That's the spirit
Recently I wrote that patently wrong-minded bans have to be challenged not through legal channels, as often there are none, but by forcing the issue, publicly defying the ban and exposing it for what it is: unenforceable except by Chinese methods, and downright ridiculous.
This is what the thwarted producers of that play Stitching should have done: performed the play publicly, in the street if necessary. And it is what the publishers of that banned university newsletter should do too: carry right on printing and distributing their paper on campus. If the troops aren’t sent in, then the ban is worthless. And if the troops are sent in, so much the better, because it makes oppression tangible.
Now here’s a man who confounds our expectations of the law-abiding, conformist Swiss by doing just that: openly defying his compatriots’ vote for a ban on minarets by building one on his own roof and effectively telling the authorities ‘Come and get me if you dare – but you won’t, because you know you’ll make bloody fools of yourselves if you do.’
The Swiss minaret-ban-enforcers are now in a really awkward position. If they remove this man’s ‘minaret’, they will come across as even more ridiculous than they already are. And if they leave it there, it will remain as a challenge to the ban.
Perhaps they’ll use the excuse that this isn’t really a minaret because it’s not attached to a mosque. Or maybe they’ll just get it removed on the grounds that there’s no planning permission for converting that chimney.
Swiss businessman builds minaret in protest
(AFP)
BUSSIGNY, Switzerland — A Swiss businessman appalled by his fellow countrymen’s decision to ban minarets has extended a chimney above his company building into a minaret in protest.
“It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful,” Guillaume Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told AFP.
The businessman, who is not a Muslim, explained that the he had constructed the mock minaret at his building near western Switzerland’s city of Lausanne in protest, and at the same time, to “send a message of peace.”
More than 57 percent of voters upset opinion polls and defied their government by approving the right wing motion to ban minarets — the turrets or towers on mosques from which Muslims are called to prayer.
The outcome of the referendum brought by members of the hard-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and other right wing groups was also hailed by anti-immigrant party leaders elsewhere in Europe.
Morand blamed other political parties in Switzerland for not having campaigned against the far-right motion ahead of the referendum.
“They were all against it but they did not explain the issue clearly to the country,” he said, pointing out that only the SVP’s controversial poster campaign was visible.
The SVP had sought support for the ban through a poster campaign depicting a burqa-clad woman against a background of a Swiss flag upon which several minarets resembling missiles are erected.
Morand said he viewed the ban was all the more “scandalous” given that Switzerland actively encourages Arabs to “visit the country and to spend their money here.”
The minaret, which has been in place since Tuesday, has “generated a lot of interest,” he said, adding that he will wait and see before deciding if further action was needed to push his point.
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Daphne, the ban on minarets is hardly comparable to the muzzling of people, is it now? The Swiss decided this in a democratically held referendum, using democratic means to express themselves. They also seem to have taken in just less than a million refugees from the Balkans, fed and housed them, and made it possible for them to restart their lives. There is, as far as I can tell, no ban on mosques, just minarets, and a mosque does not need a minaret. the minaret is there for the muezzin to shout down his prayers to the faithful, something that they don’t do anymore. Indeed, in London, mosques don’t have minarets, and no one wails prayers out at 6am.
[Daphne – The ban on minarets IS muzzling people. You may have failed to follow the issue from the beginning, but the original desire was for a ban on mosques, which would have exposed any eventual Yes vote to challenge in the European Court of Human Rights (freedom of worship). The ban on minarets was a clever compromise, which had the added bonus of attracting the votes of those who see the matter as you do, and who voted against minarets so as not to have their skyline disturbed.]
But in my opinion, democracy should prevail over people taking obtuse stands such as this businessman. He will be ignored, because that’s what the Swiss do. They will consider him an oddity not because he built a minaret, but because he refuses to accept the results of a democratically held referendum.
[Daphne – The point here, Mario, is that where minority rights are concerned, the will of the majority should not be permitted to prevail upon the will of the minority. Imagine if there were to be a referendum on divorce, say, and all those who don’t want to get divorced rush out to vote against a divorce law. Yes, sometimes it is necessary to challenge situations like this. It is wrong to accept them.]
In fact, they will tell him that he is as free to leave as to live there with his minareted house. This has become ridiculous. The point is, that in a democracy, people get to choose what is best for their country. Anyone who does not agree, is free to stay…..or to leave.
[Daphne – Mario, you are reasoning like L Galea on timesofmalta.com: ‘if you don’t like it, leave.’]
I’m sorry, but I have the greatest respect for ALL religions. But this Islamic evangelisation of Europe has gone beyond the quiet. It’s become an all-out attempt at change, even to the extent of targeting secular Muslims in such a way that they become militant again. It’s happened to friends of mine, through their children of all things.
[Daphne – Mosques in Europe make Europe more interesting. I’m surprised you can’t see that. The most irritatingly tedious cultures – and the most fossilised ones – in Europe are those which cling to tradition and are not open to change. It’s one of the major problems with Italy, for example.]
Daphne, I wouldn’t be writing this if the ban was on mosques, not minarets. They voted to ban minarets, but anyone is free to build mosques. A ban on mosques would be as bad as a ban on any other form of worship, except the traditional one of the country. I can’t subscribe to that point of view. It is patently obvious, and that is what my many Swiss friends say, that the ban is on minarets. I didn’t agree with the election poster either, but we have to be realistic.
The corruption of Islam into the extreme religion it has become, and not what it really is, has made it synonymous with danger in many people’s minds. This is wrong, because Islam is not the Sharia we see, it is a gentler religion, but the lack of a central authority like Catholicism has made it open to many interpretations that humanity cannot accept. So change has to come from within Islam itself.
Of course minority rights are sacrosanct, and no one should trample them. As my Swiss friends, some of them committed Muslims, point out, there is no outcry in Switzerland by its own Muslim community, because most of them are afraid of being dragged out of their secular practice. They want to live exactly as the Swiss live, with a complete separation between church or religion and state.
And they told me that people who do not like the Swiss way of life, well, tend not to stay.
As regards the more interesting way the EU has become with mosques, well, I have no arguments with that. The tipping-point is when mosques become the norm because the EU becomes Muslim. Daphne, the Qur’an:8:39 says “So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).”
[Daphne – Oh for Christ’s sake, Mario. The European Union has cast-iron safeguards against the rise of anything that threatens democracy, including religion. That’s why it exists – remember? What are you afraid of – that we are all going to be forcibly converted by the sword? If people want to convert to Islam, let them convert. It’s their frigging business, not yours or mine. Speaking for myself, the rise of fundamentalist Catholicism is far more frightening, because people here do not perceive fundamentalist Catholics as The Other, and so they do not correctly see their behaviour for what it is: threatening to others. Look at Paul Vincenti and Gift of Life in our own community. Are they perceived as a threat? No, all the nice ladies throw bridge parties to raise money for them, failing to understand what they represent is no different to extreme Islam.]
Most secular Muslims, in Turkey for example, disregard this text. But secular Muslims are becoming fewer, thanks to Osama Bin Laden, and the madmen he has caused to spring up. Even in Britain, children of otherwise integrated Pakistanis have been electrified by these words. I have friends of mine who have had to send their children away to distant relatives in Pakistan because they were afraid they would be gathered up and charged with something in the UK, because they no longer had any influence over their children. The mullah at the mosque did.
Don’t get me wrong. I have the greatest respect for Muslims and Islam. The Koran is a very profound book. But don’t tell me not to be aware of extremists. I hate extremism, be it Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, or whatever.
In the olden days, we had the Inquisition, and if I were alive then, I would probably have been hanged, drawn, quartered and grilled by now.
Don’t compare me with LGalea, for God’s sake…… I can’t stand the man.
@ Daphne. I don’t think you should pooh-pooh Mario’s comments like you did above. Fundamentalist Catholics don’t go brainwashing teenagers into becoming suicide-bombers but fundamentalist, militant Moslems do. As fundamentalist as it gets (and as you well know, I’m an apostate and have no sympathy for it), the Catholic church isn’t a millionth as physically dangerous as Islam.
[Daphne – Criminals, people with a weak personality and nut-jobs are universal and not the monopoly of any particular country or religion. Islam recruits such people into religious extremism and the secular west recruits them into extreme crime. A suicide bomber who detonates himself on a bus and kills 20 people may make for a spectacular news story, but he causes a lot less damage, and fewer deaths, than somebody who makes a living by getting others hooked on heroin. The division is not between Christianity/Catholicism on the one hand and Islam on the other. The division is between the criminal and the law-abiding. The IRA blew up rather a lot of people as I recall and they were Catholics – in name, just as these suicide bombers are Muslims in name. I was talking about something other than crime and blowing people up: the denial of rights and the insistence on controlling how people live their lives. That is common to Catholicism and Islam. If fundamentalist Catholics like Paul Vincenti had their way, we would be living in the Catholic equivalent of a shariah state.]
Hehe. Good one.
The whole referendum was a bit of a joke. They are supposed to be a secular, democratic country and yet they take a public poll on whether to allow certain religions to express themselves.
Hi Daphne
I had promised a blogger to refrain from posting comments on censorship on your threads but since you have mentioned us specifically, I feel the need to come clean. Sorry Vanni.
It is true that we could have tried to perform STITCHING ban or not but the ban created a situation. People were either afraid of renting us premises or were doing so at extortionate prices. So what we did was rehearse in people’s homes and invite people we knew or people whose opinion we craved for to attend. We could not give actual performances as these would have been in breach of contract with the author, who was very understanding and also supported our cause by testifying in court for us.
We took it to court also because we are not only interested in performing the play, we want to do so as artists not as criminals. We want to perform at St James Cavalier. St James Cavalier want us to perform there. It is only the censor who has appointed herself artistic director of Maltese theatres that doesn’t want it so.
We challenged this decision also to try to rid the country of this ridiculous law. I’m not sure that the mere performance in the streets would have achieved this goal.
Please allow me again to thank those who have supported our goals, you especially, and reassure everyone that we will only stop fighting once STITCHING is performed.
Adrian is completely right.
Early on in January we had taken the decision that we would present Stitching as it deserved to be presented: in a theatre with a proper audience.
Presenting a piece of theatre is very different to publishing an article. It is (to a great extent) unimportant whether you get to read that article while waiting on the bus-stop, or while sitting in your armchair at home, or while sitting on the loo. Not so with the theatre, in which the performance setting is often as important as the play itself. Presenting it in random locations and impromptu settings simply for the sake of performing it would have essentially meant cheating the audience out of their right to see “the show”.
The opportunity to film the show and upload it onto YouTube was and remains available … but what sort of theatrical experience does that offer?
Adrian Buckle and Michael Zammit Maempel
If I have understood Daphne correctly, the whole idea of presenting the play would have been to challenge the ban. At this point, the play itself, and the audience’s enjoyment, becomes unimportant. The minaret constructed in defiance of the referendum result will never call Muslims to prayer but it serves a more symbolic – and useful – purpose.
Sorry but all this talk that presenting the play would have meant “cheating the audience” seems an alibi to me. Isn’t the audience already being cheated by the ban?
We’re no longer talking theatre here: we’re talking about upholding a principle.
[Daphne – Thanks, Antoine.]
Rubbish. Stitching needed to be staged, whether on a proper stage, on the street or in a field. The ‘Presenting … simply for the sake of performing’ line shows poor understanding of the historical moment that provided the opportunity for a significant attack on the bastions of censorship.
I am sure that a brave audience would have been understanding and would not have felt cheated if the actual artistic performance suffered due to the lack of proper setting. Furthermore I am sure that performing in the streets will open the way towards performing in the theatre.
As Daphne said the issue needs to be forced not tackled in court. In this day and age there is nothing rational, sensible or legal about censorship and it should not be treated as such.
I hope we don’t get minarets. They’re ever so slightly tacky… and bells are more fun.
Are you commenting in jest or just ignorant?
Let’s see whether the rich Arabs who flock to Switzerland for their summer break put their money where their mouth is, sort of.
The French Laicite’ law (1905) separating state and religion was a ‘suffered’ one. It was bravely debated with an impeding National Papal Interdiction. France was just emerging from the Prussian occupation and the despicable frame-up of Lieutenant Alfred Dreyfus had left the country painfully divided. Thanks to intellectuals like Emile Zola’ the case was re-opened and Dreyfus cleared with full honors.
I imagine most French were happy to have avoided the late controversy of the ‘crucifix issue’; their ‘fathers’ foresight was rewarded.
As I see it, the aim of the law was for the state to give space and protection to all religions, without giving precedence to any particular one.
[Daphne – No. The separation of church and state in France has no aim other than to separate church and state, so that the only enforceable power is secular. It was not to make all religions equal, except in that they were rendered equal in their ‘subservience’ to secular law.]
France has one of the largest Islamic populations in Europe and it’s this new emerging phenomenon that prompted a new debate, not ‘to remove the law’ but to enhance it, a debate which is being conducted with the utmost responsibility and seriousness, involving even Muslims.
Obviously the place of women in Islam features. Assia Djebar, a Muslim member of the Academie Francaise, summarized it thus: ‘If women are kept backwards it’s not due to Islam but the ‘natural reflexes of a people wanting to conserve its culture’. Assia Dejber, sharp, witty and strong character, is not the kind of woman to be fooled around with. I admire her ‘credo’ of faith: “I will give no one the right to decide for me, how I should live my faith.”
In a recent survey most Muslims said they find no problem sending their children to state schools. However, in the current climate of Islamophobia especially after 11th Sept 2001, it is natural that law abiding and honest Muslims are reacting, with intense preoccupation and worry about the backlash.
The success of amendments to the Laicite’ law will, I am sure, prove prophetic in the near future. A French Catholic priest answering my question as to how he felt about the Laicite’ simply answered: “No problem, we can stand on our two feet!”
Daphne. My Swiss daughter-in-law is a professor of religion in Switzerland–specializing in Muslim intergration. She teaches at the University of Lausanne, the University of Fribourg and from time to time at the Sorbonne in Paris. (She’s Catholic, kind of, BTW.) When I read your thread this morning, I called her and asked for her opinion. This is her reply (liberally translated from French by yours truly):
‘Dear Harry, the surprisingly clear vote in favour of banning minarets expresses unease with various causes. The implications will no doubt be controversial. One thing is for sure: Switzerland’s politicians have underestimated immaterial concerns.
More significant than the direct consequences of the vote are the indirect ones and the atmosphere it has caused in Switzerland is not a situation in which in which its image abroad is of no import. In some quarters, the ban on minarets may be registered with a shrug or even applauded. On the whole, however, Switzerland’s reputation as a nation of liberal freedom and diversity and the credibility of its human rights policies will suffer’.
I think her last sentence dovetails somewhat with your main point. Also, she was impressed and surprised that the Maltese were discussing the Swiss predicament.
Well, we weren’t far away from becoming Switzerland-in-the-Mediterranean.
How could one tolerate intolerance, which Islam preaches.
They should ban Islam now. Islam is not a religion but a political movement masquerading as a peaceful religion, it is no better than the Scientology.
“where minority rights are concerned, the will of the majority should not be permitted to prevail upon the will of the minority”
If I understand correctly you are saying that the majority cannot stop a minority from the right to their faith (the fundamental right). In this case one can easily say that the fundamental right was not being negated and that what was being negated if anything is the expressing of a faith through symbolic buildings (excuse my ignorance if the minaret has more than just a symbolic purpose). I think that the problem is always in the grey areas – where is the line we cannot trespass, when is too much too much.
For example, we could all agree that we should allow others to practise their faith but what if a particular sect starts disemboweling animals in the street and they feel they should do so as part of their faith. Will those living in that street remain so convinced. I think not. What happens if another sect feels that they need to run around naked because they feel at one with the earth or some similar rubbish. Are we willing to accept it? And where do we draw the line?
[Daphne – I’m astonished at just how much confusion there is in people’s minds about the distinction between secular law and religious rules. Secular law always prevails, unless it denies fundamental rights, in which case we have recourse to a higher authority in Strasbourg. Disembowelling animals, wherever it happens, in the street or in the privacy of your home, breaks the animal cruelty law. Disembowelling in the streets contravenes hygiene and littering regulations. Religion just does not come into it. You can test any argument by taking it to its logical extreme. If a religion depends on human sacrifice, should the law against murder make an exception for religious human sacrifice? Obviously not. The same applies to animal cruelty and littering public spaces.]
Let us say they are allowed to run around naked will you be happy to have them sit on the same seat you will be sitting on. would you be happy to know that person is now your child’s teacher? It is these scenarios which we need to think about before we say something should or shouldn’t be allowed.
[Daphne – You lead a sheltered life. Lots of people make a fetish of running around naked and have done so since the 19th century at least. Religion has nothing to do with it. They call themselves naturists and the rest of us call them nudists. They go on holiday to nudist camps, swim off nudist beaches and do everything naked, including socialising and shopping, within the restrictions of their own camps. Outside those camps, the decency laws apply – see my comment above.]
It is very easy to talk about things theoretically or in principle but as the saying goes the devil is in the detail. Back to the minarets, I think that those who follow the Muslim faith should be allowed to do so freely. The issue of the buildings should have been tackled differently and in a secular manner. I do not think that the authorities in Switzerland ask the general public what they think about other developments in a referendum – they just lay down the rules within a framework of planning and development. In this case they should have done the same.
Mr. Sciberras. Having lived in Switzerland for 10 years, I feel that you don’t understand what a referendum in Switzerland entails. A referendum result means that the ‘general public’ always ‘lays down the rules’ to the ‘authorities’. Not vice versa.
Stoned to death in the name of Islam…. Europe next:
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1235763/Pictured-Islamic-militants-stone-man-death-adultery-Somalia-villagers-forced-watch.html
[Daphne – People who fail to understand the distinction between religion and state always make reference to societies where religious law trumps secular law. Where secular law trumps religious law, these things can never happen. When was the last time somebody was stoned to death for adultery in Tunisia or Morocco, for example? Another point: this is the extremists’ interpretation of Islam, the sort of thing that would happen if Catholic extremists were allowed a free hand, as they were up to 200 years ago – though one would like to think that 300 years of post-Enlightenment development would have put the dampeners on that kind of ‘enthusiasm’. The combination of extreme ignorance and extreme religion is invariably a dangerous one, whatever the religion and society might be.]
Islam makes no distinction between religion and state. They are integral not separate.
[Daphne – No, Paul. All religions recognise only their own law. A Catholic who lives where abortion is legal cannot have an abortion and remain in favour with her church, arguing that the state allows it. Adultery is no longer illegal, but Catholicism deems it abominable – a mortal sin, ranked with murder. Catholics living in Malta can commit adultery not because Catholicism is more tolerant than Islam – it certainly is not – but because Malta is a democracy in which human rights are respected. Tunisia is secular, but the population is Muslim, for instance. In Malta, one of the last bastions of extreme Catholicism, we find ourselves with a situation in which the Catholic Church is trying to create a state within a state, retaining jurisdiction over marriages contracted in a Catholic Church but registered by the state and refusing to hand over paedophile priests to the police, insisting that the matter will be handled ‘internally’.]
In Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt etc, there are ruthless dictators who would not tolerate extremism, that is why we don’t witness stoning to death in these northern African countries.
[Daphne – Precisely: they have a political system which guards against religious extremism. So do we. They are at the extreme ends of political philosophy – democracy and dictatorship – but they achieve the same purpose of keeping religious zealots at bay.]
There are many Muslims in Europe, including the imam in Malta who would love to see the introduction of Sharia law worldwide. It has already been introduced in parts of Nigeria.
[Daphne – How would sharia law be introduced in Malta, pray?]
Christianity is dead, but not yet buried in Europe, so you cannot compare Christianity with Islam.
The church in Malta is still digging its own grave. Islam is flourishing not fading away like Christianity. Who goes to church in Europe? Have you been to a church on Sunday? What is the average age group of church goers? In the 1970s churches used to be full of young people but nowadays you see mainly middle aged and elderly people.
Given the chance, Egyptians, who are very religious, would elect the Muslim brotherhood, who would probably introduce sharia law.
I swore I wouldn’t touch this one with a bargepole, but here we go:
Q: When was the last time somebody was stoned to death for adultery in Tunisia or Morocco, for example?
A: Ghofrane Haddaoui, Tunisian, 23 years old, stoned to death in none other than Marseille, on the 17th October 2004.
[Daphne – A fatuous comparison. You fail to make the distinction between state-sponsored stoning and illegal stoning, i.e. murder. France does not permit stoning for adultery. There is nothing the state can do to prevent murder unless it is by putting deterrents in place. All the state can do is act to prosecute once the crime is committed. How many women have been killed by their lovers/husbands in Malta, in defiance of the law?]
Islam obviously is not just about minarets. If we take the argument “to its logical extreme”, polygamy is not an extremist interpretation of Islam. And yet it is against secular law in all European countries. Shall we recognise such a marriage? France, for one, does not.
[Daphne – Obviously not, because the law is there for all. If bigamy is against the law, then it is against the law for everyone, regardless of religion.]
Killing a sheep in the street is illegal because of hgyiene laws. But killing a sheep in your own home is illegal too. So there’s your answer. It’s not just a question of allowing everyone to practise their religion as long as it respects human rights. Even in secular states, the law tends to be constructed around Christian practices, quite simply because laws developed over time, and are not made in a vacuum.
Please don’t mention Paul Vincenti’s posse. I hate them as much as you do.
Ah ok then. I didn’t know you were referring to state-sponsored stoning etc etc. In that case, you’d be hard-pressed to find any examples, except for, say, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, and the Gulf States. But your reasoning is as fatuous as my example.
“Even in secular states, the law tends to be constructed around Christian practices”
Like what? You have to differ between practices commonly found amongst Christians and actual Christian practices.
–How many women have been killed by their lovers/husbands in Malta, in defiance of the law?–
That’s what I was thinking recently regarding those honor killings we have to deal with in Germany amongst mostly Turkish families: domestic dramas (sp?) have a similar dynamic and go across all cultures and religions but they are called family tragedies or crimes of passion here.
Like monogamy, Pat. Hell, even the whole legal framework of not killing or maiming or hurting anyone is a Christian construct.
[Daphne – Ho hum. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ predates Christianity by…..how many thousands of years, exactly? Those 10 commandments which underpin Judaism, Christianity and – you’ve got it – Islam have little or nothing to do with religion as such. They were devised to ensure that small social groups could pull together cohesively and survive in even the most adverse conditions. Why do you think it’s ‘thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife’ rather than ‘thou shalt not covet thy nieghbour’s spouse’, even though it has since been taken as a general veto on adultery? It’s because one man eying up another man’s wife would result in some serious trouble, possibly involving clubs and daggers and trouble for the village, but a woman eying up another woman’s husband would result in perhaps a few smashed clay pots and some hair-pulling. And because Moses knew that his squalling, maiming, fornicating, killing, false-god worshipping tribe would never take him seriously enough, he told them that he had received his orders from the highest authority of all. And the rest is not so much history as three major world religions.]
And then you have practices from other cultures which create huge problems in a “secular” country (such as women patients refusing to be visited by a male doctor, or Sikh soldiers refusing to cut their hair and beards and the army having to design a special helmet for them, or women taking passport photos wearing a burqa.) None of which bears any relation to human rights, and so you cannot make them illegal.
Daphne is fond of saying that some of us “fail to make the distinction”. You fail to make the distinction between the Christian religion and Christian culture. You’re called Pat, and you consider the weekend to be Saturday and Sunday. Like or or not, you live in a Christian cultural framework. Which some people find galling, but there you are.
This minaret business isn’t the result of a fear of the Muslim faith, or of private Islamic rituals, but of fear of the establishment of a parallel cultural sphere. Now you may scoff at this, because as we all know, no one has come up with the optimum, ideal way of having different cultures living side by side in a continent filled to the brim with Christian symbology. But the problem exists, and it would be extremely disingenuous to deny it.
Bah, I give up. This is all Paul Vincenti’s fault. Him and that bunch of fundamentalist Christian cretins.
Is this in the same spirit?
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=98774
[Daphne – Isn’t this the same man I wrote about recently?]
That’s him. You gotta admire his spirit though . . . Or not!? . . . And his understanding of the concept of human rights and freedom of expression.
Still, I believe he’s got it in for you.