Right Wing Posters on the Streets of Switzerland

Swiss voters approved a ban on construction of new minarets today, a surprise result certain to embarrass the country’s neutral government.
The Swiss news agency ATS and other media said about 57.5 per cent of voters and all but four of the 26 cantons approved the proposal in the nationwide referendum, which was backed by the Right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP).
The government and parliament had rejected the initiative as violating the country’s constitution, freedom of religion and the country’s cherished tradition of tolerance.
The government had said a ban could ‘serve the interests of extremist circles’.
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The Swiss government is right.  These are the examples that Islamist point to when they say that the West has declared war on Islam.  No matter what justification we provide for military action in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, these examples can be pulled up to make our agenda suspect.
Moreover, as an American, I find this type of thing morally objectionable.  Freedom of (and from) religion is an absolute and inalienable right, or at least it should be in democratic societies.  This ban is an unwarranted infringement, as the minarets do not sound the call for prayer.
It’s also based on sheer paranoia. There are more than 130 mosques in Switzerland, almost all of them small, and only 4 of them have minarets.  Moreover, only 4% of Switzerland’s population is Muslim. So the idea that Switzerland is about to be taken over my some sort of Swiss Caliphate is just absurd.
We should not be giving in to this monolithic, paranoid view of Islam. Here, for example, is an example of some of the diversity in Islam. ‘Gender Jihad’ in the Service of Women’s Rights is an article about a 44-year-old US writer, Asra Nomani, for whom there is no contradiction between Islam and feminism. She is one of many who hold this view, but we seldom pay attention to them as progressive Islam doesn’t fit into our adversarial dichotomy. Instead fear compels too many of us to act in ways that reinforce the fears of too many Muslims.
There is no “Clash of Civilizations” as some claim. By and large Muslims, Jews and Christians co-exist and pay no attention at all to one another’s faith in everyday interactions. But there are all to often skirmishes, very serious, devastating skirmishes. And when there are it is processes like this that lead to them.