No to minarets!

By Professor, Sven Hakon Rossel
  

The international media – apart from Great Britain’s best newspaper The Daily Telegraph – does not know how to react properly in connection with the Swiss referendum last Sunday, November 29, with its unambiguous ”no” to the construction of minarets. On the one hand, the result probably must be accepted, the journalists write, but on the other hand, the result is undemocratic and terrible to such a degree – and, furthermore, the voters have probably been led astray – so that, in fact, the result of the referendum ought to be ignored.

But this, of course, is impossible. The oldest democracy in the world has a law in place which requires a referendum to be held when it is demanded by 100,000 voters – and the outcome must be acknowledged whether one agrees or not! Furthermore, it has hardly been mentioned in the press, that also Swiss feminists have supported the referendum because of the well-known Islamic oppression of women!

Nevertheless, critical voices are heard from all over the world – mostly from politicians and journalists – but, characteristically, a majority of the letters to the editor found in the international media clearly support the outcome of the Swiss referendum. ”A disgrace”, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the South African Navi Pillay exclaims, but in the forefront of the protests we find, ironically enough, a number of Islamic countries spearheaded by the EU-candidate Turkey. ”This is an expression of racism and fascism”, foams the Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan with rage demanding, that Switzerland nullifies the referendum. Well, that’s perhaps what is being done, where he comes from . . .  And, please do not forget that it was the very same Erdogan who pronounced the threatening statement, that minarets were the bayonets of Islam!

That precisely Erdogan’s protest is nothing but hypocritical and grotesque becomes obvious from the fact, that Christians in Turkey are neither allowed to gather publicly or in order to worship, nor are they allowed to build churches, a ban which exists in almost all Arabic countries.

The writers of the letters to the editor almost all agree that large mosques and minarets symbolize that oppression and intolerance which comes to the fore everywhere in the Koran and the Shariah laws. Time and again, the writers of the letters mention and comment on the hypocrisy to be found in the protests against the Swiss referendum inasmuch as it is common knowledge that no infidel is allowed even to approach the holy city of Mecca, whereas any Muslim is welcome to enter the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome. If a Muslim in Saudi Arabia converts to Christianity, he or she is being decapitated; and how come that in the year 2003 1,5 million Christians lived in Iraq, whereas today the number is reduced with 50%? Peaceful coexistence? And just think of the persecution of Christians in Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Everybody is welcome to check these and additional statistics on the website of the international human rights organization Open Doors: www.od.org.

The Coptic Christians in ever so western Egypt are being persecuted and killed without the same mass media protesting which otherwise have been beside themselves with indignation in connection with the Swiss referendum. These are the same media which also wished to curtail our western, democratic freedom of speech in connection with the courageous publication of the satirical Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, but apparently did not mind that the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard had to go underground and that the head of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard, because of her support day and night must be protected by two bodyguards.

Furthermore, it has not escaped the attention of the international press that precisely Pia Kjærsgaard has suggested that a similar referendum about the building of mosques and minarets should also be held in Denmark, a suggestion that is also expressed by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and various politicians in Italy. Thus, the highly respected Austrian newspaper Die Presse with the headline: “The Danish right wing exults and also demands a referendum” writes: ”Also Pia Kjærsgaard’s party which is strongly critical of Islam and which guarantees the majority of the centre-liberal coalition government [in Denmark] has subscribed to the fight against the building of mosques”. And the newspaper’s correspondent, who apparently is unable to distinguish between Islam in general and its militant groups, cannot let go of labelling The Danish People’s Party as a right wing party.

It is certainly not the first time and will not be the last that this old cliché about a right wing orientation is being dug out, simply because The Danish People’s Party – once again – represents the sentiments of the general Danish public, its fear of Muslim intolerance and of militant Islamists. To the Danish as well as to the Swiss population, Muslim aggression is symbolized through the building of large mosques and minarets. However, as the same correspondent states with relief: “Of course, she [i.e. Pia Kjærsgaard] will not get anywhere with her demand for a referendum”.

But let us see. For according to the recent Megafon-poll, done by the Danish television programme TV2 and the daily newspaper Politiken, 51% of the Danish population is against minarets in Denmark. So, who, after all, is it who in our democratic Denmark, listens to the voice of the people?