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funwithpinetrees
11-30-2009, 10:14 AM
There are few things the Swiss can agree on. But one thing that seems to happen is that they have banned minarets.

It really perplexes me and makes me feel uncomfortable.

If it were like a ban because Islam has a small presence in the country and they were trying to phase out religion as a thing I would not have as big a problem with it.

However I don't think the intentions were that progressive. Surely there are these people being all like well Islam is all bad and hurts women and all these things which I don't know about. That is bad.

But I see this as a symbol of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and intolerance. It seems like it is only bad. A building built by a group of people is banned. I feel like this is a violation of very different feelings I have about religion

xsecx
11-30-2009, 10:25 AM
There are few things the Swiss can agree on. But one thing that seems to happen is that they have banned minarets.

It really perplexes me and makes me feel uncomfortable.

If it were like a ban because Islam has a small presence in the country and they were trying to phase out religion as a thing I would not have as big a problem with it.

However I don't think the intentions were that progressive. Surely there are these people being all like well Islam is all bad and hurts women and all these things which I don't know about. That is bad.

But I see this as a symbol of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and intolerance. It seems like it is only bad. A building built by a group of people is banned. I feel like this is a violation of very different feelings I have about religion

this has been a long time coming:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6676271.stm

There is a very real problem with tensions in Europe between muslims and not.

That being said, there's a lot wrong with islam, and there's a lot of fucked up practices and beliefs that should be brought to light and discussed, banning specific structures however isn't the way to do that.

lo0m
12-01-2009, 01:22 AM
exactly.. one thing that suprises me is that it's not militant muslims that are building minarets in Europe. Quite the contrary, muslims in Europe came here (or a big portion of them) to live accordingly to Western culture. Yes, they surely continue to practice their religion, but the religion itself is in no way like "we want to take the Europe down"...
anyway, old Europe is dying.. the population is slowly diminishing, that's a fact... so if some people are trying to live here, I have no problem with that.. we can't fight it anyway.. and it really doesn't matter if it's (in case of my country) Ukranians or other eastern european people or arabs or tibetians, they're all people just like we are.. if they won't act according to law, they should be punished according to law.. but banning buildings??
i agree with dusty.. islam should be completely "rediscussed" in Europe.. ordinary people do know shit about it.. if then majority will decide that Islam has no place in Europe, ok... but all antiIslam movement in Europe now is full of demagogues and populists. The positive thing is that the most famous of them, Wilders, wanted to speak in Czech Republic last week. He was not banned. But noone wanted to rent him a place where he would speak so he had to cancel the visit :-)

Marion
12-01-2009, 01:38 PM
exactly.. one thing that suprises me is that it's not militant muslims that are building minarets in Europe. Quite the contrary, muslims in Europe came here (or a big portion of them) to live accordingly to Western culture. Yes, they surely continue to practice their religion, but the religion itself is in no way like "we want to take the Europe down"...
I don't know very well the situation in the whole Europe, but some muslims in France (of course, a minority making the majority look bad, as always) have expressed the idea of taking Europe down, or overthrowing it, in some rap songs...


anyway, old Europe is dying.. the population is slowly diminishing, that's a fact...
Europe as a whole might be, but France is not, we've got more than 2 kids per women haha (and old people live for ever, so, the population is not diminishing)

xAdamSx
12-01-2009, 05:49 PM
I don't think our population is declining either really, but then I've gotten a bit lost when it comes to the political side of life in Britain, will be a lot clearer I hope after next years general election when, barring a miracle, Gordon Brown is kicked out in favour of David Cameron.

Not sure banning all minarets in Suisse was a great idea, it could just serve to make the extremists even angrier.

lo0m
12-02-2009, 01:26 AM
I don't know very well the situation in the whole Europe, but some muslims in France (of course, a minority making the majority look bad, as always) have expressed the idea of taking Europe down, or overthrowing it, in some rap songs...

i didn't know that, thanks for letting me know.. yes, that is bad, some "muslims" are bad and some muslims are willing to listen to them, i'm not arguing on that.. in fact, i believe that's the core of the problem...



Europe as a whole might be, but France is not, we've got more than 2 kids per women haha (and old people live for ever, so, the population is not diminishing)

yes, but still it's growing older (more over-65s, less people under 20).. and of course the muslims are counted...

Marion
12-02-2009, 01:40 AM
i didn't know that, thanks for letting me know.. yes, that is bad, some "muslims" are bad and some muslims are willing to listen to them, i'm not arguing on that.. in fact, i believe that's the core of the problem...


yes, but still it's growing older (more over-65s, less people under 20).. and of course the muslims are counted...

yep, growing very old, which causes many problems, since they're soon gonna be more people retired than active. Basically people retiring now, or who retired a decade ago, did it around 60, sometimes even less (which is noting, but French people really don't work a lot ...) and we're gonna retire at 75 at least haha

to go back to the topic...as xAdamSx said, banning minarets is probably just gonna make extremism rise

lo0m
12-02-2009, 04:07 AM
yep, growing very old, which causes many problems, since they're soon gonna be more people retired than active. Basically people retiring now, or who retired a decade ago, did it around 60, sometimes even less (which is noting, but French people really don't work a lot ...) and we're gonna retire at 75 at least haha

to go back to the topic...as xAdamSx said, banning minarets is probably just gonna make extremism rise

not only that.. regular muslims will have more tendency to listen to those extremists.. i'm trying to respect both muslims and "antimuslims" opinions and views but I also see banning religious buildings as bad decision.