitled, not only to practice their religion, but also to replace the local political order with that of their own.
Look carefully at the reactions of the Swiss, EU and UN elites. The Swiss government is embarrassed by the outcome of the vote. The Swedes, who are currently chairing EU meetings, have condemned the Swiss vote as intolerant and xenophobic. It is remarkable that the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said in public that the Swiss vote is a poor act of diplomacy. What he overlooks is that this is a discussion of Islam as a domestic issue. It has nothing to do with foreign policy.
The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a domestic issue in Europe. That is, Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas. Native Europeans have been asked over and over again by their leaders to be tolerant and accepting of Muslims. They have done that. And that can be measured a) by the amount of taxpayer money that is invested in healthcare, housing, education, and welfare for Muslims and b) the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are knocking on the doors of Europe to be admitted. If those people who cry that Europe is intolerant are right, if there was, indeed, xenophobia and a rejection of Muslims, then we would have observed the reverse. There would have been an exodus of Muslims out of Europe.
There is indeed a wider international confrontation between Islam and the West. The Iraq and Afghan wars are part of that, not to mention the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians and the nuclear ambitions of Iran. That confrontation should never be confused with the local problem of absorbing those Muslims who have been permitted to become permanent residents and citizens into European societies.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of “Infidel,” is the Somali-born women’s rights advocate and former Dutch parliamentarian. Her forthcoming book is entitled “Nomad.”
Fr. Samir: an opportunity to rethink Islam and Europe
by Samir Khalil Samir
Opinion polls in Europe show that the Swiss referendum would have also won in France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria. The no to the minaret is a no to the increasing (and never satisfied) Islamist demands. The European population thinks differently and wants its leaders to reaffirm its identity. The no to the minarets is an invitation to true dialogue.
Paris (AsiaNews) – The outcome of the Swiss referendum has aroused a wave of inquiries and questions on the Internet and in print, with reactions, sometimes very violent, sometimes more favourable. Typically politicians have reacted negatively, criticizing this vote. Instead, people in Europe have been in favour of the outcome.
Some sites and European newspapers have thus voted:
Polls in Europe
In France, the newspaper Le Monde carried out a survey: “To hold a referendum like that of Switzerland is a sign of democracy or irresponsibility? 61.5% said it was a sign of democracy, 33.2% said it was irresponsible, to 5.3% no opinion.
L’Express posed another question: If the same referendum was held in France what would you answer? 86% answered yes, against the minarets, 11% no, 2% did not respond.
Le Figaro, which leans to the right: 77% yes to the ban, 23% no.
BFM, a television, reported these results: 75% yes, 25% no.
Radio Montecarlo 83% yes, 17% no; Euronews, which is to the left, 70% yes, 29% no, 1% do not know.
Le Soir in Belgium: 63.2% yes, 34% no; 2.8 without opinion.
In Spain,”Twenty minutes”: 94% yes, 6% no. El Mundo: 79% yes, 21% no (with 25 thousand people surveyed).
In Germany, Die Welt online: 87% yes, 12% no, 2% do not know. In Austria, Die Presse: 54% yes, 46% no. Is the closest of all surveys.
In Italy I have seen only “Leggo” that gives 84.4% to the yes vote; 13.6% no, 2% do not know.
Nando Pagnoncelli, IPSOS director, said however that “in general the issue of Islam and immigration is causing concern and in some cases social alarm, because there is a perception of fanaticism”. If there were a referendum like the Swiss, the voices are largely in favour of the ban.
In Holland Elzevier reported 86% yes, 16% no.
This gives a picture – perhaps not a perfect one but certainly an interesting one – of a reaction of fear widespread across Europe in the face of danger that comes from Islam. And there is also an act of courage of those who dare to say “enough” despite the propaganda of politicians and the threat of divisions that it has revealed. Commenting on the vote, Dr. Issam Mujahid, spokesman for the Muslim community of Brescia, said: “It ‘a vote of fear,” but he also added, “and we are all responsible.”
Some thoughts on these data
This referendum can become a positive opportunity for us to reflect together. “Now, says Issam Mujahid, we must and we can assume our responsibility to work for dialogue among civilizations and reject the thesis of a clash of civilisations”.
1. People in Europe do not reject the minaret to defend Christianity. Is not a religious problem: it is a problem of culture and visibility.
2. People feel that if they says yes to the minaret, tomorrow the call to prayer will also become widespread, then the microphones, then there will be requests for halal meat in school cafeterias or hospitals, then working breaks for the five prescribed daily prayers (as they tried to do with me at the University of Birmingham in 1991 when I taught there) … Every now and then Muslims make fresh requests, which grow more and more insistent in places and countries, bringing new demands. And once they obtain a license to behave as they want they never turn back. Muslim groups have yet to be seen stopping their requests at some point. And that makes the Europeans think.
3. If we look at the situation of immigrants, only a little more than a third come from Muslim regions. Two thirds from other areas (Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America). Yet this third is the most discussed because it continually makes religious-cultural demands: The Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, non-Islamic Africans, Latinos do not stake these claims or have this cultural visibility.
What is the problem?
4. Europe is discovering, with the presence of other cultures that itself has its own culture. The Italian reaction against the Strasbourg decision to abolish the crucifix in public places emphasizes the defence of an element of culture (as well as the religion of many). This rediscovery of culture is essential for dialogue. Muslims come with a strong sense of religious cultural identity because these two fields are not divided in the Islamic world. Europeans, who are the majority, however, find it difficult to say what their identity is. Now, there can be no real dialogue if a partner has a strong identity and the other weak one, or even if both partners are weak. Dialogue may be harder when both have a strong identity, but it is also richer and more valid!
5. On the other hand, Issam Mujahid says, “the culture of Muslim civil society organizations is lacking in Europe. In Europe, Islam is only represented by mosques. And this is wrong”. Integrated Muslims in Europe do not help the immigrant Muslim community to integrate the values of European culture. For their part, imams are often not able to transmit these values, because they themselves have not received them.
6. The sense of the Swiss vote could be summed up as’: “We no longer want to protect cultural diversity and guarantee religious freedom by submitting ourselves to the intolerance of Islam … which in turn does not tolerate cultural diversity and religious freedom”. Establish a true inter-cultural dialogue
This is an opportunity for Muslims to say what is really important in their faith and their culture and what is missing here in Europe. Certainly, the Muslim can not demand everything he had at home because he is living in another country that has its own laws, rules, customs, etc.. In doing so, we will see if it is possible to establish some directives at national, private or individual levels.
On the European side is time to ask ourselves what defines us and makes us who we really are.
Islam must renew itself, trying to distinguish between the essential and the occasional, and the West must also deepen its own sense of self and see what is essential to their own identity.
Take for example the veil
It is a precept, but it does not mean that it is essential. Many great Muslim authors have written about this. Gamal al-Banna, the younger brother of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has written a book and several articles to say that the veil is not a requirement. It was at first a council given to wives of Muhammad, it is not clear whether this was for all women. Neither is it clear whether it is called for in a given situation or forever.
This is why up to 50 years ago in the Islamic world, the veil was almost disappeared from countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, etc.. and no imam ever cried shame. Over the past 30 years it has started to come out again and today it has almost become an obligation. Muslims, throughout the course of history have made the distinction between what is fundamental and what is secondary. Even regarding prayer: very few Muslims pray 5 times a day. Increasingly we are seeing that the Muslim community is rejecting imposed religion and respects those who, while believers, do not practice. Religious freedom is the foundation of all freedoms, and if the Muslims demand it for themselves, and rightly so, in Europe, then they must give it to non-Muslims in Muslim countries.
The effort of exegesis and hermeneutics lies in discerning whether something is important or if it is something special, valid only for that time. Many Muslims attempt this exegesis, but the problems are many: there is no established doctrine, there is no teaching authority, an authority that decides and settles controversial issues … TRefusal of minarets/more
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The Conservatives just as Labour is heavily infiltrated by Muslims. The coming election really does not have any real choice between the two main parties. Both are pro-Euro and pro-Islam.