Minarets
Posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 in: Misc.
Alright, so another post that veers towards the political, despite my pledge not to do so…
In Switzerland, a law has been passed prohibiting the construction of any more minarets. As I understand it (being very much not Swiss) mosques may still be built, but the minaret, the more visible symbol of the faith, will not be. There are currently 4 minarets in Switzerland, and a Muslim population of 400,000.
I’m an atheist and should declare this at once – not only does the idea of a god offend what few scientific instincts I have, for blimey the proof is lacking, but the idea of a god as embodied by man’s theology terrifies me. As expressed in the holy books of practically every faith, god, in any size shape or form, varies from the hugely self-contradictory to the downright bloody-minded. I cheer entirely for those passages of text which promote charity, compassion, understanding, mercy, brotherly love etc., but man’s capacity to find in those self same passages justification for expressing all of the above to everyone except the guy who doesn’t conform to whatever the current social fashion of the time is, has led to atrocity throughout history. Politics may inspire nations to go to war and kill and murder and do all the stuff we know humanity is more than up to, but more often than not religion – or perhaps more specifically, dogma and interpreted theology – make it that much harder to put out the fires once they blaze. The separation of church and state was written partially for this reason, since the law of the state may be written to the nth comma of exactness whereby all men and all women are bound by the same term, whereas church law is a constantly shifting battle ground based upon texts thousands of years old, within whose conflicting words may be found justification for pretty much anything. And worse – within religious law what battles have raged and rage still, of Orthodox versus Reform, Protestant versus Catholic, Sunni versus Shia – whereby each may find in the self-same text of the self-same page of the self-same book, justification for entirely different policies.
If there is a god, and as established, I wait with baited breath for that bush to burn on the side of the road, I can only hope he/she/it is much, much more than man’s current understanding, otherwise eternity is a very very long stick with a very sharp point.
Faith in god I can have plenty of time for; generally in my experience people who express faith in god tend to do it followed by offers of cups of tea and a chat, no strings attached. Faith in theology I have a much harder time with, since that is usually followed by the inevitable philosophical slide into the ‘yeah but how do you know?’ argument which must inevitably fall back upon the ultimate statement ‘because it is written in the holy book which is the word of god’ and there an end to any sort of scientific reason. Faith without dogma has always been more tolerant, since the predominating feature or aspiration of god in mankind’s history has been one of mercy, a characteristic that has been heavily tempered by politics and economics looking for religious justifications for its less than merciful deeds throughout the course of time, and boy have they found them.
Back to Switzerland…
… it’s none of my business (since when did that stop a nosy blogger?) but I, like, I suspect, most wishy-washy liberals muddling quietly by the EU as a whole, was more than a little nervous to discover a country I have always considered open-minded and tolerant, to not only pass a referendum in which not only one religion, but perhaps even more absurdly, the symbols of one religion is penalized. It is not a bill which forbids the practice of Islam, but it is a bill which prohibits any visual demonstration of that faith, and its campaign has been fought on the basis that Muslims in Switzerland are not merely Muslim first and Swiss second, but that their belief in Islam is a violent evangelist one, in which the contradictions of a religious text are resolved only by taking the most extreme interpretation possible. It is the same logic which in Istanbul in the 1500s forbid the ringing of Christian church bells or the construction of synagogues; it is a statement that in this land, one faith is dominant, and the rest is second-class.
I apologise now if anyone feels offended by my opinions here; yet they are mine and it is a blessing of being a wishy-washy liberal in a (mostly) wishy-washy liberal state that I can freely express them. I have as little faith in the doctrines of Judiasm, Christianity, Islam as I do in Zoroastrianism, Shinto and Confucianism; but freedom of expression, and the freedom to express belief even if I don’t happen to believe in it, are two things I will cheerfully fight for. I am sure that there are arguments against all I have said and I welcome them, and will be convinced by them if they can manage to be convincing, but in the mean time I am worried that in the 21st century, in the heart of Europe, a bill has been passed in which it would appear, religion and politics are not as separate as I thought.
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Kate, you present a well crafted argument that I cannot but agree with. While I wouldn’t describe myself as ‘atheist’, per se, my ‘faith’, for want of a better word involves a deity that, while it could be called ‘God’, probably wouldn’t be recognised by the authors of most holy books, because his basic tenets would be, “Don’t poke your nose into other people’s business”, and, “I have better things to worry about than your petty, insignificant lives, so get over yourselves”. However, when Authority, government or otherwise, starts dictating to people who have a faith that they can’t openly display a symbol of that faith then I’m afraid that things appear to be teetering on the edge of a slippery slope that almost always ends in a murky swamp labled on a socialogical map ‘Totalitarianism’, be it right or left wing, Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism, whatever; and I’m very surprised that the Swiss, who are always portrayed as totally neutral, should follow this path. Their neutrality in future is going to be deeply suspect for a great many people, I fear.
My humble opinion, which, as Kate points out, many have died to allow me to express, and I uphold the right of anyone else to disagree with. I guess Buddha is possibly someone who might smile and quietly nod his head…
Very interesting topic. While it would take ages to explain the whens and the hows, I disagree with you about religion and faith (as a result of studying anthropology, mainly), but I do share your worry about where “wishy washy liberalism” is taking us. Unfortunately this kind of reasoning about religion can be found all over the place as we try to deal with having multicultural and multireligious societies… and in Italy in particular we just never get over it! Recently the EU court has actually ruled against the compulsory Catholic cross in all Italian state schools…
But on the topic of minarets – did you know they want to build one on Brick Lane and that conservationists are outraged? It’s quite an interesting story and it’s London-related so you may want to investigate further 
December 2, 2009