Swiss Government v/s the People

Swiss government pro-minaret

 

Mosque in Zurich, Switzerland Â

 

* This will be interesting:

114’895 Swiss citizens signed a petition to halt the construction of minarets. Under Switzerland’s direct democracy rules, that level of support is enough to trigger a referendum. The Federal Council recommended on Wednesday rejecting the ban when it goes to popular referendum in two months.

* Watch your government stooges: they sell out faster than you can  call them whores…

An update to this story:

 

The Federal Council recommended on Wednesday rejecting the ban when it goes to popular referendum in two months. 

The coalition government includes all major political factions except the right-wing Swiss People’s Party. It is the strongest in the country and most supportive of the ban.

The government says the proposal violates human rights and the Swiss constitution and would not help combat Islamic fundamentalism.

Supporters of the ban say the minaret is a symbol of Muslim conquest that challenges traditional order in Switzerland.

 

That it most certainly is. According to the subscription-only Brill Online Encyclopedia of Islam: “[T]hroughout the mediaeval period, the role of the minaret oscillated between two polarities: as a sign of power and as an instrument for the adhan (call to prayer). However, in evidence that it was mostly viewed as a sign of power, the entry concludes: “It [the minaret] seems on the whole unrelated to its function of the adhan calling the faithful to prayer, which can be made quite adequately from the roof of the mosque or even from the house-top.” Not to mention, devout Muslims are supposed to know when to pray and shouldn’t need constant reminding.

 

*

Comment:

 

Switzerland has for decades been the home, or the second or tenth home — for many rich Arabs. The Omani doctor, the Kuwaiti contractor, the Saudi prince with houses in Vevey, Lausanne, Montreux, who merely spend money, and money, and money, and of whom Swiss bankers and real estate men are naturally and inordinately fond — provide a kind of brake, based on short-term interests, to a sensible realization that those ever-expanding and ever-more numerous mosques, in a country that has prided itself (and sometimes, as in the period 1938-1945, shamed itself), on keeping non-Swiss out, are not quite seen as the threat they are, and of course it does not help that the anti-mosque or anti-minaret campaign is led by someone who can easily be identified as on the “right” or “far right.”

It would help, in Switzerland, if those Swiss who receive short-term financial benefits from their deals with rich Arabs — fine fellows all, natrually, not like the “extremists” who are “easily identified” and “can be dealt with” –had a bit more patriotism, and less cupboard love, so directly related to their own self-interest, and so little related to the national interest, correctly defined.

And it would help if others, especially in the French-speaking parts — Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux — of Switzerland, among those who are certifiably “un-right-wing,” were to grasp the meaning, and therefore the permanent menace, of Islam.

But this requires a coming-to-their-senses by many more people. Otherwise, even without being a member of the E.U., the Swiss — supposedly so solicitiousness of their national identity — may succumb, at a slower rate, of course, than in Great Britain or France — to an ever-larger Muslmi presence, and the issue of the minaret, a good one because it is now widely understood that the minaret is not essential to the mosque, but was adopted as a symbol of power by early Muslims, a way of o’ertopping existing bell-towers of the Christians, and the minaret has been seen as a symbol of such power, bristling with aggression (“the minarets are our bayonets” as a Turkish Muslim leader said) and symbols of Islamic triumphalism.

One hopes that there will be a citizens’ revolt against the bien-pensants of the Swiss government, but where’s the William Tell, or a million of them?

Posted by: Hugh  at August 27, 2008 9:50 AM

 

*

And this:

 

The article “Swiss far right forces vote on minaret ban,” by Matthew Weaver for the Guardian, July 8:

Weaver should stay with FACTS at least

The People’s party/UDC/SVP in all languages
is NOT a Far Right Force ….. but THE LARGEST POLITICAL PARTY IN SWITZERLAND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_People’s_Party

But ….. we also know that Matthew Weaver never reports details

Just out of interest I am posting here the official NOTE from the Swiss Government with the text (not of my liking though, that they put their advise into it ) They posted on the Gov. website…. when They received

OUR Initiative:
www.news.admin.ch – Federal Council acknowledges submission of the popular initiative `against the construction of minarets’

Federal Council acknowledges submission of the popular initiative `against the construction of minarets’
Bern, 08.07.2008 – The Federal Council acknowledged on July 8, 2008, that the popular initiative against the construction of minarets was submitted with 114’895 signatures (initiative committee figures). President Pascal Couchepin reiterated that several members of the government have publicly expressed their objections to a ban on minarets as sought by this initiative.

The initiative seeks to introduce a clause into the Federal Constitution prohibiting the construction of minarets.

It was launched by a group of private individuals and therefore does not originate from the government or from parliament. The initiative seeks to prevent the construction of minarets. It does not call into question the right of all individuals to practise the religion of their choice. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that a number of cantons have already rejected a ban on minarets.

The Federal Council will naturally be recommending that parliament and the electorate vote against the initiative.

Address for enquiries:
Oswald Sigg, Federal Council Spokesperson 
031 322 37 03 (between 11 and 12; 17 and 18) 
Editor:
Federal Department of Home Affairs 
Internet: http://www.edi.admin.ch
Search in www.news.admin.ch

Posted by: Gabrielle  at July 9, 2008 6:56 AM

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Fitzgerald: The minaret controversy in Switzerland

Switzerland has for decades been the home, or the second or tenth home, for many rich Arabs. The Omani doctor, the Kuwaiti contractor, the Saudi prince with houses in Vevey, Lausanne, Montreux, who merely spend money, and money, and money (and of whom Swiss bankers and real estate men are naturally and inordinately fond), provide a kind of brake based on short-term interests to a sensible realization that those ever-expanding and ever-more numerous mosques are not quite seen as the threat they are. This is particularly striking in a country that has prided itself (and sometimes, as in the period 1938-1945, shamed itself) on keeping non-Swiss out. And of course it does not help that the anti-mosque or anti-minaret campaign in Switzerland is led by someone who can easily be identified as on the “right” or “far right.”

It would help, in Switzerland, if those Swiss who receive short-term financial benefits from their deals with rich Arabs — fine fellows all, naturally, not like the “extremists” who are “easily identified” and “can be dealt with” — had a bit more patriotism, and less cupboard love so directly related to their own self-interest and so little related to the national interest correctly defined.

And it would help if others, especially in the French-speaking parts — Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux — of Switzerland, among those who are certifiably “un-right-wing,” were to grasp the meaning, and therefore the permanent menace, of Islamic Jihad.

But this would require a coming-to-their-senses by many more people. Otherwise, even without being a member of the E.U., the Swiss — supposedly so solicitous of their national identity — may succumb (at a slower rate, of course, than in Great Britain or France) to an ever-larger Muslim presence. To counter this, the issue of the minaret is a good one because it is now widely understood that the minaret is not essential to the mosque. Rather, it was adopted as a symbol of power by early Muslims. It was and is a way of o’ertopping existing bell-towers of the Christians. The minaret has been seen as a symbol of such power, bristling with aggression (“the minarets are our bayonets” as a Turkish Muslim leader said). The minarets are symbols of Islamic triumphalism.

One hopes that there will be a citizens’ revolt against the bien-pensants of the Swiss government, but where’s the William Tell, or a million of them?

Those who are building these minarets mean to signal, among other things, that they are in Switzerland to stay. But citizenship in any Infidel country can or should only be based on swearing allegiance — and meaning it, and meaning it permanently, not with the mental reservation of kitman — to the Infidel nation-state. That means forswearing that sole loyalty to, or indeed any loyalty to, a belief-system that demands its adherence to work for the spread of Islam, and for the imposition of as much of the sharia as is practical.

This is a minimum demand for any Infidel nation-state to make on those who wish to become citizens, if that nation-state wishes to preserve and protect its own political and social arrangements and its own way of life, and its own Indigenous Infidels who inherited and would like to hold onto this legacy, this inheritance, political, social, cultural, artistic — even in clumsy, even in slightly ungrateful fashion. And it is a demand that no true Believer in Islam can possibly meet.

Take, for example, the case of one Mohammed Karnous, who, according to a 2005 IslamOnline report, declared that “government officials were expected to attend [a meeting of a Muslim group] to listen to minority leaders and address problems facing Muslims.”

“Expected”? By whom? By the imperious Muslims who put on “their annual meeting, themed the Mercy to Mankind, in Fribourg.”

“This is unacceptable and inexcusable,” League of Muslims in Switzerland (LMS) leader Mohammad Karmous said to IslamOnline.

What a tone of imperiousness. Whose country is it? Why are Muslims permitted to settle in it at all, given the clear views of Infidels that are contained in Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira? Do Muslims think we cannot read? We cannot study what they learn, cannot find out what they are taught, cannot find a click away online what is actually in the biography of Muhammad, uswa hasana, that model for all Mankind, al-insan al-kamil? Do they think that we read the dozens upon dozens of Jihad-verses in the Qur’an, the hundreds of stories advocating mistreatment, looting, murder of Infidels in the Hadith? All of them are easily located. And why not? They have to be made accessible, if the Believers are to read and know them. One cannot make them widely available at every Muslim website and not expect the Infidels to begin eavesdropping, or dropping in, or beginning to study the matter — not as credulous Believers, but as the intended victims of those Believers, unless of course those benighted Infidels choose to “revert” to Islam.

The arrogance of this man, and of his group. Why should any official in Switzerland, or anywhere else, dignify and inadvertently promote these gatherings, which are inevitably part of the propaganda of local Muslims? No, the time for that nonsense is past — except perhaps among such people as Grover Norquist and all his brothers-and-sisters under the skin in the Democratic Party as well.

Posted by Hugh at September 7, 2008 7:07 AM