Swiss ban minarets.

This poster was used by the anti-Minaret campaign in Switzerland

Switzerland eh, the most peaceful country in the world – four hundred years of brotherly love and all they produced was a cuckoo clock and an overdraft for Pablo Escobar. Unfortunately today it looks like Switzerland isn’t as nice and neutral as folk thought it was.

Despite opposition from the Government, and previous polls showing opposition to the proposal the Swiss have voted to ban the construction of Minarets in Mosques across Switzerland.

This is despite the fact that Switzerland only has four Minarets in the whole country, none of which are used to call Muslims to prayer.

The proposal was initiated by the far-right Swiss Peoples Party, who have followed the rest of the European far-Right in attacking migrants but specifically Muslims. They called for a ban on Minarets as it resembled “Islamic dominance” and was a step towards Sharia law.

The People’s Party has led other initiatives in the Swiss Parliament against immigrants – for example proposing a law that would allow the entire family of an immigrant who had committed a crime to be deported, following the same principle of “kin responsibility” the Nazis used to attack the families of criminals.

Switzerland – and all countries – are right to try to defend a secular society, and not let religion interfere with the state. But the proposal on Minarets was only made relating to Muslim places of worship. There is no similar law regarding any other religious group in Switzerland. Muslims have been singled out for attack, because the war on terror has made them a convenient scapegoat.

This vote shows that unfortunately it doesn’t really matter what Muslims do in countries they stay to avoid being attacked – there were only four Minarets in Switzerland, and no history of extremist preachers in these institutions. Most Muslims in Switzerland emigrated from Turkey or Yugoslavia. As Derek Wall pointed out on Socialist Unity it’s likely many of these Muslim immigrants had their Mosques destroyed by Serb Fascists in the 90s. No doubt they will join with the Swiss Peoples Party in defending “Christian civilisation”.

Another anti-immigrant poster the Swiss Peoples Party has used, subtlety obviously isn’t their strong point

It’s important that while the Left can recognise religious fundamentalism and oppose it – as the SSP’s comrades in the Labour Party of Pakistan write about in the latest edition of the Voice – that we also recognise where a scapegoat has been made. The singling out of Muslim places of worship today is no different than when Catholics were singled out as a danger in Glasgow by bigots.