Europe's Growing Hatred for Muslims

1 December 2009
The recent Swiss referendum which approves a ban on building minarets testifies to a continuing extremist right-wing tendency in Europe and an ingrained hostility towards Islam and Muslims.

If the Swiss people, who are known for their neutrality, highest living standards in Europe, and advanced education adopt "islamophobia" in its ugliest form and demonstrate such extremes of religious intolerance, then we cannot be surprised if other European peoples, suffering from the collapse of their economies and subsequent widespread unemployment, also demonstrate racist tendencies towards foreign immigrants, in particular Muslims.

Switzerland's Muslims, who number more than 400,000 and make up 5 per cent of the country's population, are Swiss nationals and considered very much a part of the nation's social fabric. Many are businessmen and professionals who could not be portrayed as a financial or economic burden on the Swiss taxpayer.

This is an extremely serious development; the reasons presented by Swiss right-wing parties for banning the building of minarets are not convincing, they are even illogical. They reveal fascist tendencies that are totally inconsistent with the modern European heritage of tolerance and respect for the others' faiths and cultures.

Minarets are a unique architectural feature bringing beauty to, and complementing European architecture. In Europe they are not used to for the call to prayer as they are in Muslim countries, so cannot be considered a source of disturbance. The call to prayer is most often made inside the mosque itself without the use of microphones; unlike Christian churches which ring their bells loudly to announce a service from bell-towers larger than any minaret.

But of course it is not a question of large or small minarets but of a racist phenomenon that is mushrooming in European communities, fed by extremist right-wing parties and their anti-Islam discourse, and used to terrify European societies with false accounts of the dangers posed by Muslims.

True, there were some dissenting European voices which objected vehemently to the result of the Swiss referendum; most notably the Vatican and the Swiss bishops who considered the ban 'a harsh blow to the freedom of faith'; as yet we have not heard similar criticisim from other major European countries.

Regrettably, some European media organizations have played a big role in pouring petrol on the fire of hatred for Islam and Muslims ever since the events of 9/11, depicting Muslims as a major terrorist threat to European society. We have seen the leaders of European fascist parties which propagate hatred of Muslims invited onto respectable television channels, most notably the Dutch Gert Vilders and Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party who appeared on the BBC's flagship 'Question Time' alongside, and on equal footing with, senior politicians and ministers from the major parties.

This growing hostility towards Muslims in Europe makes it harder for them to integrate into European societies (ironically, 'failure to integrate' is one of the main charges levelled against them), thus forcing them into closed "ghettos" on the outskirts of cities where they are easy prey for hard-line Islamic organizations trying to recruit Muslim youths for acts of violence and terror.

Switzerland's referendum, the hatred for Muslims and the intolerant religious beliefs it reflects, is a gift for organizations like al-Qa'ida whose propaganda focusses largely on European and American prejudice against Islam and its followers, as well as their arrogant interference in Muslim countries' internal affairs.