RedSixLima
Madmaxista
Suiza, pais donde a diferencia de Espanya, existe la democracia, votara la prohibicion de construir nuevos minaretes por los seguidores del falso profeta pedofilo Mahoma.
The Swiss decide on Jovenlandeses
Minarets2
Ah, Switzerland, it's Alpine pastures, its milk chocolate, its army knives and… it's minarets. You might get that impression from the poster above. It is antiestéticaturing in a campaign for one of those people's votes that only the Swiss come up with. The whole country votes on Sunday on a move to ban minarets from the country.
The controversial poster is not visible in the orderly, picturesque streets of Berne, the capital, where I have been talking to parliamentarians this morning, but it nevertheless represents an idea that a sizable minority of the Swiss agree with, according to the polls. There are too many Jovenlandeses in Switzerland and they should not be allowed to impose their religion in public, the argument goes. It is one of those Swiss paradoxes that the country which is most associated with tolerance, democracy and consensus should stage such a provocative referendum.
It was proposed by the nationalist Swiss People's Party (SVP), which had no trouble raising the requisite supporting signatures. The party, which is the biggest in the Swiss parliament, has a history of tweaking the populist nerve. This one got going when a mosque at Langenthal, a quiet town near Berne, was refused permission to build a minaret. Here it should be explained that there are a total of four working minarets in Switzerland and one built for decoration in 1865 by Philippe Suchard, the great chocolatier. The Muslim population has grown swiftly since the 1970s but its members, who come mainly from Turkey and the Balkans, still represent only four percent of the population. The majority are not practising. Swiss law already forbids the outdoor practice of religion, so there will be no muezzin calls to prayer in any event.
The absolute numbers are not important, I have just been told by Ulrich Schluer, an SVP parliamentarian who is one of the founders of the anti-minaret movement. Switzerland's Jovenlandeses are expanding swiftly and imposing practices -- notably the oppression of girls and women -- which break Swiss law, he said. "We are going in the direction of Germany and France and the UK. We have to stop it here," he said. For the SVP and its supporters, minarets are not part of Islamic faith, but symbols of aggression towards the rest of society.
Naturally, the Swiss establishment, including the Government, the churches and intellectual classes, are appalled by the referendum and are urging the country to reject it. Polls show that it should lose, but not by a great margin. Opponents expect about a 55/45 percent rejection. Hugues Hitpold, a Radical partyl MP from French-speaking Geneva told me the vote was a "catastrophe for the image of Switzerland which ever way it goes." Banning minarets would only stigmatize Jovenlandeses. Switzerland has no problem with Islam and should live up to its tradition of absolute freedom of religion. He allowed that there was widespread disquiet over the presence of relatively large numbers of Muslim immigrants, but the answer to that lies in education and better integration, he said.
Behind the referendum lies anguish in Switzerland about the country losing the special identity which has been its pride for centuries. This quality of Swiss-ness, known by the German word Sonderfall, has taken a beating in recent years, with exposure of the country's less than gleaming wartime record and the recent global opprobrium over its banking secrecy. Hitpold says rejection of the minaret motion will shore up la Suissitude, as the French-speaking Swiss call the exceptionalism, but the SVP and its backers see themselves as the last bastion against the country's betrayal by the elite which wants to integrate with Europe.
Switzerland, still one of the very richest nations, finally got around to joining the United Nations in 2002 and they have opened up to Europe with bilateral agreements, but there is no broad support for a referendum on joining the Union. The last one was rejected in the early 1990s.
I sought a view from Pascal Sciarini, director of political sciences at Geneva University. He sees the referendum as a battle between the still powerful rear-guard that wants to keep Switzerland closed and the educated elite who are for joining the world and making the most of a national brand name that is still one of the most admired and respected. "The trouble is that Swizterland has always defined its identity negatively. It cast itself against the surrounding big powers and did not want to open to the exterior," he said.
A note to any Swiss readers here, this is just an outsider's snapshot. Of course the matter is far more nuanced that I have conveyed in these lines.
The Swiss decide on Jovenlandeses
Minarets2
Ah, Switzerland, it's Alpine pastures, its milk chocolate, its army knives and… it's minarets. You might get that impression from the poster above. It is antiestéticaturing in a campaign for one of those people's votes that only the Swiss come up with. The whole country votes on Sunday on a move to ban minarets from the country.
The controversial poster is not visible in the orderly, picturesque streets of Berne, the capital, where I have been talking to parliamentarians this morning, but it nevertheless represents an idea that a sizable minority of the Swiss agree with, according to the polls. There are too many Jovenlandeses in Switzerland and they should not be allowed to impose their religion in public, the argument goes. It is one of those Swiss paradoxes that the country which is most associated with tolerance, democracy and consensus should stage such a provocative referendum.
It was proposed by the nationalist Swiss People's Party (SVP), which had no trouble raising the requisite supporting signatures. The party, which is the biggest in the Swiss parliament, has a history of tweaking the populist nerve. This one got going when a mosque at Langenthal, a quiet town near Berne, was refused permission to build a minaret. Here it should be explained that there are a total of four working minarets in Switzerland and one built for decoration in 1865 by Philippe Suchard, the great chocolatier. The Muslim population has grown swiftly since the 1970s but its members, who come mainly from Turkey and the Balkans, still represent only four percent of the population. The majority are not practising. Swiss law already forbids the outdoor practice of religion, so there will be no muezzin calls to prayer in any event.
The absolute numbers are not important, I have just been told by Ulrich Schluer, an SVP parliamentarian who is one of the founders of the anti-minaret movement. Switzerland's Jovenlandeses are expanding swiftly and imposing practices -- notably the oppression of girls and women -- which break Swiss law, he said. "We are going in the direction of Germany and France and the UK. We have to stop it here," he said. For the SVP and its supporters, minarets are not part of Islamic faith, but symbols of aggression towards the rest of society.
Naturally, the Swiss establishment, including the Government, the churches and intellectual classes, are appalled by the referendum and are urging the country to reject it. Polls show that it should lose, but not by a great margin. Opponents expect about a 55/45 percent rejection. Hugues Hitpold, a Radical partyl MP from French-speaking Geneva told me the vote was a "catastrophe for the image of Switzerland which ever way it goes." Banning minarets would only stigmatize Jovenlandeses. Switzerland has no problem with Islam and should live up to its tradition of absolute freedom of religion. He allowed that there was widespread disquiet over the presence of relatively large numbers of Muslim immigrants, but the answer to that lies in education and better integration, he said.
Behind the referendum lies anguish in Switzerland about the country losing the special identity which has been its pride for centuries. This quality of Swiss-ness, known by the German word Sonderfall, has taken a beating in recent years, with exposure of the country's less than gleaming wartime record and the recent global opprobrium over its banking secrecy. Hitpold says rejection of the minaret motion will shore up la Suissitude, as the French-speaking Swiss call the exceptionalism, but the SVP and its backers see themselves as the last bastion against the country's betrayal by the elite which wants to integrate with Europe.
Switzerland, still one of the very richest nations, finally got around to joining the United Nations in 2002 and they have opened up to Europe with bilateral agreements, but there is no broad support for a referendum on joining the Union. The last one was rejected in the early 1990s.
I sought a view from Pascal Sciarini, director of political sciences at Geneva University. He sees the referendum as a battle between the still powerful rear-guard that wants to keep Switzerland closed and the educated elite who are for joining the world and making the most of a national brand name that is still one of the most admired and respected. "The trouble is that Swizterland has always defined its identity negatively. It cast itself against the surrounding big powers and did not want to open to the exterior," he said.
A note to any Swiss readers here, this is just an outsider's snapshot. Of course the matter is far more nuanced that I have conveyed in these lines.
