Watch out Maria. The backlash is coming – the only question is what form of jihad will it take?
The Swiss government was able to ban anti-minaret posters (below) before the vote, but they were unable to stop the people from voting. One has to wonder if the results would have swung either way without the governments protection of Islam. The question still remains, are minarets the problem, or is it the ideology that is taught in the buildings they are built upon?
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…” ~ Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
After the Ottoman sultan Fatih Mehmet conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in May 1453, one of his first acts was to order a wooden minaret added to the 900-year-old church of Hagia Sophia to signal its conversion into a mosque. The temporary wooden minaret was soon rebuilt in stone and three others added for good measure. As Mehmet and his successors built other mosques in their new capital, Istanbul’s skyline came to be punctuated by dozens of slender, arrow-like minarets that gave the Ottoman capital a distinctive aspect and signaled to all that it was no longer the capital of Christian Byzantium but the new capital of an Islamic empire. ~ Saudi Aramco World
Based on the descriptions above, maybe the Swiss people are onto something. From the Wall Street Journal:
A Swiss banker said Monday he doesn’t believe a Swiss vote to ban the construction of new minarets on mosques would harm business with Muslim clients.
Geneva’s private banks have long done brisk business with clients from Muslim countries, and some opponents of the ban had argued before Sunday’s Swiss vote that banning minarets would endanger business relations by offending wealthy Muslims.
Both Credit Suisse’s Meister and Wegelin’s Hummler said the minaret ban, backed by 58% of the Swiss voting population and condemned Monday by some of the most populous Muslim nations, will spark a wave of negative publicity and sentiment for Switzerland.
Considering some populous Muslim nations do not allow non-Muslims to build houses of worship, never mind appendages on top, condemnation is a skosh hypocritical. As is the fact wealthy Muslims do brisk business, i.e., hide their wealth, in Swiss bank accounts – presumably interest bearing. NRO has a similar take:
They Already Had a Referendum on That [Mark Krikorian]
The Wall Street Journal story on the Swiss minaret vote had a great quote in it, from a Jamal-on-the-street interview in Turkey (the source of most Muslims in Switzerland):
Cavid Aksin, an Istanbul metalworker, was angered that the referendum coincided with the end of one of the most important religious feasts in the Muslim calendar. “I think Turkey should have a referendum on whether to close down its churches,” he said.
You mean churches like Hagia Sophia? Or the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross? Or the Halki Seminary? After 1,400 years of closing down churches, the gall is unbelievable.
For more in depth reading on the Swiss vote, check out Political Warfare who has quotes and reaction from around the world.
Then check out Intifada Switzerland Begins and wait and see how severe the anti-Swiss backlash is by those peaceful Muslims. It’s not like a Swiss priest walked into a mosque and shot 50+ people, killing 14 including a pregnant mother and her unborn baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment