Il significato del  referendum va molto al di la del puro fatto in questione e ed ha scatenato  discussioni in tutta Europa e nel mondo islamico: presentiamo un articolo favorevole del "Giornale" e, per il punto di vista islamico, un articolo di al Jazeera, il più importante canale di informazione arabo

Ma la religione non c’entra, i minareti sono simboli politici

da ll Giornale, 4 dicembre 2009

Per parlare della decisione svizzera di bandire i minareti, innanzitutto avvertirò che nei miei anni come corrispondente da Gerusalemme ogni notte, alle 4, ben prima del gallo, dalla valle sotto casa mia ho dovuto subire il canto del muezzin da una vicina moschea, e non lontano da lui, l’eco di molte altre voci simili. Mai, tuttavia, ho pensato che quel muezzin dovesse star zitto. Nel suo villaggio non canta per farsi sentire anche da me, ma per chiamare i suoi alla preghiera. Questa è libertà religiosa, e Gerusalemme la dà a tutti.
Pensare che laggiù cercasse di affermare un messaggio politico oltre che religioso significherebbe andare oltre ciò che è legittimo per una persona democratica, liberale, rispettosa della cultura, della religione altrui. Di fatto l’islamofobia, salvo per alcuni casi patologici, è un’invenzione dell’Onu quando nel 2004 il segretario Kofi Annan la definì ufficialmente causa della frustrazione di molti musulmani, senza dedicare una parola alla jihad che allora impazzava e ad altri immensi problemi. Infatti nella sua maggioranza l’Islam ufficiale, nei suoi luoghi d’origine e all’estero, non ha accettato la dichiarazione universale dei diritti umani, contrapponendovisi con altre come la Dichiarazione del Cairo che afferma «ognuno ha diritto a sostenere ciò che è giusto, e a mettere in guardia contro ciò che è sbagliato e malvagio in conformità con la Sharia islamica».
Al fondo della problematica che ha condotto gli svizzeri a rispondere di no a nuovi minareti non c’è una scarso rispetto della libertà religiosa. Non c’è nemmeno la perdita di identità che ora ci fa correre, sbagliando, a chiedere di mettere una croce sulla bandiera. Non c’entra nulla. C’è una quantità di semplici ragioni di diffidenza che impediscono di desiderare l’allargamento dell’Islam. Né si deve immaginare che la scelta inviti i musulmani all’estremismo: ben altre ragioni guidano lo jihadismo, che è nutrito solo da sé stesso, dalla decisione indefettibile di convertire il mondo. Gli svizzeri vedono la TV e si preoccupano: la sharia porta alla pena di morte, all’impiccagione di omosessuali, alla lapidazione. In generale, nei paesi islamici, vige la dittatura, i dissidenti soffrono, muoiono. I cristiani sono perseguitati, gli ebrei poi non se ne parla nemmeno.
I gruppi e i Paesi che più forte gridano la loro fede sono anche i più evidenti, e certo sia l’Iran di Ahmadinejad che gli Hezbollah o Hamas o Al Qaida rappresentano modelli negativi, terroristi. Certo, non tutto l’Islam è così. Ma parliamone, esaminando i problemi senza censure con accuse di islamofobia; abbiamo un problema, che lo si risolva guardando negli occhi l’immigrazione islamica, o alla prima occasione la preoccupazione si trasformerà in rifiuto. E non vale a calmare la pubblica opinione l’idea che comunque il vero Islam è altrove rispetto alla jihad: sono pochi e minoritari gli episodi in cui una voce islamica valorosa si levi per garantirci il rispetto della democrazia, della sessualità altrui, dei convertiti, dei dissidenti. La negazione politically correct, quella sì che lascia fiorire la jihad: in Svizzera dopo l’arresto di otto persone sospettate di aver collaborato in alcuni attentati suicidi in Arabia Saudita la reazione del capo di un gruppo musulmano locale, fu che «il problema non è l’aumento dell’integralismo islamico ma l’intensificarsi dell’islamofobia». Anche negli Usa si è ripetuto lo stesso per l’episodio di Fort Hood.

In fear of 'Eurabia'?

 By Mark LeVine

Al Jazeera

The images were clearly intended to get out the vote, and judging by the 57 per cent "yes" vote to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland on Sunday, they worked all too well.

They included the depiction of minarets piercing through the Swiss flag; minarets on top of the flag, with a menacing, niqab-wearing Muslim woman in the foreground.

One could be forgiven for imagining that the Muslims were at the gates of Vienna, or even Lucerne, threatening to overrun Christian Europe. And of course, for the proponents of the ban, that is precisely the situation Europe faces today.

For centuries, the peoples of Europe have defined their continental identity against the threat of Islam. So much so that it is hard to imagine a European identity that does not have Islam as its foil.
There are, of course, good historical reasons for this.
From the eighth century Europe was in fact surrounded by Muslims to the East and South, who ruled much of the Eastern continent for the next millennium.
Of course, except in the wildest dreams of jihadists, Europe will not be taken down by Muslim swords today. But for right-wing fear mongers, the contemporary Muslim threat is just as nefarious, only the weapon is different.

The ultimate 'other'
That Muslim woman in the now infamous poster is not just the ultimate 'other' - totally impenetrable to the Western gaze in a social space where topless women are de rigeur on billboards, magazines, TV commercials and the beach - but, the niqab or burka-wearing Muslim woman is believed to stand for all Muslim women, who, it is assumed, possess little or no control over their own bodies.

And because of this, she is as dangerous as the H1N1 virus currently scaring people across the continent. Underneath her niqab lies a human bomb - not a suicide vest, but a baby; lots of babies, if you believe the hype.

All these Muslims babies threaten to transform the fundamental identity of Europe as a "Western," "modern," "secular-yet-Christian" space - the very antithesis of what most Europeans imagine Muslims to be.

In some sense, of course, the return of a robust Muslim presence in Europe would be a return to history, to a time when a good share of Europe was Muslim. But that is a history few Europeans hearken to. In fact, Europe's first post-Cold War conflict, in the Balkans, was driven in good measure by just this fear.

Beneath the fear, however, lies that undeniable reality that the combination in Europe of very low indigenous (meaning white and Christian) birth rates and increasing immigration of Muslims with higher birth rates means that the percentage of Muslims will continue to grow.

They will not, however, become a majority in Europe under any conceivable scenario in the coming decades.

In fact, the actual demographic trends show a decline in birth rates by Muslim women as they become settled into Europe, which corresponds to the declining birth rates across the Muslim world (many of whose governments have initiated aggressive family planning programmes).

Indeed, as Muslim women live in Europe, learn the languages, get educated and join the workforce, they become more "European" - or more accurately, like women globally, who, if they have the resources and freedom to control their reproduction, choose to have smaller families.

Of course, if they are marginalised and, along with their male counterparts, not given sufficient chance to become a functioning part of their new societies, this process will happen more slowly, if at all, creating a self-fulfilling cycle of recrimination and disintegration.

From Europe to 'Eurabia'?

Either way, it is clear that Europe is going to become more Muslim in the coming decades. The question is whether in the process it will become more Islamic - that is, publicly religious and impacted by Muslim religious symbols and practices - and which version of Islam will define the emerging European Islam.

Will it be a "Euro-Islam" that respects core liberal values of tolerance, openness and respect for the rule of law, or a "Ghetto Islam" that produces subcultures that are largely isolated and hostile to the European self-image (one which, it must be remembered, largely excludes Muslims in the first place)?
 
The fear mongers behind the rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe argue that the continent is on the way to becoming "Eurabia" - that is, taken over by a Muslim tide and losing its core Europeanness in the process.

It is hard to know how many Europeans buy into this argument. But, while it is rarely a good idea to generalise, the majority would likely prefer Muslims to assimilate into their host societies, to shed the outward appearances of difference, and not integrate - a process that inevitably changes the host culture as well, as it takes on elements of the newer arrival and, inevitably, loses some of its traditions in the process.

Picture-postcard Europe

It is not surprising that in Switzerland the focus would be on minarets.
More than most countries, Switzerland defines itself by its visual aesthetic. It is the picture postcard of Europe, with nothing out of place, the quintessential European destination.
Never mind that Swiss Muslims are among the least conservative in Europe and that the call to prayer is already banned in Switzerland; the presence of more minarets would call out to the Swiss, saying: "We are here and we're not going anywhere. And we're not just going to assimilate to your culture. We intend to keep core parts of ours as well."
Thus the referendum slogans calling for a halt to the "Islamisation of Switzerland". The minaret, as a highly visible sign of Islam's presence, becomes a "spearhead" of that Islamisation, "the symbol of political-societal power claim of Islam" as the website of the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the party behind the vote, describes it.
Never mind that most of the claims by the minaret ban's backers about Islam and the demographic threat are inaccurate. Islam, in their view, cannot exist without asserting unique claims to social and ultimately political power, which is why it is an existential threat by its very presence.

Muslims cannot just be; they have to convert others, and the voice of the muezzin "proclaiming down from the minaret" is the most powerful manifestation of this. Or so the backers of the minaret ban imagine.
Even Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Switzerland's justice minister, admitted that the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies," as if one cannot be Islamic without being fundamentalist.
This is the underlying problem in the debate over minarets, hijabs, or yet more troubling, attempts by European Muslims to establish separate courts and laws aligned with their interpretation of sharia to cover personal status issues.

At best, it says Muslims are willing to integrate, not assimilate into European society.