Religious Freedom: Switzerland: The ban on minarets [reWr+t]

Bloomberg News via NYT -- Letter from Europe: Minarets and Slender Arguments -- reports the religious-freedom brouhaha in Switzerland, which has found it just can't accomodate a mosque with minaret/s to its sensibilities, religious and/or otherwise.

If it did nothing else, Switzerland’s vote to ban the building of minarets drew attention to Europe’s identity crisis. The Swiss — like the French, or the Germans, or the British for that matter — are clearly worried about the Muslims living among them.

The Swiss vote (which may end up getting knocked down by the European Court of Human Rights) has succeeded in shifting the focus away from the social and economic problems of immigration and toward religion. To put the full weight of Europe’s cultural identity crisis on a slender spire of traditional architecture meant risking a dangerous debate, which has now erupted, and not only in Switzerland.

Previous debates about the role of Islam in Europe involved issues other than religion. The 2004 French ban on head scarves in schools was about the submission of women; the 2005 publication of Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad was about free speech.

A minaret, by contrast, is no more and no less than a symbol. Other religious symbols draw protest — a nativity scene in front of City Hall, say, or a cross on a mountaintop — but they, unlike the minaret, are not part of a house of worship.

Yet the minaret is being outlawed in the heart of Europe — to scattered applause in neighboring countries.

A h+er quality of information is available from Al-Jazeera, which of course has an intense curiosity about this case. The article mentioned "Europe's waning liberalism" (Dec5,2k9) by John L. Esposito.

Dr Esposito is a professor of Religion and International Affairs, professor of Islamic Studies and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

He is the editor-in-chief of the six-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, and has written more than 35 books including 'Who Speaks for Islam?', 'What a Billion Muslims Really Think', and 'The Future of Islam'.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

-- Politicarp