That being said, I want to contribute a little bit to the “Can Muslims be European?” debate that seems to be going on here, from a French perspective.

The riots were never about Islam, they were about black and brown kids living in ghettoes who had wanted to integrate into French society but couldn’t. Burning cars is actually a French tradition on New Year’s Eve.

On the other hand you also have gang-controlled Muslim neighborhoods in France where Shari’a law is enforced by the gangs, and anti-Semitic violence from French Muslims. The question is, how much of this is due to cultural traditions brought over from the immigrants’ original countries that would be kept no matter what, and how much is simply a reaction to being kept out of French society? I’ve met many French of Arabic descent, some Muslim, some non-religious, who were basically completely French in outlook. Not surprisingly, they were all economically successful, none of them were trapped in the cites. I think that when you have young people turning to a very conservative form of Islam you have to ask what’s pushing them to it–the normal thing is for immigrants’ children from traditionally conservative societies to integrate and become less conservative than their parents.

Some politicians are trying to answer these questions, others are trying to just say Muslims are intrinsically scary so let’s keep them out or at the very least prevent them from looking Muslim by governmental fiat. Yet others are cultural relativists who will not even take Muslim immigrants or their descendants to task for breaking the law.

Affirmative action in hiring is probably the answer. That and offering families a way to move out of the housing projects into neighborhoods that aren’t ghetto quarantines.

And racism (here) definitely exist. Religious prejudices do exist too. The problem is that it’s usually done by the same folks, so it’s hard to tell one from another. But i don’t think it’d good to lump everything into one “racism” bag.

@Piny
I worded it wrongly. It should be “private and public but not political”. This is about secularism (yes, that’s the idea that lies behind prohibition of religion ties to politics), and that was behind both the French and Italian cases. Mind you, Switzerland went in entirely different direction, with that referendum – but you said “western, Christian countries keep enacting laws against religious behaviors that are neither fundamentalist nor violent” and i don’t think there was another example. Certainly not these two, public schools aren’t places for religion.

You mean like removing crucifixes from classrooms or forbidding wearing overt religious symbols in schools? Well, you know, it’s continent where religion is private and not public and it keeps in mind it’s religious persecutions and warfare history.

Where does the Pope live, Italy or Idaho? Is Notre Dame in Paris, Texas? Who built Vienna’s plague monument? Europe has festivals of religious observance, religious monuments, and religious buildings. The strong influence of religion in European history hasn’t resulted in a culture without religion. Italy still tithes.

We had holy wars of conquest in the Americas, too.

You can’t selectively prohibit the exercise of religion without implicitly promoting another belief system. And you don’t selectively prohibit the exercise of religion unless you have a stake in another belief system. If Switzerland truly were post-clannish xenophobic Christianity, then the minarets would not be offensive.

A good deal of Islamophobia is “oh no, brown people,” though.

You mean like removing crucifixes from classrooms or forbidding wearing overt religious symbols in schools? Well, you know, it’s continent where religion is private and not public and it keeps in mind it’s religious persecutions and warfare history.

Your first example is not like your second example.

Keep in mind i’m not native speaker, but it seems to me that’s simply the wrong word. Like, using “racism” for homophobic or sexist attitudes? Even if there would be racist component, it would be using wrong word, still. And really loaded at the same time.

And since the topic is Switzerland muslims, IIRC, from former Yugoslavia, it’s not racist at all. I mean, Switzerland. Country with 4 languages. French, German and Italian. Ok, i’m sure there are 3 nutjobs that think Swiss are a “race”. And 4 more that think Southern Slavs are of different one, but…

That said, there were two comments from Swiss here that mentioned the heavily xenophobic (with racist undertones) no-campaign. So even though the ban doesn’t cross race, it’s aim might be drawing from racism. Although i simply don’t know what’s more important. Certainly, islamophobia is much more common in media than racism, but that doesn’t say anything about people attitudes. However, even if it’s directed against middle east it doesn’t necessairly mean it’s motivated by racism. First, people might actually differentiate between Balkan and Middle-Eastern Islam (two different kinds of animals), second, it’s sort of congruence/confirmation bias – we should find something that can disprove it too, like checking for attitudes for Black or Indian (dark) immigrants, where race is obvious and religion is not (or at least isn’t Muslim).

And keeping in mind that racism doesn’t exclude religious prejudices.

“when what actually happens is that western, Christian countries keep enacting laws against religious behaviors that are neither fundamentalist nor violent? When they are not actually demonstrating that vaunted tolerance, but rather demanding protection from the sight of religious and cultural difference?”
You mean like removing crucifixes from classrooms or forbidding wearing overt religious symbols in schools? Well, you know, it’s continent where religion is private and not public and it keeps in mind it’s religious persecutions and warfare history.

Christianity and other religions have problems, to be sure. But they’re already in place and, in many cases, are linked to the state religion of the country in question. When the vast majority your population is Christian, you’re not going to change that through limited immigration. The reason that Islam is being treated differently w/r/t immigration is, in part, because it is possible to have an effect.

Nor will you have an easy time freeing yourself from Christian-centric bigotry. QED.

Right-wing Christianity did not always have either the social power or the social legitimacy it does now. While Christians are a social majority in many countries, reactionary Christians don’t have either the numbers or the actual consensus. If our government saw Christian fundamentalists as dangerous to the American way of life, they’d have a lot less power; their beliefs would be reflected in less of our legislation. To be sure, you can draw a line from approbation to power, but they’re not quite the same thing. The mainstreaming of stuff like lachrymal seroconversion requires a lot of help.

Second, it’s not more appropriate to discriminate against one religion and its adherents because that demographic is more powerless. It’s more reprehensible to enact laws designed to marginalize a population because you know that a minority is incapable of defending itself. And it’s dangerous to a culture of tolerance to decide that a religion deserves respect only if it’s powerful enough to demand it.

And again: what precisely do minarets have to do with violent fundamentalism? Why is this larger issue at issue, when what actually happens is that western, Christian countries keep enacting laws against religious behaviors that are neither fundamentalist nor violent? When they are not actually demonstrating that vaunted tolerance, but rather demanding protection from the sight of religious and cultural difference?

Sure, it’s difficult for a bunch of white Christians to distinguish between a legitimate interest in tolerance and an illegitimate interest in racial and cultural segregation. Especially if religious and racial homogeneity is part of their culture. It’s difficult for any state to balance cultural plurality and civic identity.

But this law, in effect and in intent, is about an illegitimate need to preserve racial and cultural segregation. So shouldn’t we help the Swiss out by saying so?

When we say islam, we usually think Middle East – Saudi Arabia, Iran and so on – and I’m wondering to what extent this assumption motivated the vote here in Switzerland. The outrageous political campaign in favour of the ban depicted a plethora of tall black minarets with a woman in burka at the forefront, thus encouraging the confusion. The fact that most Muslims in the country come from the Balkans was virtually ignored, and the ban aimed at the fundamentalists we are afraid of but do not see. The fact that many Swiss know Muslims personally or even work with them did not seem relevant, because the imagined threat doesn’t come from them but from the Middle East.

This then would indicate racism rather than mere islamophobia. But I may also be wrong in my assumption that this is the dynamic that motivated the vote.

Really, linking Lisbon treaty to Swiss referenda or Switzerland in general? It’s worse than some anti-integration politicans that routinely point to EU when Council of Europe, totally different organistation, or ECHR does anything. They do it on purpose, he probably because of ignorance. And really, religious tolerance and SWITZERLAND??? Did he learn ANY European history? Rest of his examples aren’t better.

So, we have bad premise, and then it gets worse.

Repeating the usual Eurosceptic stuff about undemocratic process of European integration, totally missing the point of integration of COUNTRIES (for f**k sake, who is going to integrate them if not elected representatives???)

And he is ignorant on both the specifics of different countries muslim populations and muslim integration in general (really, France? The riots were class/race issues, not much different from the Blacks situation in USA). Or Germany’s Turs/Kurds? Dude, integration doesn’t happen overnight, it takes generations. And it actually IS hapenning. You do understand the problem with honor killings is exactly because the younger generation is integrating?

The only thing he is right is the political backlash. But, seriously, this guy based his article on book (“the best to date” WTF?!?) by Chistopher Caldwell? The one from Weekly “Far-right propaganda outlet” Standart? Seriously, these guys have no idea. Jill, why did you even bother, really?

On a side note, wasn’t NYT liberal newspaper? I was kind of surprised to see article based on Weekly Standart there…

That said, Swiss law is extremely stupid and counter-productive. I’m not a lawyer, but i wonder if it goes against ECHR and as such would be subject to overturning. I’d hope so.

Hmm, looking at this, i made a rant apparently… i won’t say anything about comments except: religious persecution is not racism. Why do you guys keep saying that???

I’m fairly certain you meant “kinda” but it really makes me smile to think of them as kind.