Believe it or not but on November 29th, Switzerland is holding a national referendum to know whether or not they should forbid minarets within the country...It is interesting to see that the exact same people who wanted globalization as a system of free trade and circulation of goods are now not accepting the fact that this system allowed people to move from a country to another. Recently a survey in French newspaper Le Figaro (most of its readers are supporting the current government) was asking whether people were favorable to the construction of a new big mosque in Marseilles. Asking this question is already shocking but the result was even more. 75% of people were against this construction...This poster comes from the right wing Swiss party UDC (Union Democratique du Centre) and says "yes to the Minaret forbidding". As you can see, systematic association of Islam with terrorism (those minarets are meant to look like rockets) and woman oppression is still working as an argument on people's paranoia... Architecture for its symbolic value is here in the center of the conservative target who refuse the hybridization of cultures and ethnic groups (another poster also shows colored hands grabbing Swiss passports followed by a title calling for the end of what people names "massive naturalization").
Xenophobia and racism have became delicate weapons confusing on purpose culture and social status that a lot of politician learned to use more or less subtly in order to suggest to people what fear produces in them.
3 commentaires:
Only because we have been agreeing so often am I going to take the opportunity bring up a few points. 1. We all want to think of ourselves as "enlightened" but what do we say then to the 75% that were oppose to the construction? That they are ignorant, niave or foolish? If that is the case are we falling into the trappings of elitism where we choose to believe that a the minority (25%) should govern or guide the majority for there own good?
2. This one is much trickier but all religion is at some level fanaticism which because of its faults and belief system can only exist within a vacuum, specifically without it being challenged by intellect or competing religious ideas. That being true the idea of different religious ideas existing together (a utopian ideology) is a contradiction and cannot exist without conflict. So when I see a nation/city/community react against an envading religion it isn't about xenophobia but more about preserving and protecting their own ideas and traditions.
Well, a friend of mine told me that my written English was not that great, if you did understand that I consider people as foolish and was pro-elitism, it may be even worse than what I thought !
People are not foolish, people are under a transcendental influence of fear. And when I use the word people I include myself in it.
About this elitism thing, I am truly deeply convinced that this majority is not taking the right decision which would have make society more human which was supposed to be the founding of it. Although, if they are a majority, the decision is eventually theirs. It does not mean that some people should not fight to try to make this influence more visible therefore more attackable.
As far as your second point is concerned, I would say that in a secular state I don't see why religions could not exist all together. As long as you declared on religion more or less as the official one and others as the "not so welcome" ones, then you are supporting the conflict...
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