"Disgraceful. That is the only way to describe the success of a right-wing initiative to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland, where 57 percent of voters cast ballots for a bigoted and mean-spirited measure.
Under Switzerland’s system of direct rule, the referendum is binding. Switzerland’s 400,000 or so Muslims, most of whom come from Kosovo and Turkey, are legally barred from building minarets as of now. We can only hope that the ban is quickly challenged, and that the Swiss courts will find a way to get rid of it.
But the vote also carries a strong and urgent message for all Europe, and for all Western nations where Islamic minorities have been growing in numbers and visibility, and where fear and resentment of Muslim immigrants and their religion have become increasingly strident and widespread. The warning signs have been there: the irrational fierceness of official French resistance to the shawls and burkas worn by some Muslim women; the growing opposition in many European quarters to Turkish membership in the European Union."
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