Indeed...I always found the burqa a bit ninjaesque in apperance. :D

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/...34_468x345.jpg

Buckingham Palace has no minaret attached, right?

This means that under the new Swiss rule it would be possible to rededicate Buckingham Palace into a mosque.

The Swiss House of Parliament in Bern has no minaret attached, as well.

May be, future constructions of mosques in Switzerland will have onion domes instead, or steeples.

That makes a difference, it adds some Swiss charm.

Personally, I like onions domes with beaten gold best.

Quoting the article - I just found this rather ironic....

"Muslims indeed will not feel safe anymore." - Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Zurich

And it never occured to these people that the rest of society "does not feel safe anymore" when muslims fail to weed out the rampant "extremists" within their own religion, and instead only say "well that just wasn't representative of Islam" when something happens.

There is a reason there is a backlash building. Its because they won't take the initiative to demonstrate that they truly will not accept "extremism". They had the chance, and still do. If they want to stop a backlash, the muslim communities themselves have to be the ones to step up.

Oh - and OLC - I reviewed the thread in passing - didn't see the argument as I stated it, nor a response. If you want to point me to a post # I will review it and respond, or else you can take the challenge as posted. Or ignore it...

I have Swiss friends, and my parents as well. The outcome is not a surprise for me, becasue I know that the Swiss are a people that is not as shy as the EU to stick to it's identy and it's own national (and economic) interest.

much more revealing is the reaction in german media: putting the Swiss decison unisono into a context of irrational and unfounded fear of Islam, accusing them to fal back behind the enlightenment and being stoneaged in general. I have so far read no comment on the irraitonal fear maybe having a good, solid, well-founded reason. and none of the German commentators has thought about that the Swiss without doubt have observed the events in Germany regarding the enormous pressure being built wherever Muslim communities demand to build mosques, and what the resulting conflicts have done to the social integrity of German society, and the widenign gap between the people on the one side and politicians, economy lobbyists and the church on the other side.

Congrats to the Swiss. In international diplomacy, they will pay for it, but I still congratualte them. I only wish Germans would get asked on this and other important issues, too. but over here political parties, the government and the federal minister presidents still rule and govern by a mindset of "Führer befiehl, wir folgen".

My pocket knife and my dental insurrance both are Swiss. And both are top quality. :up: :haha:

Well Switzerland belongs to the swiss people, so it their call on to what extent they want to accommidate imagrants & other cultures. That i can appereciate.

Sill to much intertolerence out there... (on both sides)
Seems to me that if the 9/11 hijackers wanted to insite hatred between the West and Islam - they sure as hell succeeded :down:

:har::har:

Could be a potential reality sooner than we think :hmmm:

I doubt it very much :haha:
Hysteria on the other hand.....

What's even more amusing is that there are only FOUR in the entire country!:haha: I was watching Nightline a little bit ago, and they showed how two of them have already been defaced with anti-Islamic graffiti.

From what I've been reading, it appears most of these shenanigans are coming from that nationalist, right-wing Swiss People's Party. On the Nightline interview I was talking about, this one guy called minarets "symbols of militant Islam", when they're no more symbols of militantism than those realistic crosses people such as the Westboro Baptists carry around in public. As far as religious structures are concerned, they're not any different from the bell tower a church. This is nothing but extremism, only it's not the Islamics causing it.

It is irrational, banning minarets is a pointless exercise.

Don't talk bollox, that rubbish is straight off Stormfront.
They apply for planning permission just like anyone else does.

Skybird, you wrote that it is difficult to get a movement together without gathering all the racist scumbags to the cause, you also wrote that you were identified as a racist scumbag when you did you little protests yourself in the shopping center.
Do you think it says anything about your views?

Tough break!!:up:

Cartoons like that indeed are not helpful in preventing to give criticism of Islam and opposition to Islam's increasing influence in the West a bad name. For preventing that, we should not make it Islam-sympathisers so easy, but should stay away fron rightwing extremists and white supremacists, Nazis and form sof criticism that just display simplistic world views that do not match complexity and truth of reality. Musolim missles exploding in wetsenr cities are not our main concern, but the creeping Islamsiation and creeping deletion of Western identity by the hands of Western institutions and politicians themselves. It is unlikely that Iran would fire a nuclear missile to europe in the first. that it would help to get a suitcase with some critical cintent blowing up in a dirty nuclear explosion - is something different.

For these reasons, Jimbuna, this cartoon is not helpful, but counterproductive. It makes it more difficult for people of your and my opinion.

Towers historically are symbols of a claim to power. They mean to say "I am here, i do not intend to go away, I want to rule this place". From a church to the castle towers, from demonstrative benchmark-height towers to minaretts - this is the symbolism behind towers.

Exactly...