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Tilting at symbols
Q: What's your reaction to Sunday's decision by voters in Switzerland to ban construction of minarets, the slender towers from which Muslims are called to daily prayers?
"This was a vote against minarets as symbols of Islamic power," said the General Secretary of the Swiss People's Party, which had proposed the referendum. And therein lies the problem: when we turn our energies to fighting symbols rather than dealing with the real underlying issues, we are invariably going to miss our target.
I have some sympathy with the 57% of Swiss who voted in favor of the ban: analysts are no doubt correct when they attribute the vote to concern about rising levels of immigration and, with it, rising levels of Islam in a country which has traditionally been rather inward-looking and self-contained. The Swiss can have drawn precious little comfort from the experiences of other European countries, where a blind devotion to multiculturalism has led to the creation of cultural ghettos, when what was really needed was a concerted effort to fully integrate immigrants into our respective societies.
Nevertheless, banning symbols is not the way to deal with the resulting problems. It is the same with the burqa: we may be repelled by what it represents (I certainly am), but it is nevertheless merely a symbol of an underlying attitude which oppresses women. We can ban the symbol, but the oppression will remain for as long as the attitudes themselves remain unchallenged.
In the post-9/11 world we cannot blame people for feeling alarmed at the rise of Islam in their societies. But banning minarets will not stop the practice of Islam, and in any case, we should recoil in horror from the very notion of attempting such a thing. No free, fair or democratic society should seek to prevent its citizens holding and expressing religious or any other beliefs. At the same time, however, the state should not feel it has to stand by and watch helplessly as its values, ideals and safety are eroded.
What the Swiss really fear is not minarets, but extremism, jihadism, oppression and ghettoization, the existence in their midst of a group of people who refuse to adapt to Swiss culture and who might potentially pose a threat to it. (I don't know of similar polls in Switzerland, but a 2006 survey of British Muslims produced extremely alarming results.) And it is in these areas that the state can and must play a positive role: by creating policies that discourage the creation of ghettos (whether Islamic or of any other kind), that ensure that children from all backgrounds are educated together and are therefore exposed to different attitudes and beliefs and learn to live together in harmony, and that insist on certain inalienable rights for all citizens, no matter what their national, cultural or religious backgrounds: the right to be educated, the right to freedom of expression, the right to live free from oppression or abuse, the right to practice a religion, the right not to practice a religion, the right not to be discriminated against on any grounds over which they have no control. The state can legislate robustly in support of these values and insist that, whatever the beliefs of individual citizens, their behavior must conform to society's laws.
This is the key issue here: not belief, but behavior. An act of violence is a crime, regardless of the religious beliefs of its perpetrator; so, too, are incitement to violence, the mutilation of another person, and discrimination against women and homosexuals. The state should be defending our laws and our values, and it should do so without fear or favor, in a way that is genuinely blind to the race or religion of its citizens. It should not be fearful of acting in support of these laws, just because they were transgressed in the name of a religion.
It is this religion-blindness that is the hallmark of the truly secular state. 'Secular' is a much misunderstood word, often confused (I am tempted to suggest the confusion is often deliberate) with 'atheist'. But a secular state has nothing to do with atheism. The secular state is completely neutral when it comes to religion: it sees religion as a personal matter which citizens are perfectly free to follow and to express, but which is separate and distinct from anything to do with the state and its policies. A state that allies itself with any particular religion, as is the case in the UK, for instance, with its established church whose bishops sit in the upper house of parliament, cannot be religion-blind and leaves itself open to accusations of bias and discrimination. A truly secular state will not act against any religion or belief, but only ever against certain types of behavior. It will not allow an individual's religious beliefs to exempt him from compliance with the law; it will not subsidize or otherwise promote religion; it will not give the religious privileged access to power or influence; but neither will it forbid the holding of religious belief or the exercising of religious worship; it will not accord the religious fewer rights than the non-religious; and it will not ban the building of minarets.
Governments across Europe - paralyzed, perhaps, by an irrational deference to religion, or by the fear of appearing racist or of sparking the very behaviors they are hoping to avoid - are ignoring their citizens' concerns about the rise of Islam, and it is the resulting frustration that is leading more and more European voters to turn to right-wing parties with their illiberal policies. But this is not the answer. The answer is a robust defense of our values, a warm welcome to anyone who is prepared to live in accordance with them, and an even-handed application of laws against violent or abusive behavior, applied equally to the religious and the non-religious alike. The answer is secularism.
By
Paula Kirby
|
December 1, 2009; 12:27 PM ET
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Posted by: persiflage | December 6, 2009 8:17 PM
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persiflage:
I do not disagree with you with much of what you say.
When people from other lands come to the U.S., they come for opportunity as well as freedom. It is a great tribute to America. We should keep it that way.
I am a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson. Most of the freedom we Americans enjoy is because he succeeded in providing a right direction in human equality.
Why do we support Hosni Mubarak and other despots if we truly want democracy to flourish in the M.E.?
Posted by: hsnkhwj | December 6, 2009 7:31 PM
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Zebra, you said:
'The problem is that you do not know that about 3 million Americans are living in other countries-- a lot of them in The MIddle East.'
Two things can be said about jobs in the Middle East: 1) you're going to do MUCH better both job and paywise as a male applicant, and particularly with regard to living conditions, if you're actually living and working in the Mideast.
2) you're going to follow all the rules and limits imposed on foreigners living in the Mideast, particularly with regard to restrictions imposed on women. Women do not remotely have the same rights as men virtually anywhere in that part of the world.
If you happen to be a woman, and a native-born American (Muslim convert) living in the USA (just a guess) you must be completely aware of the inequity suffered by women throughout the Muslim world elsewhere.
Assimilation as a permanent citizen in the Mideast is a non-issue for non-Muslim immigrants....it's not going to happen. Work experience in the Mideast for most Westerners is purely a financial choice - because the money can be good on a temporary basis (and with many tax incentives as well).
My guess is that much of the labor-related movement to the Mideast is very temporary, with most fleeing back to the comforts and personal freedoms of citizenship in the western world, as soon as possible.
All in all, the concept of 'cultural reciprocity' is not much in evidence during exchanges and transitions between Muslim cultures and non-Muslim visitors.
One can try and blame this inherent inflexibiliby on 'cultural differences' but that boat won't float. The migrant flow out of the Mideast to the West is surely many times the number of westerners seeking entry to the Mideastern countries.
That said, there's a listing of job openings in the Mideast just below.....
Posted by: persiflage | December 6, 2009 9:46 AM
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persiflage:
The problem is that you do not know that about 3 million Americans are living in other countries-- a lot of them in The MIddle East.
As the unemployment situation worsens, many Americans have been seeking employment in foreign lands.
Just as the water flows always down stream, humans go wherever opportunities are. Americans are no exception.
Posted by: zebra4 | December 5, 2009 11:31 PM
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Zebra says:
Now the Slogan is: THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING, THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING! THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING!
Nope - they've been here and we have strong evidence of this fact. Until Islam thoroughly cleans it's own house of dominionist ideology and theist autocracy, we will continue to have chronic problems with Islam.
Why immigrate to the West and then struggle to cloister oneself off, in a closed religious community that has been cloned from the Motherland?
This conspicuous lack of transparency is engendering great suspicion. Behaviors need to change, and no one said the pressures of assimilation were not painful.
Religious fundamentalism of any kind is both undesirable and dangerous - a proven fact. Right now, Islam is in that particular spotlight.....like it or not.
If Muslims in the USA don't take great issue with Islam as it's practiced elsewhere in the world, do they even have a valid point of view?
That is, unless they come out much more demonstrably against the fundamentalist primitivism that is killing unsuspecting innocents the world over - unfortunately evincing a murderous mentality that is attached to Islam like an umbilical cord that nourishes a dangerous offspring.
These constellating fears are not the hyper-vigilant paranoia of McCarthyism by a long shot....and as a relic of that era, if bomb shelters could prevent death by suicide bomber, they'd be very popular by now.
Posted by: persiflage | December 5, 2009 4:17 PM
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Paula,
Today, I taught a class on critical analysis. There is time, next week, to see if the lesson took. Your essay with the link has found its way to my students' in box as my "test case."
Question to students: What does Kirby's text say? What does the link show? The "implied" message(s)? (NB the parenthetical plural.) Analyze Kirby's rhetorical performance.
Posted by: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | December 5, 2009 12:05 AM
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Once the slogan was:
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!
Now the Slogan is: THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING, THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING! THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING!
McCARATHYISM NEVER DIED.
Posted by: zebra4 | December 4, 2009 9:18 PM
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I dunno, Salsta. People were saying religious extremists would be attacking if they *didn't* vote for the ban, now you say they'll attack *because* of the ban.
Sounds to me like, if someone's gonna attack me anyway, I may as well be doing something *right.*
Posted by: Paganplace | December 4, 2009 8:12 PM
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A good article and I agree with the viewpoints expressed.
I cannot help wondering, though, now that Switzerland has passed the ban, how long it will be before this quiet, dignified and rather staid country experiences the violence of muslim extremism. Once the festival of Eid and Ramadan are over, the Swiss will need to be extra vigilant against being targeted by terrorists.
In case I'm being thought to be alarmist, just remember the 'fuss' caused by a few cartoons not so long ago...
Posted by: Salsta | December 2, 2009 7:32 AM
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Great article Paula. The biggest point you make needs to be heard more often: Whatever your religion, background, culture etc, the values of liberal democracy must still be upheld.
Posted by: flyingplatypus30 | December 1, 2009 5:29 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
HSNKHWJ you ask:
'Why do we support Hosni Mubarak and other despots if we truly want democracy to flourish in the M.E.?'
Because the devil that you know is much preferred to the devil that you don't know - so apparently goes US state department philosophy over the years, when we invariably support military dictatorships over far less known and more suspect opposition e.g. populist guerilla movements and other left-wing pro-communist factions - real and imagined (think Chavas in Venezuela).
The USA simply never supports left-wing politics/politicians internationally, and I perceive that this is how we continue to manage geopolitics abroad - especially in the Mideast in recent years.
Either we support a long-term right-wing military despot like Mubarak, or a left-wing Islamic leader sympathetic to anti-American fundamentalist causes is sure to take his place. A de-stabilized Egypt (or Jordon) would not bode well in the short term for US interests.
We did this with the former Shah Pahlavi in Iran, as Farnaz has expounded on many times - and as we did with Saddam Hussein in Iraq before he became unmanageable.
We seem to think it's a black and white world, and this applies to politics in the USA as well....but the worm always turns.
This short-sighted strategic approach that puts US interests in the front sights, tends to create strange bedfellows down the road, when the good guys become the bad guys, who eventually become the good guys again, etc. More than a worm, this is the true Oroborus swallowing his own tail, as Onofrio has oft reminded us.
In short, we support the dictators that we favor because it's judged to be in our best interests - our proclivity for democratic nation building is an excellent marketing ploy, and is part of the American genius....which many see as our dark side.
Indeed, this mercurial tendency may be our own undoing one day.......