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On December 01 2009 06:31 Boonbag wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2009 06:29 BlackJack wrote: So it seems like in Europe there is no difference made between islam and radical islam? Here in U.S. people only go after radical islam which is a very small minority of total muslims Fascists in Europe try to make the population believe charia will be voted by the deputees 2 years from now in every country !
And puppy-eyed left-wing socialist liberals in Europe try to make the population think that everything is just fine and everyone get's along.
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On December 01 2009 06:43 Boonbag wrote: That's true, yet, I assure you that the wife beating rate is still very high in non muslim homes in europe, if not higher.
I know, and I hate that too. Patriarchy comes in different forms but it's the same underlying beliefs regardless of religion or different societies: men are superior to women.
Oh and it's quite unlikely that it's higher in non-muslim homes.
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On December 01 2009 06:43 Boonbag wrote: That's true, yet, I assure you that the wife beating rate is still very high in non muslim homes in europe, if not higher. Show me ANYTHING that supports this claim, anything.
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Canada has laws against hate-speech. I don't know that this is so different.
I don't know that much about the religion, but those quotes from the Koran were as scary as any KKK grand dragon ranting about non-whites. Any religion that makes an assertion about non-believers should be banned by any sane secular country.
That said minarets are just a form of architecture. I don't think they symbolise anything violent do they?
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On December 01 2009 04:56 iG.ClouD wrote: I can't believe there's not a single muslim who is reading this and is not giving his opinion.
Are you sure? I bet I found few of them.
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On December 01 2009 01:40 Liquid`Drone wrote: Agreed with blackjack
This law is the greatest so-far example of the tyranny of the majority, where people due to fear of something they do not understand give up one of the most obvious rights western society has (freedom of expression more so than religion) in a fight against a religion supposedly because this religion oppresses freedom of expression.
It's hilariously hypocritical, but devastatingly sad.
This! Finally someone said it
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
- apparently the Swiz don't have too many problems currently if they have the time to debate and vote about this stuff...
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Well, I am very sorry about the outcome. But we Swiss are also just human, we have seen that before in Hitler and World War 2 and in recent times from Bush/Blair in the Iraq War how politicians can manipulate people's fear for personal/party gains. And that's what happened in Switzerland. But the jury is still out whether the initiative violated european convention about human rights in the first place, so nothings decided yet.
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im sorry. but what is a minaret?
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On December 01 2009 06:29 BlackJack wrote: So it seems like in Europe there is no difference made between islam and radical islam? Here in U.S. people only go after radical islam which is a very small minority of total muslims
Apparently not and what makes this even more sad is that Switzerland has one of the most moderate muslim communities in Europe. We've never had any of the problems some other European countries have faced with their muslim immigrants.
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I read it as "bans many rets."
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On December 01 2009 08:11 DreaM)XeRO wrote: im sorry. but what is a minaret?
As far as the ban is limited to miniarets, the law seems fairly innocuous. However, passing such a law at the federal level, and inscribing such an amendment into the federal constitution seems an overreaction unworthy of a free and autonomous people. The consecration of miniarets affects local townscapes and communities, why is the matter federal?
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On December 01 2009 09:11 MoltkeWarding wrote:As far as the ban is limited to miniarets, the law seems fairly innocuous. However, passing such a law at the federal level, and inscribing such an amendment into the federal constitution seems an overreaction unworthy of a free and autonomous people. The consecration of miniarets affects local townscapes and communities, why is the matter federal?
Because minarets 'symbolize the claim to power over a region'.
Yeah...
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I absolutely agree with the right of freedom of religion.
However, I also agree with the Swiss voters' decision. I would also back such a vote in Germany, too (If it was up to me mosques of a certain size would be banned, too...) It's not that I disapprove of Islam as a religion (of course radical Islam is bad), It's also not me having something against foreigners (I am also a foreigner in the country I live in currently and I have friends who come from islamic countries).
The problem with minaretes (and actually mosques in European countries like Switzerland and Germany) is that they have a totally devastating effect on society. e.g. In Germany, there are many Turkish immigrants, who have been here for decades and still cannot speak German at all! Even worse, there are many children and grandchildren of such immigrants that also cannot speak German at all. This is caused by the fact that these immigrants only dwell in closed communities and are absolutely not interested in interacting with non-immigrants. And now guess where where these communities meet... These people spend a lot of time in the mosques since there are many activities they can do there, but there they never speak German and since they spend their whole time there, they basically have no incentive to learn German. So basically these people totally fail to integrate themselves into the German society since they seclude themselves. Of course, this results in many problems: - People that cannot speak German have nonexistant chances of employment - Children from such closed communities fail miserably in school (due to the language barrier) and have no future perspective - Often enough the lack of communication and understanding, which inevitably evolves from there seclusion leads to hate on both sides...
By the way, it's not like the German government is not trying to help immigrants integrate into the local society. There are free language courses. There are even integration schools (dunno what these are exactly, but it's a fact that they are around). But unfortunately many immigrants (especially turkish) prefer to stay in their closed communities...
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And you honestly think you're going to get them out of their closed communities by shutting down their mosques?
Come on...
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On December 01 2009 07:02 Chef wrote: Canada has laws against hate-speech. I don't know that this is so different.
I don't know that much about the religion, but those quotes from the Koran were as scary as any KKK grand dragon ranting about non-whites. Any religion that makes an assertion about non-believers should be banned by any sane secular country.
That said minarets are just a form of architecture. I don't think they symbolise anything violent do they?
It all depends. Islam is actually a rather peaceful/kind religion that doesn't necessarily bring any hate with it. However, like with any other things (not just religion, science and anything you can debate on included), extremists make it so it can appear or be dangerous. The problem here is how people view Muslims. If you think that most of them are of the 'press button - receive virgins' or 'infidels must die' mentality, then most likely you will percieve minarets as their symbol and congregation points and view them as dangerous.
Switzerland is hard to grasp by anyone not living there though, as it is in fact a police state. Law is abided everywhere and punishment can be harsh. My parents have friends living there and when they came to visit them they were quite surprised. Flushing the toilet too late at night? No can do as you disturb the neighbours. Throw a dead bird into a trash can? You can see some jailtime or at best a hefty fee for that. Etcetera, etcetera. People are reporting each other even for minor transgressions.
Combine this two together, and you get a nation that seems to feel unsafe so it needs all this harsh laws and a symbol of a religion which in this day and age is most commonly viewed as terrorists personal favorite and conclusion is easy to come by.
Disclaimer: I do know quite a bit about Islam but do not take my word on Switzerland too seriously, I can just say what I heard from my relatives/friends and what little I learned myself about it. If I am wrong, please someone correct me on this one.
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On December 01 2009 09:41 ggrrg wrote: snip This is an interesting claim. Do you have any statistics to support your assertion? In the US, this problem is practically non-existent - pretty much all second-generation immigrants speak fluent English and have no problems integrating into society.
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On December 01 2009 09:50 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2009 07:02 Chef wrote: Canada has laws against hate-speech. I don't know that this is so different.
I don't know that much about the religion, but those quotes from the Koran were as scary as any KKK grand dragon ranting about non-whites. Any religion that makes an assertion about non-believers should be banned by any sane secular country.
That said minarets are just a form of architecture. I don't think they symbolise anything violent do they? It all depends. Islam is actually a rather peaceful/kind religion that doesn't necessarily bring any hate with it. However, like with any other things (not just religion, science and anything you can debate on included), extremists make it so it can appear or be dangerous. The problem here is how people view Muslims. If you think that most of them are of the 'press button - receive virgins' or 'infidels must die' mentality, then most likely you will percieve minarets as their symbol and congregation points and view them as dangerous. Switzerland is hard to grasp by anyone not living there though, as it is in fact a police state. Law is abided everywhere and punishment can be harsh. My parents have friends living there and when they came to visit them they were quite surprised. Flushing the toilet too late at night? No can do as you disturb the neighbours. Throw a dead bird into a trash can? You can see some jailtime or at best a hefty fee for that. Etcetera, etcetera. People are reporting each other even for minor transgressions. Combine this two together, and you get a nation that seems to feel unsafe so it needs all this harsh laws and a symbol of a religion which in this day and age is most commonly viewed as terrorists personal favorite and conclusion is easy to come by. Disclaimer: I do know quite a bit about Islam but do not take my word on Switzerland too seriously, I can just say what I heard from my relatives/friends and what little I learned myself about it. If I am wrong, please someone correct me on this one.
Yeah you're pretty wrong about Switzerland. 
You're right that we're probably stricter with minor transgressions than most other countries (we don't really have any big problems, so people tend to be more petty about unimportant stuff), but your examples are definitely very exaggerated (lol how do you live somewhere where you're not allowed to flush the toilet at night?).
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On December 01 2009 09:56 Underwhelmed wrote:This is an interesting claim. Do you have any statistics to support your assertion? In the US, this problem is practically non-existent - pretty much all second-generation immigrants speak fluent English and have no problems integrating into society.
Clearly the German people are not ostracizing these immigrants enough for them to submit! Every new generation of immigrants in the US is met with enough hostility to force them to conform. Germans are just too nice about it!
Really though, I'm going to do my part as a "puppy-eyed left-wing socialist liberal" and say I agree with this banning on an architectural basis. If the Swiss want to preserve their culture in the form of architecture, I can't really find fault in it. Actually, I even agree with the principle even though I'm very much against nationalism as a whole. There are many cities of the world which would not be as beautiful if they were a mix of many different styles. I like the fact that a small town in Spain looks nothing like it's equivalent in Japan.
Of course, I'm sure a large part of this was motivated by other means. That's unfortunate in some cases, and even though I disagree with any possible need for religion, I realize the best way to combat it is most certainly not forcefully.
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On December 01 2009 09:56 Underwhelmed wrote:This is an interesting claim. Do you have any statistics to support your assertion? In the US, this problem is practically non-existent - pretty much all second-generation immigrants speak fluent English and have no problems integrating into society.
Except the fact that I personally met enough third generation people with turkish origins, who had bad language probems, I can give you some further information: unfortunately all information I found is in German but with it should be understandable with google translator:
Most imporant source first: This is from the site of the German government:
Immigration in Germany - There is a short part about 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants, which says that they are still poorly integrated and lack basic language abilieties...
Here the excerpt in German and the google translation:
In der jüngsten Zeit müssen wir aber feststellen, dass gerade bei der zweiten und dritten Generation deutliche Integrationsdefizite bestehen. Zu nennen sind in erster Linie die mangelnde Beherrschung der deutschen Sprache, Schwächen in Bildung und Ausbildung, eine höhere Arbeitslosigkeit und die fehlende Akzeptanz von Grundregeln unseres Zusammenlebens bis hin zur Verletzung von Gesetzen, nicht zuletzt von Frauenrechten.
translated:
In recent times we have to find that right at the second and third generation of significant integration deficits exist. These include primarily the lack of knowledge of the German language, weaknesses in education and training, higher unemployment and the lack of acceptance of basic rules of our social life to the violation of laws, not least from women's rights.
Other sources:
Integration Problems - One third of turkish immigrants do not have ANY educational degree
Second Generation Problems
Hauptschule - This is the worst form of education you can get in Germany. 50% of the pupils there are from immigrant families in which the parents cannot speak German
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