Minarets no more?

The world of political correctness has set its sights on a new target: Switzerland. Following the Swiss referendum on banning minarets, which was supported by a vast majority of Swiss voters, people outside the country, most prominently in North America, have attacked and cursed Switzerland for being racist, politically incorrect and generally backward.

One argument that is often heard these days is that Switzerland has a relatively small Muslim community, particularly when compared with most other Western European countries. The Swiss, therefore, it is said, had absolutely no reason to feel threatened by symbols of Islam. However, this argument seems to imply that people in other countries do have reason to be concerned.

It is easy for Americans or Canadians to criticize the Swiss and other Europeans. Most of them have never actually walked in the shoes of Europeans. Visiting as tourists for two weeks or even working or studying for a year at the Sorbonne is simply not the same as living over there for several years. Nor do North Americans – be it as tourists or students – know much about the European experience. They are not exposed to the actual issues and challenges Europeans face on a daily basis.

When five-year-old Turkish boys in Germany proclaim on national TV that they would like to become martyrs in the fight against infidels when they grow up, any German or Western European should be concerned. When entire neighbourhoods in Vienna, Austria, are controlled by Turkish gangs who specifically target infidels for brutal beatings and even killings, it is not only Austrians who must start thinking seriously about the future of their continent. When Turkish immigrants in Germany, Austria, etc. tell the local – infidel – population, “You shut up. We soon take over and kill you all,” it is not hard to see why people in Western Europe are increasingly becoming frustrated with and alarmed at the rapid progression of Islamization. When a Danish cartoonist faces regular death threats, or when a Dutch filmmaker is savagely killed in the name of Islam, and when a European court rules that symbols of the Catholic faith, i.e., the cross, must not be displayed, it should not surprise anyone that Europeans feel that other religious symbols, such as minarets, should also be banned.

The elections to the European Parliament last summer gave a clear voice to these sentiments. In many EU countries, it was mostly right-of-centre or even anti-foreigner parties that won most of the votes. When people are constantly told to swallow hard and not to express their views and opinions freely, it is just a matter of time before all that bottled-up frustration explodes – maybe not just figuratively, but also literally.

With North Americans now wagging their disapproving fingers, without really knowing what they are talking about, Europeans are bound to become more and more anti-American in the process. They do not like being lectured by outsiders who simply cannot understand what it means to live in a “multicultural” Europe today in the 21st century. Torontonians (white Anglo-Saxon and native-born, that is) might be able to relate, as they – as your columnist can attest – are regularly verbally assaulted by members of various ethnic groups with racial slurs and epithets.

Whatever drove the Swiss to vote the way they have, political correctness is a mental and social disease that will end in a major catastrophe in a not-so-distant future. Any country should and does have the right to protect its own culture and traditions. Since Muslim countries do not allow Christian churches to be built, or even outright slaughter Christians, why should not the Swiss ban the building of such towering Islamic symbols?

Besides, and this is one aspect that North Americans do not know or care to understand, many, if not most, Muslims settling in Europe do so in the spirit of some sort of “conquest”. Turks, in particular, still sulk because their two attempts to conquer Vienna failed centuries ago. In fact, some Turks living in that region will readily admit that this is one of their primary reasons for having moved there: they want to take Vienna now through infiltration, rather than military might.

Stepping on the brakes of multiculturalism, as the Swiss have done, is therefore not such a bad move. But North Americans in their relatively sheltered existence will never see it that way. They would much rather worship at the altar of that mental derangement, political correctness.