My question for Switzerland and other European
countries enthralled by the right wing: When did
Saudi Arabia become your role model?
Even before 57.5 percent of Swiss voters
cast ballots on Sunday to ban the building
of minarets by Muslims, it was obvious that
Switzerlandʼs image of itself as a land of tolerance
was as full of holes as its cheese. When the
right-wing Swiss Peopleʼs Party (SVP) came to
power in 2007, it used a poster showing a white
sheep kicking black sheep off the countryʼs flag.
This was no reference to black sheep as rebels
— the right wing doesnʼt do cute — but to skin
color and foreigners. Posters the SVP displayed
before Sundayʼs referendum showed women
covered from head to toe in black, standing in
front of phallic-looking minarets. Such racism
preceded and fed into the bigotry that fueled the
referendum.
Predictably, the election results sparked cries
of “Islamophobia,” but the situation for Switzerland
ʼs 400,000 Muslims is not (yet) dire. The
four existing minarets were not affected by the
vote, and there are still 150 mosques or prayer
rooms in which to worship.
Further, the Council of Europe, the continentʼs
top human-rights watchdog — whose chairmanship,
ironically, Switzerland recently took over
— has already said the ban could violate fundamental
liberties, and the Swiss justice minister
said the European Court of Human Rights could
strike down the vote.
But the real issue here is more fundamental
than whether or when Muslims can build minarets
in Switzerland. Until Europe confronts longsimmering
questions about how it treats immigrants
— Muslims and others — the continent
will continue to convulse with embarrassing
right-wing eruptions that strip it of any right to
preach to anyone on human rights and liberties.
Europe is an aging continent that depends on
the “foreigners” its right-wing politicians love to
rail about. In Switzerland, for example, itʼs difficult
for immigrants and even their children to
get citizenship.
As a Muslim who believes in the separation of
church (and mosque and synagogue) and state, I
pay attention when people say they are opposed
to political Islam. But to suggest, as nationalist
parties in Switzerland did, that minarets are
symbols of political Islam is ridiculous.
Minarets are used to issue the call to prayer,
not to recruit people to Islamic political groups.
If the SVP finds such prayer calls too noisy, Iʼd
like to see it try to stifle church bells.
Raising the specter of “political Islam” or
“creeping Islamicization” to frighten voters diminishes
the concerns that ought to be discussed,
such as an ideologyʼs opposition to many minority
and womenʼs rights. And thatʼs where the difficult
questions lie for Europeʼs Muslims. They,
too, have a right wing that breeds on fear and
preaches an exclusionary and inward-looking
Islam. It is the perfect foil for the non-Muslim
political right wing on the continent. But while
these conservative Muslim views might hold
some moral sway, they have none of the political
power of the SVP and its cohorts.
Meanwhile, condemnations from the Muslim
world — where some have semi-jokingly called
for a boycott of Swiss chocolate — underscore
the other sort of hypocrisy that must be confronted
if Muslim complaints of bigotry are to be
taken seriously.
The Grand Mufti of Egypt, for example, denounced
the ban as an “attack on freedom of
belief.” I would take him more seriously if he
denounced in similar terms the difficulty Egyptian
Christians face in building churches in his
country. They must obtain a security permit just
for renovations.
Last year, the first Catholic church — bearing
no cross, no bells and no steeple — opened in
Qatar, leaving Saudi Arabia the only country in
the Persian Gulf that bars the building of houses
of worship for non-Muslims. In Saudi Arabia, it
is difficult even for Muslims who donʼt adhere
to the ultra-orthodox Wahhabi sect; Shiites, for
example, routinely face discrimination.
Bigotry must be condemned wherever it occurs.
If majority-Muslim countries want to
criticize the mistreatment of Muslims living as
minority communities elsewhere, they should be
prepared to withstand the same level of scrutiny
regarding their own mistreatment of minorities.
Millions of non-Muslim migrant workers have
helped build Saudi Arabia. Human rights groups
have long condemned the slave-like conditions
that many toil under, and the possibility of Saudi
citizenship is nonexistent. Muslim nations have
been unwilling to criticize this bigotry in their
midst, and Europeans should keep in mind that
Sundayʼs ban takes them in this direction.
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Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-born writer and
lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues. The Washington
Post.