While France and Italy appear poised to prohibit distinctive dress by Muslim women, the burkha or chador, which has been defined by French President Nicholas Sarkozy as a “symbol of the subjugation of women,” Swiss voters will go to the polls on Sunday November 29 to decide whether to ban minarets – the from which Muslim faithful are call to prayer at mosques.
The Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which enjoys a majority in the Swiss parliament, managed to get the measure on the ballot. It would not affect current mosques, but only those that would be built in the future. Switzerland now counts at least 310,000 Mohammadens, or some 4.6 percent of the total population, and approximately 200 mosques. The Swiss Federation of Islamic Organizations has noted that only four mosques in the country have minarets and none of them feature the call of the muezzin to prayer so as not to violate Switzerland’s strict noise-control laws.
The SVP has asserted that the minarets are not actually religious in nature but political and symbolize “domination,” linking them to Islamic law or sharia – “the enemy of liberty.” The SVP has noted a speech made by the current Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, who said in 1997 “The mosques are our barracks, their domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, the faithful our soldiers.”
Switzerland’s national government, as well as other institutions such as the Roman Catholic hierarchy, has expressed opposition to a ban on minarets. The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Switzerland has issued a statement saying “Our rejection of the initiative is based on our Christian values and the democratic principles of our country.”
Nonetheless, Switzerland’s direct democracy allows that any national referendum can change even the country’s Constitution. The SVP won 29 percent of the vote in the most recent parliamentary elections with a campaign that some observers characterized as plainly xenophobic. It was then successful in garnering the 100 thousand signatures needed to put the referendum before the voting public. Opinion polls show that 53 percent of those polled do not favor the ban, while 34 percent are in favor and 13 percent undecided.
Islamic Reconquista of Spain
Switzerland is not the only country facing a debate over Muslim places of worship or related issues. Spain centuries ago was occupied by Muslims, and retains cultural elements left by Muslim peoples in his language, food, and architecture. In the last twenty years, Muslim immigration has increased and is now rubbing shoulders with the now largely secularist Iberians. Currently, Muslims number about 1 million or less than 1.9 percent of the population as a whole. However, Muslim political power is growing and there have been some moves towards forming Muslim political parties. In 2008, controversy was stirred when a Spanish convert and leader of Muslims demanded that the Catholic Cathedral in Cordoba, which was once a mosque, be opened to Muslims for public worship.
Spanish experts on Islam note that Spaniards fear the formation of Islamic ghettos in their midst should a number of mosques emerge to serve Muslim faithful. In Catalonia, local governments have provided parcels of land for building places of worship.
In Spain there are 700 registered Mohammaden communities. There are currently two major organizations representing Muslims in Spain, and the lack of a definite interlocutor for appealing to local authorities has hampered the advance of mosques. A lawyer for black African Muslims said that if Muslims do not coalesce around one representative organization, they will continue to coalesce in ghettos.
As a result, Muslim prayer centers can be found in out-of-the-way places under the direction of clerics, or ulemas, who do not preach a moderate version of Islam which respects the laws of Spain and Europe, and cultural conventions. Another issue has been the lack of “halal” butchers who can slaughter animals according to Islamic law. This has caused health problems in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia and a magnet for Muslims.
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