The Swiss have voted not against towers, but Muslims. Across Europe, we must stand up to the flame-fanning populists
Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people’s fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?
There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.
Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.
At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.
Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?
The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.
Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe
Article published in The Guardian on 29th November 2009
Salam,
I strongly disagree when you say that Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility. They have been living quietly without disturbing anybody. If they were more visible, they would have been even more hated for pressenting themselves as Muslims. Noone can deal with xenophobia based on nothing.
Let’s take it as it is: Pure xenophobia… Swiss muslims didn’t deserve it and they are certainly NOT to be blamed.
This is a really scary sign of maybe worse things to come unless Muslims and non Muslim, people of faith, all faiths and non stand up together to defend common values and challenge these primeval fears that are rising to the surface. If this can happen in Switzerland, the most tolerant and neutral of countries, the cradle of human rights than what next? Or is it that Switzerland has a particular brand of democracy that allows just 100,000 signatures to lead a country to a referendum? Or is it as you say, that the UDC are closest to the people’s fears.
We all stand to lose together when people vote for bigotry and fear.
‘No man is an island…. any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ John Donne
I am an italian muslim who works in Switzerland.
Yesterday three of my students entered the class and asserted very proudly the happiness for the poll results.
I was so deeply hurt by this. Religion and its symbols are something so intimate and close to the human being that is so cruel to think to ban this fundamental freedom by law.
The populism of UDC played a major role and those three student were just victims of these misbelieves.
I believe that this, like any other crisis in our community anywhere around the world, is a test from Allah (swt). A test of our capacity to come together as one Ummah, united in belief. Allah (swt) knows best.
May allha give you long health life.
i like your website .
Beautifully said. This is the work of Allah. Anyone who did not know the meaning of the word minaret has certainly gone to google to find the definition. From there they will hopefully read more and discover the beauty in this religion.
We wonder whether the minarets are essential for the Muslim to practice their faith. Because from our humble opinion, the Muslim people are making a fuss for something that actually does not form part of our “must do” pillars of the Islamic way of life. “Mosques” must be built to conform with the environment and the surrounding architectures – not to look out of place and offensive, protruding out of the neighbourhood. So, perhaps the Muslim people should find another way to gain their “human rights”. Less fuss, more practical activities, such as “civic responsibility” will go a long way to present their faith as an integral part of their adopted countries. Construct new style of architectures. Be revolutionary in mosques architecture, design for the future with energy saving in mind. Get out of the traditional ways of building mosques. One must not overlook the fact that there are many “mosques” being built in Muslim majority countries without the “minarets”, as a matter of principle and simplicity, a way to go back to the “origin”. Less extravaganza more simplicity and nearer to the creator. As it is increasingly considered that minarets are not an essential or necessary aspect of the Muslim house of worship. After all, mosques are not a place of worship uniquely devoted to “rituals” but a place of social gathering, education and other communal activities, which must be extended to non Muslim too. So, please let us wake up and concentrate our valuable time on issues of women battering, child molestation, starvation in Muslim countries, and more security to the pilgrims and let us work hard to ensure that no more PILGRIMS are kidnapped during their visit to Mecca and Madinah.
I can see your point.
I am surprised to know though there are kidnappings going on in Mecca during the pilgrimage. I’ve heard of this once and didn’t pay attention to it as the source wasn’t reliable. I am deeply concerned as I am planning on going to Hajj next year alone since my husband doens’t want to go.
I can also see Tariq Ramadan’s perspective. This maybe a beginning to more to come. Today they pick tey minrate, tomorrow they may go further.
what an interesting development.
it seems it isnot only the ‘muslims’ who tend to have dogmatic tendencies.
let us wait and see how the european institutions react.
it’s gonna make them on the defensive.
i simply hope they get to their senses.
it always get worse before it gets better.
They can cut all the flowers on earth, but never can they stop the oncoming spring.
Spanish resident..
YES, WE MUST FACE TOGETHER
HAVE A LOOK SIR ON THIS LINK
http://www.haythammanna.net/articles%20arabic/suisse.htm
I blame this on 2 things:
1. The Swiss people ignorance with regard to Islam, its principles and what it stands for.
2. The Muslism fanatics which gave distortated image of Islam and Muslims; the likes of Ossama Bin Laden, the 9/11 bombers and the 7/7 bombers. Add to that all Muslim Leaders in Arab countries whihc are the cause of their people’s suffering and poverty.
It would take the real muslim scholars lots of committment to the cause and lots of hard work and time to change the world perception about Islam as religion of peace, unfortunately I cannot see anyone doing that right now…………Muslims generally are all tak and no action!
Back the the Swiis people, they are not exactly the most sociable or talkative people, they actually very unfriendly and do not trust anyone. In a word, they are racist towards other ethnicities!
However, I agree that for them to change their behaviour, Muslims have to change theirs first………….and this would not be done overnight.
Jaz
It’s not just the Swiss (I don’t know them); it’s a European crisis. The Duth were supposed to be the most ‘tolerant’ of all people, now they are more and more openly coming out with a xenophobic face. The point is to not let it get to you (because to tell you the truth sometimes it can), but keep being a positive force in society (although society seems to say: just being a muslim that’s imposible!).
I am a Swiss-Canadian, raised Catholic, with both German-Jewish and Macedonian-Muslim great-grandmothers. Regardless, “God” exists for me only as a human invention, which I believe most Swiss also believe and is why they voted as they did.
Christianity in Switzerland, as in the rest of Europe, is now mainly quaint and historical; Islam, on the other hand, is still what Christianity once was, though still is for a few: control of one’s life. Swiss, and other historically Christian but now secular Europeans, see that control in Islam, and rule by clerics and a holy book scares them.
What also scares them is the discovery of a document in the raid on the Al Taqwa bank in Lugano, Switzerland, shortly after 9/11. The document, ascribed to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the raid are the subject of a book by Swiss journalist Sylvain Besson, “The Conquest of the West: The Islamists’ Secret Project” (2002). Published in French but not yet translated into English except on the net, it was also the subject of a PBS (USA) “America at a Crossroads” broadcast.
Tariq Ramadan’s grandfather was a founder of the MB. What is his position on Besson’s book? I have found no comment, so I invite him do provide one.
I will be surprised if this message is posted, but if it is, I hope to see Tariq Ramadan’s comment on Besson’s book publicly available shortly after.
This is part of the problem: all the demands being made on muslims (Tariq Ramadan in particular) to ‘proove’ they are not evil!
I don’t see the problem. It’s an invitation to clarification, which anyone would welcome. That Ramadan has not commented is the problem.
I completely agree with the comments of Swiss Canadian. There is plenty to fear about Islamic imperialism (i.e. insisting that call to prayer five times a day towers be built in a country that is slowly freeing itself from religious imposition), and this fear is based on the fact that Muslims think that the Koran is the “word of God”. As Swiss Canadian points out, many of those with a Christian heritage do not accept such dubious (and frightening) claims and are nervous about encouraging this tendency in their secular country.
So what can be done then? Voting all costums of muslims away? You can’t vote their convictions out though.
The first is to realize that it is important to speak out against religion, and especially not to give special deference to religions such as Islam, whose believers are trying to intimidate people and prevent them from speaking out against its oppressive beliefs and practices (even to the point of threatening violence and death).
Then there is the issue of religious accommodation. There should be no exemptions granted to religious groups on the basis that their religion is “important” to them, and they are “offended” by attempts to ensure that there is equality under the law (sometimes people who argue for legal equality are even accused of “racism”, as if religious beliefs are connected to race).
Finally, there is the task of preventing new forms of religious symbolism from entering into public spaces, and thus pushing back secular progress. It is difficult with entrenched religious symbols, since these are an aspect of history. However, new demands to cater to religious beliefs in public spaces – minarets, hajibs in schools, “etiquette” preventing the hand-shaking of Muslim women, the banning of pork in cafeterias, etc. – should be vigorously opposed.
Very ambitious… Gpood luck!