Swiss voters ban the minaret; the West’s anti-Western establishment is shocked and scandalized

This vote by the Swiss people is an important sign that ordinary Westerners are starting to reject the suicidal liberal belief that Western society is defined by tolerance, even toward the intolerant; by non-discrimination, even toward cultures and peoples that are radically incompatible with our own; and by freedom of religion, even of religions commanded by their god to subjugate and destroy us. The proposal to ban the minaret got more than twenty percent more support than had been shown in pre-election polls.

Mike Berman, who sent the item, writes:

The New York Times says: “If confirmed, the result would be a huge embarrassment for the neutral Swiss government… ”

A huge embarrassment, NOT. Encouraging news which we hope will lead to a saner immigration policy for the Swiss and for all of the white world. YES, may this be just the beginning of many more huge embarrassments for the neutral Swiss government, the New York Times and all other adversaries of Western civilization.

Here is the article:

Swiss Voters Projected to Back Minaret Ban
Filed at 9:09 a.m. ET

GENEVA (Reuters)—Swiss voters have approved a right-wing-backed proposal to ban construction of new minarets, initial projections showed on Sunday, a surprise result that could damage Switzerland’s economic ties with Muslim states.

If confirmed, the result would be a huge embarrassment for the neutral Swiss government, which had warned that amending the constitution to ban construction of minarets could serve could “serve the interests of extremist circles.” [LA replies: By “extremists,” the Swiss government means people who don’t want their society to be Islamized.]

“The initiative would appear to be accepted, there is a positive trend. It’s a huge surprise,” French-language Swiss television said, 30 minutes after polls closed at midday.

A majority of voters as well as cantons appeared to have approved the initiative, it said, citing exit polls carried out by the Berne-based Institute Gfs.

Both the Swiss government and parliament had rejected the initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and the nation’s cherished tradition of tolerance. The United Nations human rights watchdog had also voiced concerns.

A group of politicians from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), the country’s biggest party, and Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the vote on the initiative which opposes the “Islamisation of Switzerland.”

Its campaign poster showed the Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman covered with a black chador and veil associated with strict Islam.

“We just want to stop further Islamisation in Switzerland, I mean political Islam. People may practice their religion, that is no problem,” Walter Wobmann, who is president of a committee of initiative backers, told Reuters on Sunday.

“We want to stop the further developments—minarets, (the call to prayer), Sharia law,” SVP parliamentarian said at a rally of supporters in the town of Egerkingen near Berne.

“The minarets is the power symbol of political Islam and Sharia law.”

The Alpine country of nearly 7 million is home to more than 300,000 Muslims, mainly from Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey.

Four mosques have minarets including those in Geneva and Zurich. The call to prayer is banned in the country.

An opinion poll carried out Nov 9-14 had showed a steady 53 percent opposed the initiative. Some 37 percent were in favor, against 34 percent a month earlier, with 10 percent undecided.

SVP parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger, a driving force in the campaign, says minarets bring the Muslim faith out into the public domain and reflect a demand for political power.

“If it’s really just something decorative and secondary to them, why are they clinging so tightly to that symbol? It’s a strong symbol for them, it’s to show their territorial hold and I think for now, we’d rather not have that in our country,” Freysinger told Reuters in Berne earlier this week.

In Geneva, home to U.N. humanitarian agencies, voters appeared overwhelmingly to have rejected the initiative by nearly 60 percent, according to Swiss television.

“I rejected the initiative, it’s against Swiss law and against what I believe in. It’s against the freedom of religion we have, so I voted against the initiative,” one man in Geneva told Reuters Television as he left the polls.

Another Geneva voter, Antonio Spagnolo, said: “I’m shocked by this initiative, by this answer I’ve given you my position, I’m against this initiative because I think it’s intolerance.”

Tensions ran high ahead of the referendum as voters grappled with sensitive issues linked to immigration being aired across much of Western Europe.

Geneva’s mosque was defaced with spray paint on Thursday, the latest incident after rocks had been thrown at the door.

“Islam in Switzerland and in the Western world brings various questions. But it doesn’t call for aggression and that islamophobic propaganda,” Youssef Ibram, imam of Geneva’s mosque, told Reuters Television last week.

(With additional reporting by Catherine Bosley in Egerkingen and Anne Richardson in Geneva)

- end of initial entry -

Karl D. writes:

“GENEVA (Reuters)—Swiss voters have approved a right-wing-backed proposal to ban construction of new minarets, initial projections showed on Sunday, a surprise result that could damage Switzerland’s economic ties with Muslim states.”

Why is it that anytime voters vote in a common sense of Conservative manner it is always a “Surprise”? It just shows how Liberals live in some kind of alternate universe and have almost zero sense of what the attitudes of people are around them with the exception of their fellow elites. And instead of taking the voters wishes to heart they see them as ignorant rubes who need to be educated. It is like beating a man over the head with a club for years and then being “surprised” when he fights back. Incredible.

MG writes:

Enjoy the good news Mr Auster, we don’t get many of those lately.

I didn’t follow this referendum, so I scan a couple articles about the result. It is kinda interesting. NYT says that an opinion poll carried out Nov 9-14 had showed a steady 53 percent opposed the initiative, 37 percent were in favor, against 34 percent a month earlier, with 10 percent undecided. Well, ideally yes side could get 37 percent + 10 percent = 47 percent. So, two weeks ago accordingly to polls the yes side could get no more than 47 percent.

Yet the final result was 59 percent yes (Bloomberg) and 57 percent (NYT). We have here 10-12 percent gap between polls two weeks ago and the result.

What could account for such significant difference? Did the Swiss have a major Jihadi attack in the past couple weeks? Did they react so strongly to the train explosion in Russia on Friday, apparently terrorist act, perhaps by the Muslims ? Or did voters simply lied to the pollsters?

My money is on the latter.

And I think we see it more and more, voters want to look more PC than they actually are. Expecially when issues come close to home, like in Westchester county elections this month. Once a liberal program of subsidized housing came to their back yard, limousine liberals populating Westchester county promptly dumped a true believer for a (slightly more conservative) Republican.

Natassia S. writes:

Under shari’a, non-Muslims may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims’ buildings. (Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law—‘Umdat Al-Salik, o11.5).

November 30

Rohan Swee writes:

I thought the comment from “Tatiana” was most interesting: ” … she could ‘no longer bear being mistreated and terrorised by boys who believe women are worthless’.” Some women, at least, are not so benumbed by their years of “sexist, oppressive Western patriarchal society” brainwashing, that they can’t see real culturally-endorsed misogyny when it kicks them in the teeth. One can only speculate, however, on the number who still automatically attribute such nasty attitudes and behavior to the perps having been “marginalized” by evil white men. E.g., the Foreign Minister apparently remains more concerned with the tender feelings of terrorists than the degradation of quality of life for those Swiss female citizens in less exalted stations of life than her own (a degradation that seems to occur anyplace in Europe with significant Muslim numbers).

I see that Herr Rentsch of Swatch takes up the predictable and time-honored stance of those for whom only material comfort has value. He is essentially arguing that Europe must allow itself to be Islamized to maintain trade. A minute’s thought would reveal the ridiculousness of this belief—if Europe had curtailed the practice of Islam from the beginning, on the explicit basis of preserving its historic culture, as Islamic nations do, trade would not have been affected one whit. Even now, if Europe reversed course, there would be the usual spasmodic violence, riots, and farcically hypocritical hissy fits in response, during and after which trade would flow as always. It makes one wonder if the globaloids have decided that the remnants of Western culture are inconvenient stumbling blocks to maximum profit-taking, and getting rid of the whole pesky structure imperative for economic “efficiency”. Well, they sure act that way, don’t they?

LA replies:

Yes. He was implicitly saying that the moment Switzerland has admitted an appreciable number of Muslims, it must do whatever they say on pain of having its trade damaged. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t it have been better not to admit the Muslims in the first place?

Daniel Pipes writes in his e-mail today:

The Swiss Ban on Minarets: A Possible Turning Point
by Daniel Pipes November 30, 2009

On one level, the vote to ban minarets in Switzerland is a triviality. The constitutional amendment does not ban mosques, it does not pull down the country’s four existing minarets, nor does touch the practice of Islam in Switzerland or bear on the many issues concerning Swiss Muslims. In all likelihood, the political establishment in Bern, which abominates the amendment, will find some way to overturn it.

But on another level, the 57.5 to 42.5 percent vote represents a possible turning point for European Islam, one comparable to the Rushdie affair of 1989. That a large majority of those Swiss who voted on Sunday explicitly expressed anti-Islamic sentiments potentially legitimates such sentiments across Europe and opens the way for others to follow suit. That it was the usually quiet, low-profile, un-newsworthy, politically boring, neutral Swiss who suddenly roared their fears about Islam only enhances their votes’ impact.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 29, 2009 02:10 PM | Send