Switzerland Bans Building Minarets  By: Essam Derbalah
Do you believe that more than 57% Swiss voters backed a referendum proposal to ban the construction of minarets?
I assure you that it took place in 2009 not during the era of the Crusades or Inquisition.
The place is Switzerland, which claims to be the most democratic country in the world and which is the home of some 400,000 Muslims.
What is the story?
The referendum was held after the SVP collected 100,000 signatures from voters within 18 months calling for a vote to ban building minarets in the country, which has only four minarets.
The far-right Swiss People's Party and the Christian Party supported the proposal saying that minarets look like spears and symbolize the sword, which means intolerance with the other. Therefore, building minarets should be banned to maintain peace among various religious communities.
The SVP used a poster shows a woman in a burka and a Swiss flag with minarets that resemble missiles springing out of it.
You can wonder
Here you can wonder why the Swiss people don't liken churches steeples to missiles or their bells to the drums of war?
Why don't they consider the tattooed crosses n their hands as inspiring religious hatred?
Why don't they be too tolerant to accept Islamic hijab and minarets?
Where are the values of tolerance, recognition of the other, personal freedom and religion freedom, which Europeans in general and Swiss in particular boast to be the essence of the Western civilization?
Do minarets threaten the social peace or the national identity? Are they against the prevailing secular way of life? or are there other reasons behind this campaign?
Or is it the fear? But fear of what?
The real reason:
It is the growing Islamophobia in Europe, including Switzerland. There are certain parties keen to reinforce the fear of the spread of Islam sometimes under the pretext of maintaining national identity and western secularism and at other times by increasing the fright of "the Islamic terrorism".
Parties and Purposes:
You may ask who are those parties and why do they act like this?
The answer is there are three trends in Europe adopt such malicious initiatives:
The anti-immigrants right wing.
The Christian right.
The secular trend.
The anti-immigrants trend aims to invoke hatred against foreigners under the pretext of keeping the national identity and saving the riches of the country to the natives. The murder of Marwa al Sherbeni is a clear example of the attitude of this group.
The secular sees that Islam jeopardizes the future of secularism as it presents a different way of life that cares more for morality especially chastity. Therefore, this trend raises such issues sometimes unintentionally by having in mind misconceptions about Islam and at other times intentionally to prevent the spread of Islam.
As for the Christian wing, it was scaring to see the fast spread of Islam whereas the role of the church was declining. As a result, they back such campaigns for alleged reasons like fearing of the spread of "the Islamic terror" or safeguarding the religious peace.
European illnesses:
This means that the European minds are attacked by fatal viruses as:
- Anti-immigrants, specially Muslims, attitude.
- Defending secular and Christian ideas even if they were against the values of tolerance, recognizing the other and personal and religion freedoms. This indicates that Europe started to go back to fascism.
- misleading the minds of people and producing lies. They portrayed minarets as a symbol of war and likened them to spears despite the fact that minarets were originally made to deliver the voice of athan for there were no microphones at that time. They were not part of the religion although they became a symbol for the places of worship in Islam.
As the racists in Europe mutilated the indication of the minaret, can we hope they would provide an accurate picture of Islam?
The repetition of such situations in several countries is really telling. It indicates widening dirty resistance to Islam but at the same time, it puts Islam before the Europeans' eyes, which gives Muslim preachers the opportunity to correct the misconceptions about Islam and to present an accurate image of it.
A crime against humanity:
The vivid fact that I see with my own eyes is that these racist groups are committing a crime against humanity for they prevent cooperation between Islam and the West. Islam has a plain doctrine that minds can accept and has morals and values that can redirect the European societies to the right path.
So, mingling spiritual and material values will absolutely be in the favor of human race.
Where are the extremist Copts abroad?
Banning the construction of minarets shows the big difference between Islam and other religions. I asked myself why have we ever called for banning the built of church steeples in Egypt or for breaking crosses?
Do you know why?
Simply because Islam prohibits that. Moreover, the majority of jurisprudents say that if a Muslim breaks a cross belongs to a Christian citizen, he will be obliges to compensate him.
Then I wondered:
Where are the Copts abroad who claim that Christians in Egypt are being persecuted?
We ask them; do you accept the ban of building church steeples or bells?
Do you accept preventing nuns or priests from wearing special clothes?
Do you accept the murder of a Muslim veiled woman in a German courtroom?
If you don't, then why didn't you announce your rejection to such racist behaviors?
Do you know why?
Because if you were in power, you wouldn't only ban the construction of minarets, you would ban Islam itself and any other Christian denomination but that you belong to.
But thank God this didn't and won't happen as long as the majority of Egyptian Christians are not affected by the virus of fanaticism.
Translated by: Fatima Suleiman
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