Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

It is a bit sad that it had to come to a referendum - an abrogation by the government leading to the wrong outcome but suiting it quite nicely. The article drivels on about integrating Muslims a few paragraphs from something about fundamentalism....

In Kuwait (another conservative state, but not drawn to referendums really) there is a Christian Cathedral - beautiful and very large and obvious too. Swiss people can go to it. There is also a rather gaudy, but very large Shia Mosque to cope with that minority. The small but extant Jewish community there probably don't have a public place of worship.

I think the Swiss decision to go to a referendum - particularly worded against the construction of minarets - was cowardly and made knowingly that it would result in a rejection.

The tentative steps towards Krystallnacht were made with stuff like this...

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

Or maybe Europe has had enough?
I certainly have.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

I actually think the Swiss have got it right on this issue.

As symbols of Sharia they are incompatible with democratic values, gender equality and non-discrimination of homosexuals and other beliefs. Plus we can't build churchs in a lot of Muslim countries so why should huge, dominating minnarets be allowed in Europe?

N.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

...although in my other home in Essex the old Churches built there show the influence of the middle eastern architecture brought back as inspirations from the crusades. Do they too offend the eye and trouble the soul? No, not really - they are quite beautiful - they have minarets and they ar Christian.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

The pedant in me has checked the most obvious of the list of muslim countries and I can only come up with Saudi which is as likely to allow a church as Vatican City will allow a Mosque within its walls.

Ordinary Muslims are as accommodating as anyone else.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

The Swiss didn't ban the construction of mosques. The referendum banned the construction of minarets. Different things.

The minaret is a potent symbol for so many reasons. I can see why the Swiss voted against it. If we could vote to ban minarets from the UK I'd do it without a blink.

The UAE allows churches in designated areas, but no church steeples or visible crosses.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

Fantastic...and do you know that nearly all of what people recognise as Islamic architecture comes from the Byzantines and to a lesser extent the Persians (who have only been Muslims around a millenia of their long history)?

Also, there's a big difference between historical gems in our lovely land that you mentioned and building huge mosques which dominate the landscape and tell everyone Islam's here to stay.

The very idea of the minaret is to show Islam's dominance. In Moslem states it was forbidden for any non-Muslims to build anything higher than a Mosque...non-Muslims also had to pay a special tax. Perhaps you're happy with that symbology but I'm not...it reminds me of how they sacked Rome four centuries before any crusade. It brings back cultural memories of teh invasions into Spain, Anatolia (now gone and replaced by Turkey), Cyprus and a lot of other places.

Some of the buildings are beautiful but what they represent is not. I would vote the same way as the Swiss for that very reason.

N.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

No - I was not aware you continue the thread in an historical context which is interesting.

Heights of minarets is not important - in Glasgow you are not allowed to build anything taller than the university (Glasgow Univ - not the other one).

I would have guessed that a minaret orignially existed like a church tower (with Bell) - somwhere you could call to prayer more people than if you were on the ground - shoot me down please because I am interested. Maybe it was tall so you could find it.

I wonder if in Switzerland they are allowing the calls to prayer. I guess that in the summer that woud be fairly annoying in those latitudes. I live next to a mosque in Gambia and never get used to the wake up call.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

I like history - I like to watch us make the same mistakes they did but with electricity instead of oil lamps ;)

That's interesting - I never knew that.

Minarets are still used to call people to prayer. The whole of idea of calling people to prayer (especially at odd hours) is noise pollution at the very least - religious facism at worst. Why should people need to be reminded to literally kneel down and bow to their imaginary deity several times a day? What if I'm an atheist or a Jew or a Buddhist...should I tolerate that in a supposedly Secular/Christian country?

I very much doubt the Swiss will allow this call to prayer nonsense. In fact, if we have any sense left in our politically correct brains we would have an EU wide ban on calls to prayer and would probably even limt church bells (but church bells aren't too bad because they are musical - not some whinging semitic blabbering about it being better to pray than sleep) to once a week or at special occassions only...only we won't because we are not really secular, we are culturally suicidal and to say otherwise is to be racist it seems.

N.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

No I suppose not. Calling for prayers is to do with clocks not having been invented. The Swiss of course have a tradition of clocks and I can envisage a minaret conversion to accommodate a cuckoo - alas this opportunity is lost.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

I think the call to prayer sounds quite good...as long as the chap calling has a good voice. They should have X-Factor-style auditions for them. Possibly.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

i always compare the call to prayer to the opening music to cornation street.

not sure why exactly but i just do.

its better than eastenders at least.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

With the drums on the Eastenders tune people might mistake it for gunfire.

Re: Bet this has gone down well over there!
 

There's no call to prayer in Switzerland. So the minaret (which an old dude arthritically clambers up at the crack of dawn and four others times per day) is not needed.

If people valued what a mosque was supposed to do, and the functions it served, they wouldn't be so precious about a redundant structure.

Having said that, I don't see why this didn't get decided at planning-application level locally. Strange to have a referendum.

Most Arab countries don't accept immigrants, and the standard opsition when it comes to change is 'no thanks, we are already being culturally invaded by others' . So when Switzerland does it, there's not really much to complain about.