(Photo: Giacomo Rosso)
The Author is member of
Europa451
Translation by Valentina La Gatta
On Sunday 29 November 2009 the citizens of Switzerland voted on a referendum to ban the construction of minarets. More than 57% of voters and 22 out of 26 cantons voted in favour of the ban.This initiative was initially proposed by the Swiss deputy (MP) Lorenzo Quadri – a member of the Lega dei Ticinesi, a populist and anti-European political movement known for its rejection of the naturalization of immigrants – and has been subsequently supported by the Central Democtratic Union, a conservative party currently in government.
The parliamentary initiative, that is now law, bans the construction of minarets appealing to the Swiss Catholic identity that in the Constitution of Ticino (not to be confused with the Federal Constitution) recognizes that the "Roman Catholic Apostolic Church and the Reformed Evangelical Church have a public law status", while the article 15 of the Federal Constitution, guarantees the "freedom of creed and conscience". According to this initiative, minarets are built to "mark out the territory", so forbidding their construction would permit the preservatio of Swiss (Catholic?) cultural identity. However it is interesting to note that in Switzerland there are currently only four minarets and that Muslims – most of them come from Turky and Bosnia - have never had particular integration problems.
The 2000 Swiss Census - conducted by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (SFSO) – revealed that religion plays an "important role" for only 16% of the Swiss. This has also been highlighted by the 10% decrease in the number of practising believers registered between 1990 and 2000 (for the two major religions in Switzerland,Christianity and Protestantism). 38.5% of Catholics declare that they do not go to Church compared with 50.7% of Protestants. Switzerland, then, isn't that different from the rest of Europe: according to a survey conducted in 2005 by Eurostat, religion is a fundemental aspect of life for 53% of those asked. In general, 49.5% of European citizens are Catholic, 13.7% are Protestant, 8.6% are members of the Orthodox Church, 15.7% are Muslim, 0.4% are Israelite and 25.4% declares to be "not religious". However, when it comes to mosques, then they all return to the fold and say: "yes, we are Catholic"
But what about the responses to this initiative? The Vlaams Belang – the extreme right-wing Flemmish political party – currently led by Filip Dewinter - welcomed the outcome, and has also proposed to expand it to Belgium as well. Likewise the Dutch Freedom Party (whose leader Geer Wilder compares the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf) seemed pleased about it. Marine Le Pen – vice-president of the Front National – appealed to the will of the European people: "The elites should stop denying the hopes and fears of European peoples who, without opposing religious freedom, reject ostentatious symbols forced on them by politico-religious Muslim groups". The former Justice Minister Roberto Castelli of Italy stated that the time has come to "put a cross on the Italian tricolour". Italians claim they have to answer with their own symbol as the minaret is not a religious symbol, but a political one. They want to affirm their Catholicism as the religious influence is currently losing ground all over Europe.
The link with the decision recently taken by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg should be quite obvious. Ulrich Schlüer – a Swiss politician member of the Swiss People's party (SPP) – stated: "It now appears that Christian towns are not supposed to use Christian symbols (...) but we're supposed to have Muslim symbols". On 3 November, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg declared that the display of the crucifix in Italy's schoolrooms is a "violation of the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions (and that it also represents a violation) of the student's religious freedom". The Italian Government lodged an appeal against this and the case will probably be discussed in three months time. The issue has been raised by Soile Lautsi - an Italian citizen of Finnish origin - supporter of the UAAR (the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics). The Italian political parties have in general reacted unanimously to the decision: according to some, the crucifix is the symbol of the Italian cultural identity, while to others it is at first a symbol of the Italian religious identity and secondly also a symbol of the European religious identity. But surprisingly even the "non-Catholic" seem to fear the possibility of not having crucifixes in schoolrooms any more. The issue on or not keeping the crucifix (and, as already pointed out, raised by a Finnish laic and rationalist woman) has aroused controversies against the Islamic invasion. The section of Bergamo of the Lega Nord (the Italian regionalist and federalist political party) is a fair example of this as it ends its article on the topic - without saying a word about the Muslims - with a poster containing the sentence: "We don't want to die Islamic". There are also groups on Facebook that pop up like mushrooms and attack the Islamics directly (without addressing their protest against the European Court): "YOU do not want the crucifix in school? I do not want you in Italy! What have you got to say for yourself?". The result? Almost 7 thousand "fans" and a lively debates that quickly become tinged with racism.
The "people's will" Marine Le Pen refers to should be respected. We should now ask ourselves what this referendum really is. Is it "a tool" for these types of decision dominated by populism? It is obviously normal to question ourselves both on the matters of identity and of European expansion as the EU - despite its weakness - is becoming always more and more important in our lives and falling back on both national, regional and religiousidentities seems to be at present the easiest solution. Another problem is that in Europe - the Europe we live in - the people's will isn't respected in a continuos way: in 2005 France and the Netherlands refused by referendum the European Constitution. Four years after the national governments ratified the treaty of Lisbon. Perhaps they thought that by just changing its name from European Constitution to Treaty of Lisbon the people's will would no longer be that important. However the Irish case is even more striking:
in June 2008, the Irish, expressing their own will said "no". Unfortunately this was not their "real" will as just a year after, in October 2009, they had another vote and changed opinion. And it seems they changes it radically too as the 53.4 "no" votes were replaced by a 67.1 "yes" votes.
Suprisingly Islam is now felt to be the opposite of European identity: according to the last debates it seems an issue that concerns many European countries: such as Switzerland, and Italy of course, but also France were Mr. Sarkozy Sarkozy is pushing to ban the burka and Germany where the Government is disputing on the construction of mosques. Yet the Islamic matter is hardly pronounced within the European political debates: at least during the last June 2009 European elections it hasn't surely been an election campaign topic. The debate concerned only Turkey's entry in the EU, as if Islam weren't already the second-major religion in Europe.
The parliamentary initiative, that is now law, bans the construction of minarets appealing to the Swiss Catholic identity that in the Constitution of Ticino (not to be confused with the Federal Constitution) recognizes that the "Roman Catholic Apostolic Church and the Reformed Evangelical Church have a public law status", while the article 15 of the Federal Constitution, guarantees the "freedom of creed and conscience". According to this initiative, minarets are built to "mark out the territory", so forbidding their construction would permit the preservatio of Swiss (Catholic?) cultural identity. However it is interesting to note that in Switzerland there are currently only four minarets and that Muslims – most of them come from Turky and Bosnia - have never had particular integration problems.
The 2000 Swiss Census - conducted by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (SFSO) – revealed that religion plays an "important role" for only 16% of the Swiss. This has also been highlighted by the 10% decrease in the number of practising believers registered between 1990 and 2000 (for the two major religions in Switzerland,Christianity and Protestantism). 38.5% of Catholics declare that they do not go to Church compared with 50.7% of Protestants. Switzerland, then, isn't that different from the rest of Europe: according to a survey conducted in 2005 by Eurostat, religion is a fundemental aspect of life for 53% of those asked. In general, 49.5% of European citizens are Catholic, 13.7% are Protestant, 8.6% are members of the Orthodox Church, 15.7% are Muslim, 0.4% are Israelite and 25.4% declares to be "not religious". However, when it comes to mosques, then they all return to the fold and say: "yes, we are Catholic"
But what about the responses to this initiative? The Vlaams Belang – the extreme right-wing Flemmish political party – currently led by Filip Dewinter - welcomed the outcome, and has also proposed to expand it to Belgium as well. Likewise the Dutch Freedom Party (whose leader Geer Wilder compares the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf) seemed pleased about it. Marine Le Pen – vice-president of the Front National – appealed to the will of the European people: "The elites should stop denying the hopes and fears of European peoples who, without opposing religious freedom, reject ostentatious symbols forced on them by politico-religious Muslim groups". The former Justice Minister Roberto Castelli of Italy stated that the time has come to "put a cross on the Italian tricolour". Italians claim they have to answer with their own symbol as the minaret is not a religious symbol, but a political one. They want to affirm their Catholicism as the religious influence is currently losing ground all over Europe.
The link with the decision recently taken by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg should be quite obvious. Ulrich Schlüer – a Swiss politician member of the Swiss People's party (SPP) – stated: "It now appears that Christian towns are not supposed to use Christian symbols (...) but we're supposed to have Muslim symbols". On 3 November, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg declared that the display of the crucifix in Italy's schoolrooms is a "violation of the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions (and that it also represents a violation) of the student's religious freedom". The Italian Government lodged an appeal against this and the case will probably be discussed in three months time. The issue has been raised by Soile Lautsi - an Italian citizen of Finnish origin - supporter of the UAAR (the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics). The Italian political parties have in general reacted unanimously to the decision: according to some, the crucifix is the symbol of the Italian cultural identity, while to others it is at first a symbol of the Italian religious identity and secondly also a symbol of the European religious identity. But surprisingly even the "non-Catholic" seem to fear the possibility of not having crucifixes in schoolrooms any more. The issue on or not keeping the crucifix (and, as already pointed out, raised by a Finnish laic and rationalist woman) has aroused controversies against the Islamic invasion. The section of Bergamo of the Lega Nord (the Italian regionalist and federalist political party) is a fair example of this as it ends its article on the topic - without saying a word about the Muslims - with a poster containing the sentence: "We don't want to die Islamic". There are also groups on Facebook that pop up like mushrooms and attack the Islamics directly (without addressing their protest against the European Court): "YOU do not want the crucifix in school? I do not want you in Italy! What have you got to say for yourself?". The result? Almost 7 thousand "fans" and a lively debates that quickly become tinged with racism.
The "people's will" Marine Le Pen refers to should be respected. We should now ask ourselves what this referendum really is. Is it "a tool" for these types of decision dominated by populism? It is obviously normal to question ourselves both on the matters of identity and of European expansion as the EU - despite its weakness - is becoming always more and more important in our lives and falling back on both national, regional and religiousidentities seems to be at present the easiest solution. Another problem is that in Europe - the Europe we live in - the people's will isn't respected in a continuos way: in 2005 France and the Netherlands refused by referendum the European Constitution. Four years after the national governments ratified the treaty of Lisbon. Perhaps they thought that by just changing its name from European Constitution to Treaty of Lisbon the people's will would no longer be that important. However the Irish case is even more striking: 
in June 2008, the Irish, expressing their own will said "no". Unfortunately this was not their "real" will as just a year after, in October 2009, they had another vote and changed opinion. And it seems they changes it radically too as the 53.4 "no" votes were replaced by a 67.1 "yes" votes.
Suprisingly Islam is now felt to be the opposite of European identity: according to the last debates it seems an issue that concerns many European countries: such as Switzerland, and Italy of course, but also France were Mr. Sarkozy Sarkozy is pushing to ban the burka and Germany where the Government is disputing on the construction of mosques. Yet the Islamic matter is hardly pronounced within the European political debates: at least during the last June 2009 European elections it hasn't surely been an election campaign topic. The debate concerned only Turkey's entry in the EU, as if Islam weren't already the second-major religion in Europe.
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