Fascinating, and somewhat odd, story.
Swiss voters defied their Government and clerics yesterday and approved a ban on building minarets — reflecting an alarming hostility to a rising Muslim minority.I'm not sure I totally get it, but let me pose a few devil's advocate questions:
Fifty-seven per cent of voters in a referendum supported the direct democracy initiative...
1. Is it okay for municipalities, in any country, to regulate if and when Islamic centers, or mosques, can play their call to prayer on speakers outside?
2. Is it a valid concern if immigrant groups refuse to assimilate? I remember someone mentioning this to me a while back, and I told them how my grandmother, who had been in the US for, what, sixty years, knew probably 20 words of English. I used to love how we'd visit her home and knock on her door, and she'd answer "who ees?" Yiayia (as we Greeks call our grandmothers) was 100% American, and proud of it. She simply didn't assimilate.
3. But is there a difference between my yiayia and a Muslim fundamentalist? Is there a difference between a Muslim fundamentalist in Europe and a Christian fundamentalist, or Mormon, in America? Don't all three groups sometimes try to impose their minority views on the rest of the population?
