Editorial: Swiss should not ban minarets

Islamophobia reached a new peak on Sunday when Swiss voters passed a referendum banning… Islamophobia reached a new peak on Sunday when Swiss voters passed a referendum banning minarets.

The ban would prohibit building new minarets — Islamic prayer towers — and it passed with 57.5 percent approval, according to Reuters. In such a display of misplaced paranoia, Switzerland has become an intolerant beacon amid a Western Europe struggling to deal with an influx of Muslim immigrants.

France is currently considering a ban on burqas and other face veils. Two Austrian provinces already prohibit minarets, and an Italian political party has “paraded pigs over mosque building sites to desecrate them,” according to Reuters. In 2006, the Netherlands required potential immigrants to watch a video that included drug use, topless women and gay men kissing. It was an attempt to candidly prepare immigrants for the liberal Dutch culture, but many Muslims thought it was an exclusionary tactic — i.e. “Citizens Wanted: No Muslims Need Apply.”

Conversely, both France and Denmark have approved plans for massive mosque construction. Clearly, Europeans are torn on how to deal with Muslim immigrants.

In Switzerland, like other Western European countries, some Swiss natives fear that growing numbers of Muslim immigrants will refuse integration and eventually force Sharia law onto non-Muslims. Such an aggressive democratic hijacking seems unlikely in a country of 7.6 million people where only about 4 percent are Muslim — especially considering that most Muslims do not support Sharia law.

Saying Sharia law wholly represents Islam is like saying all Christians believe in living a literal interpretation of Leviticus — chapter 20 verse 13 mandates the execution of homosexuals.

Western countries fear Muslims because they wrongfully associate Islam with violence and terrorism. Yes, terrorist attacks continue worldwide, from New York to Mumbai. Yes, many of these attacks were orchestrated by Islamic extremists. But lashing out at Muslim prayer towers, symbols of peaceful devotion, is obsessive bigotry.

The Swiss referendum gives actual violent radicals fodder for claims that Western countries are anti-Islamic.

Regarding the integration of Muslims, The United States has not faced the same challenges as European countries. The United States does not share the same proximity, and only 0.4 percent of the population identifies itself as Muslim.

Yet, this remains an important lesson. American xenophobes already target Mexicans, fearing that too many immigrants will turn the national language to Spanish. Imagine what they’ll say if Muslim immigration spikes.

Even Ben Franklin, who disliked German immigrants, once asked, “Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?”

More than 250 years later, that quote seems absurd. First-generation immigrants might retain their traditional customs, but, if they’re treated with equality and a modicum of hospitality, each generation after integrates increasingly into the larger community.

People assimilate. Discriminatory measures, like the Swiss minaret ban, merely hinder that progress.

Switzerland isn’t tearing down towers, but it is building a wall.