Saturday, December 05, 2009
Swiss Minaret Ban
In an otherwise very informative and exhaustive coverage of events and background to the recent Swiss Minaret Ban, an Indian commentator has none the less chosen to ignore a barrage of European, American and even Israeli condemnation of the Swiss anti-Islamic move.
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, writing in Free Press Journal, Mumbai, has not even hinted that the Ban was being so vehemently protested in Europe, as it is interpreted being first Right-Wing success at using democratic election to impose its agenda on a European country.
This is akin to first blood drawn that instantly revives the dark memories of Hitler's first democratic victory. Country after country, the fascists right-wing parties are improving their political inroads in electoral territories. UK, France and now Switzerland show signs of neo-Nazi revival. Even Israelis, who have no love lost for Muslims of the world, have gone on record condemning Swiss development. Jerusalem Post carried a story titled: Jews back Muslims on Minaret Ban. Apparently, Europe is more fearful of fascism as it has suffered more in the 2nd World War at the hands of Nazis, than the politically motivated propaganda of Islamic ‘take over’ of Europe.
Ray's article is the first in Indian English media to focus on a move in Europe, that has been a very old and very insidious state policy giving out mixed signals on building of Masjids, especially in urban centers in India.
In last 60 years, during which Muslim population in the city of Mumbai, has increased manifold and stands at 3 million as per 2001 official Census, City authorities have granted no licenses for Muslims to building Masjids, except ONE in a Muslim residential enclave.
Though city authorities have been promising oft and on, that extra FSI (Floor Space Index) will be granted to existing Masjids, so they could rebuild adding extra floors; such false promises have become routine at the time of electioneering to get Muslim votes. Even the so-called middle of the road secular Congress regularly promises to rebuild Babri Masjid that was demolished by the Right-Wing Hindutva hooligans in a grand conspiracy to gain political power.
Tomorrow, Dec 6 is the black day, that Indian Muslims will be observing all over the country and in the lands overseas.
In some ways, the interplay of different political forces in India is much faster than that in Western countries. Mercifully, though, not as brutal and blood shedding on a scale as the events of the tragic 2nd World War!
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
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`Mosques with minarets' ban can spell deeper trouble |
BY SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY |
Switzerland has decided not to allow any more mosques with minarets.
The ban is of little practical value but could be immensely significant in the confrontation that seems to be building up between Islam and the West.
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan once tactlessly referred to minarets as the `bayonets of Islam'. Not surprisingly, that is being quoted now that Switzerland has decided, even more tactlessly in the opinion of most liberal European opinion-makers, not to allow any more mosques with minarets. The ban is of little practical value but could be immensely significant in the confrontation that seems to be building up between Islam and the West.
The ban is of little practical value but could be immensely significant in the confrontation that seems to be building up between Islam and the West.
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan once tactlessly referred to minarets as the `bayonets of Islam'. Not surprisingly, that is being quoted now that Switzerland has decided, even more tactlessly in the opinion of most liberal European opinion-makers, not to allow any more mosques with minarets. The ban is of little practical value but could be immensely significant in the confrontation that seems to be building up between Islam and the West.
Clearly, the Muslim presence must rankle with the native Swiss for a majority of people in 22 out of 26 cantons to vote against minarets in the referendum for which the far-right populist Swiss People's Party was responsible.
With a turnout of more than 53 per cent, 57.5 per cent of voters supported the ban. That left the government with no choice under the Swiss constitution except to give legal force to the voice of the people. Mr Ulrich Schluer of the SPP offered the justification that the European Union courtat Strasbourg had recently ruled against crucifixes in Italian school classrooms. What's sauce for the Christian goose, he argued, is sauce for the Muslim gander.
Switzerland's 400,000 Muslims account for only 4 per cent of the population. They are not immigrants from Bangladesh or Somalia but mostly Bosnians who are Europeans in every way looks and culture - save religion. Switzerland has only four mosques with minarets which are not essential to a Muslim place of worship.
They are really no more than a form of ornamentation like pointed arches. That is one reason why Saudi Arabia's strictly puritanical Wahabi sect doesn't allow a minaret at all. That apart, Mr Taj Hargay, chairman of Oxford's Muslim Educational Centre and Imam of the Summertown Islamic Congregation, holds that minarets are `not integral to contemporary mosque design.' He means that the purpose of a minaret is to summon the faithful to prayer. A high perch and a piercing voice were essential for the purpose in medieval times.
Today's sophisticated technology, especially in a highly advanced country like Switzerland, boasts many means of swift and silent communication that are infinitely superior to calling out from a tower. In any case, Swiss laws on noise pollution do not permit the voice of the muezzin as we know it in India. Many think this purely decorative feature is obligatory because it is supposed to be rooted in Islamic tradition. But tradition itself means no more than a certain age and a certain environment. What was regarded as desirable, or even essential, amidst the boundless sands of 15th century Arabia can be neither essential nor even desirable in a busy city in 21st century Europe.
That applies to many other customs and practices that are treated today as sacrosanct. The nonMuslim's voice of reason pointing this out only provokes resentment and resistance.
Responding with the recalcitrance of a beleaguered minority, Muslims seem determined to dig in their toes. A recent order -not quite with the force of a fatwa -by Iran's Supreme Leader reminded people of the conflict of loyalties that Muslims in the West face.
Instructed by Ayatollah Khamenei, his representative in London, Ayatollah Abdolhossein Moezi, director of the Islamic Centre of England, called on Muslim immigrants to be `better Muslims' and not to join the West's armed forces. It is unIslamic, he says, for them to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The directive followed the tragedy of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the American-born military psychiatrist son of Palestinian refugees, who ran amok and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, as already discussed in this column.
It's only one straw in a wind that seems to suggest that the long talked of clash of civilizations may not any longer be a figment of literary imagination. British Muslims in the small town of Lutonnot long ago publicly jeered at a regiment holding a ceremonial parade after returning from the war in Iraq. Only this week they threw eggs and screamed abuse at 38year-old Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Yorkshire-born daugh- t ter of Pakistani immigrants who is Britain's seniormost Muslim peer and a member of the Conservative c shadow cabinet. The Luton folk t say the highly Westernised a baroness is no Muslim and accuse a her of responsibility for killing i Muslims by supporting Britain's e role in the war in Afghanistan. i Baroness Warsi symbolizes the a Muslim dilemma in the West.
President Barack Obama's longawaited announcement on sending another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan early next year can only add to the fury of those of her co-religionists who see the Taliban as defender of their spiritual interests. Yet, these militant Muslims t have no qualms about benefiting fully from the economic prosperity of the Western countries where a they have settled. j Both sides seem bent on a i showdown, with a Canadian writer, Mark Steyn, warning that Europe is sitting on a `demo- l graphic time-bomb'.The 2004 s murder by a Muslim of the Dutch s film-maker Theo van Gogh has a not been forgotten. Claiming to t fear the `Islamification' of Europe, s the Dutch politician, Mr Geert Wilders, wants the Quran banned as a `fascist book'.Though Den- f mark was internationally isolated after the 2005 cause celebre when the paper Jyllands-Posten pub- g lished 12 cartoons that Muslims l found offensive, the Danish People's Party says Denmark'sChristian identity is in peril. Disputes a over mosques are simmering in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is pushing ahead with his plan to extend the ban on overt religious symbols to an outright prohibition of the burqa.
To some extent, the Swiss ban may reflect a small landlocked country's insularity and instinctive aversion to outsiders. Taking advantage of that psychology and also taking its cue from the Turkish prime minister, the SPP flooded the country with posters showing a black-veiled Muslim woman against a forest of missile-shaped minarets. The evocative image was all the more dangerous because memories of 600 years of Ottoman rule in south-eastern Europe and of the Moorish kingdoms of Spain are laced into Europe's historic consciousness.
Muslims are a specific feature of the bigger fear of migration. Even Mr Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union president, once attacked Turkey's application to join the union on the grounds that it would endanger the `fundamental values of Christianity.' The damage now to Switzerland's neutral brand image is a small thing. As theDubai Worldcrisis shows, international finances are so closely meshed together that West Asian retaliation is not a serious threat either. The prospect of further estrangement of the world's Muslim population is by far the greatest peril. Iraq and Afghanistan are bad enough without a global polarization on religious lines. Christianity may have lost its force as a faith and a form of worship but it represents the world's still dominant cultural and political identity.
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