The Minaret Ban Controversy

Originally posted by Lillydale

Originally posted by Spiramirabilis
reply to post by Dark Ghost

 

you do get to vote - that's how it works - that's how it should work

Forgive me if I have missed something but was this not a democratic decision that was voted on? It seems like you are saying that this is wrong because democracy should trump democracy?

I'm saying - that's exactly how it should be

there was a vote against the minarets - democracy worked

not for the Muslims in this case - but this is how it goes

my point - there's nothing wrong with taking it that far - making sure that it's put before the voters

Originally posted by Skyfloating
So why then is it pretended that these 1% are representative of the overall attitude toward muslims?

Why do people assume that the less than 1% of the muslim population who are fundamentalists represent the overall attitude of all muslims?

Isn't it that kind of attitude and idea that brings about this kind of ban?

AFP - Switzerland votes to ban minarets

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies."

And while the Swiss government may believe that banning minarets will not combat fundamentalism, people have voted on exactly that premise.

Still, its their country, their decision and although I believe its a misguided one, its their business.



BTW - the use of the term PC is exactly the same as shill, neocon, truther etc. Its an excuse to label a side of an argument that has an alternate opinion.

There is no trouble to be expected from people like us. We try to keep together a middle-path, a diplomatic path that will make all sides as happy as possible.

You let someone chant 5 times a day in a quaint little Swiss village, people are going to get very angry.

You dont let people practice their Religion and they will get very angry.

So you find a middle-path and say build mosques but not the minarets.

Saying so does not make us genocidal warmongers but mediators.

Originally posted by neformore


BTW - the use of the term PC is exactly the same as shill, neocon, truther etc. Its an excuse to label a side of an argument that has an alternate opinion.

Excellent point and how is it even a bad thing?

Like somehow treating people equally and with respect and making an effort not to offend people is a bad thing.



And to Skyfloating


The human rights crowd ???

Who ISN'T in favour of human rights?

You say it like some sort of insult... oh my... :shk:

Originally posted by blupblup

And to Skyfloating


The human rights crowd ???

Who ISN'T in favour of human rights?

You say it like some sort of insult... oh my... :shk:

If it were about "Human Rights" (see Amnesty International) there would be care for the Rights of the Swiss and their Democracy and not only care about Religion.

Funny how none of you have said one word in favor of the Swiss - who have been protecting the Muslim Religion since a long time.



[edit on 10-12-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating




Well as you were following my posts the other day, you should have seen where i said this on another thread.

I mean you managed to quote me from another thread that had absolutely nothing to do with this thread... I would say this quote was more relevant .

Originally posted by blupblup

Not at all.
The people voted and decided against the Minarets.

End of story..

That's democracy for you.


I think the Swiss have every right to decide what happens in their own country.

And i also said i partially agreed with what you said, but you were so hell-bent on playing games and being weird that you were not interested in what i had to say.

[edit on 10/12/09 by blupblup]

Originally posted by neformore
And while the Swiss government may believe that banning minarets will not combat fundamentalism, people have voted on exactly that premise.

That is your assumption. A vote was conducted and the majority of people in Switzerland do not want more of these monuments. Why must you view their decision as guided by anti-Islam sentiment? The West is far more tolerant toward Islamic culture in their nations than vice versa.

BTW - the use of the term PC is exactly the same as shill, neocon, truther etc. Its an excuse to label a side of an argument that has an alternate opinion.

I disagree. The PC brigade knows no loyalty or affiliation. They are simply people that advocate the idea that no opinion should be expressed if it has the potential to offend X number of people. PC is something that affects all kinds of religions and all types of people.

reply to post by Dark Ghost

The PC brigade knows no loyalty or affiliation

why is this a problem?

Originally posted by Dock9
I've read in numerous sources ( including Zionists' diary excerpts) that the zionists and jewish heirarchy had numerous opportunities to get jews out of Europe -- yet refused, declined, failed to do so. Their diaries reveal that they believe it expedient to sacrifice thousands of jews to the cause -- the cause being the determination to wrest Palestine from Europe

And it worked. Without the claims of 6 million, the zionists wouldn't have been able to take Palestine or justify the genocide of Palestinians ever since

Why did it take me so long to work out that exactly the same tactic is being used right now --- only this time, it's Palestinians who are being sacrificed in order to justify what amounts to a Muslim invasion of the West ?

Why didn't I see it earlier ?

Oh sure, I knew zionists were behind the imposition of millions of muslims on Western populations. It could be no other group. After all, most Western governments are dominated by zionists, are puppets to zionist schemes

And zionists own/control 96% of the world's media and it's the world's media which focuses the Sheepies attention on Gaza, on the plight of Palestinian muslims

But they had us fooled, didn't they ? I mean how many of us were awake to the fact that the same zionists who imposed 'politically correct speech' on the West and turned 'racism' into a household word --- are in fact the orchestrators of the muslim invasion of the West ?

They've been playing a convoluted game and we've been falling for it. They've been perpetrating atrocities on Palestinians and stealing Palestinian lands and we've been up in arms about it. They focused our attention on Palestine to the point we've been blind to what's been happening to us !

While Israel's been invading and seizing Palestine --- muslims have been invading and seizing our lands and cultures !

Muslims scream that Israel and zionists are invading, seizing and destroying them. Yet Muslims are invading our towns, our cultures, our rights, our laws, our traditions

And zionists are working hand in hand with the Muslims they profess to oppose and Muslims are working hand in hand with the zionists and israelis they claim are their enemies

... when all along, WE are their prey, WE are the ones they want to destroy, WE are considered their mutual foe

Let me get this straight. Jews allowed millions to be killed in Europe so they could get a state in the Middle East. Even though arrangements were being made in 1921 for a Jewish state to be created out of the British controlled Ottoman Empre taken over after WWI.

And now Jews are pushing Muslims to move to the West as part of a land grab of Muslim territory. It has nothing to do with the poverty, lack of jobs, overpopulation among 1.5 billion Muslims. It's all a Jewish plot to discredit them..Meanwhile Israel has a strip of lanf 1/500th of the entire Middle East, has no oil or significant resources and in fact just handed over control of Gaza and is negotiating on the West Bank which was formerly occupied by Jordan for decades.

Nothing in this claim resembles history, fact, reality. Or even makes sense. I've heard many baseless insane conspiracy theories - but this one wins the Grand Prize.

Originally posted by Dark Ghost
That is your assumption. A vote was conducted and the majority of people in Switzerland do not want more of these monuments. Why must you view their decision as guided by anti-Islam sentiment?

Umm...because the Swiss justice minister said this...

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies."

"These concerns have to be taken seriously... However, the Federal Council takes the view that a ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies," she stressed.

I put the article link into my last post for a reason.

I disagree. The PC brigade knows no loyalty or affiliation. They are simply people that advocate the idea that no opinion should be expressed if it has the potential to offend X number of people.

I think you'll find that political correctness stems from a belief that in a multicultural society no one should be excluded or left out. I also think that, despite what are ultimately noble intentions, some people take it to the extreme and project what they think parts of the community might want, instead of what they are ok with (that happens quite a bit in the UK, and leads to stupid "council bans christmas" headlines, where the local minority population are secretly cringing because they want no such thing to happen) - but this Minaret thing is nothing to do with PC stuff, and more to do with concerns about ostracising a section of society apparenly based on a knee jerk reaction after a fairly comprehensive fear mongering and propaganda campaign.

At least, thats how I see it. And as I said earlier, its the Swiss's decision, their country, their ways and as such I respect that, even though I disagree with it.

I'm proud of the...guy who has a monkey for an avatar defending our rights here

But just a thought: I had a discussion about this with two mates the other day and what struck me was their keen defense of "their culture" which as I tried to explain to them only was a figment of their imagination...
But first the discussion starts off with "well, they won't let christians practice their religion abroad, so why should we let them?"

And just a little while on it turns to "well, if they come to live here they should be ready to adapt."

But wait- you complain about muslim intolerance (oh btw...go ask somebody in egypt or algeria what they think of the government, you'll get the same animosity that american patriots would have against the Bush dynasty. And fyi, Iran is democratic, it's leaders are not It's a rethoric that I think Israel has come up with, about whom you lable democratic and who not. How tedious. And anyway I am aware that turkey is anything but a society I would desire to live in because it is in fact quite harsh...But you can't use that as an example for "muslim" injustice because turkey had a completely different development than other countries in the region and atrocities such as the genocide of the armenian christians took place because the power-elite in turkey was attempting to consolidate it's power central...Not because they just hated christians and their ways! They had to marginilize the nationalist movements in various ethnic minorities such as the kurds for example. In the time after the first world war, colonialism slowly came to a halt and souvereignity was returned to the asian and african regions by the colonial powers, so the Osman Empire had to struggle with suppressing the nationalist movements which appeared, demanding that they too be allowed to found new nations, as they do up to this day)

Well where was I- oh gosh my test on friday will suck. I can barely follow the thread here-

Uhm I was saying, if you despise the muslim intolerance so much, how much point is there to demonstrate intolerance towards how some people exercise their belief-systems?

After all you can't scream "Integration!" and demand that people give up their culture and "blend in" while you deny other countries their authority to suppress freedom of religion. Maybe in the end the means for Integration are just the same as those of "Islam". Would that be better? If this is about religions, why don't christians give "the other cheek"?

Don't be a bigot, if you're christians stop frigging moaning, spirituality should be for the individual but by complaining about muslim onslaught you elevate both religions to a position of a consensual mass movement. And anyway christians are demanded to be passive towards aggression- how do you think the catholic church could find so many saints?
And if you are a secular person and are only bothered about "Islam" (which is actually just as much core-theme of a book as cooking is the teaching of a cooking-book. It just depends on who believes it!) ignoring a minority's customs then why are you trying to eradicate the customs of a minority in your own country?

The only way to go is pure patriotism. You say they do their sh#t, you do yours. But if that's your point then don't claim to be in a position to tell them how to.

[edit on 15/12/09 by thricearound]

Research the political organisation that instigated this referendum. They're not a nice bunch.

What's wrong with local planning laws? If someone wants to build a mosque with minarets in their own community what has it got to do with people that live 100 miles away? Surely it should be up to people that live there and have to live with it? If the local population is mainly Muslim, what's the problem with building some minarets?

Once governments start believing they have a duty or right to limit and control religious (or any other form of) expression it's a very, very slippery slope.

Incidentally the Anti-Defamation League (which gets much criticism on this website) has also spoken out against this.

Originally posted by neformore

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies."

Oh my oh my, dear fellow Mod and Dear Leftwing-Politicians:

Many of us are not at all afraid of Muslims. We are annoyed that you claim they are a "minority group" when they are the largest and fasted growing Religion in the world. And we are annoyed that you exert pressure so that a democractic decision may be reversed. And we are annoyed by loudness associated with Minarets, a loudness that would not be granted to any other group but them.

Western Civ is not good for that level of noise. You enforce that and you`ll have Millions becoming Islam-haters overnight.



[edit on 16-12-2009 by Skyfloating]

Originally posted by mattpryor
Once governments start believing they have a duty or right to limit and control religious (or any other form of) expression it's a very, very slippery slope.

Forms of Religious Expression that are intolerable:

* Scientologists hassling Pedestrians to sign-up

* Jehovas Witnesses demanding the school curriculum be changed for belief-reasons

* Muslims demanding to shout chants over villages of non-muslim majority

* Christian Fundamentalists standing guard at an abortion clinic to take pictures of individuals and hang them up everywhere

These things dont fall into the "religious freedom" category because they are intrusive of others rights.

Btw - you will never have these issues with Buddhists, for instance. They will leave you alone.

[edit on 16-12-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating


Agreed. But since when did we start relying on central government, courts and legislation to stop people doing things that we find annoying or objectionable?

If something bothers me that much, I'm perfectly capable of making my objections known without help from Big Brother

reply to post by mattpryor


Id be fine with having local-decisions determine it. A majority muslim-population should have their Minarets.

(But people might also respect the voice of the swiss - the peculiarity of the Swiss is that everyone votes on everything.)

[edit on 16-12-2009 by Skyfloating]

Originally posted by thricearound
what struck me was their keen defense of "their culture" which as I tried to explain to them only was a figment of their imagination...

If you`re going to go postmodernist on this, dont forget that Islamic Culture is then also only a figmet of their Imagination and that there would be no need for the Minaret.

[edit on 16-12-2009 by Skyfloating]

Maybe when Muslims in Muslim countries stop burning churches and stop acting all Christianphobe the world might give them respect, in the process others are not welcome and when they arrive on your shores, you are not also welcome either, you can not have it both ways.

The first thing to ask them is, 'do you think it is okay to that we build a church in your country or near Mecca, if not why and be honest about it, if yes then help us build one with the same support we give you for your miranets?' By then you would have exposed their ungreatfulness and intolerance and the stongholds to conqest infidels.

reply to post by The time lord


Most Muslim-dominated countries are intolerant and backward because they've remained pretty much unchanged for centuries or even millennia, until the 20th century happened.

That doesn't mean we have to be like them. In fact we should be setting an example of tolerance of each others' beliefs if we expect them to improve.

reply to post by mattpryor


I agree that we should set an example, but trust me they don't see how we see it, they think we are opressive. That definition is not being not Muslim enough not like in not oppressing human rights as we understand it but Islam rights which does not work back in your favour once they get what they want.

It really does not work, we can turn the other cheek but their faith does not really care about that, they will just get their swords out once we keep turning the other cheek because it is their honour to rid of infidels, it is spelt probably a thousand different ways in how not to take infidels as your friends.



[edit on 16-12-2009 by The time lord]