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The Minaret DebatesProfessor Jocelyne Cesari
Government E-1182November 8, 2010
Swiss Minaret Ban
TIMELINE:• 2005: A Turkish mosque in northern Switzerland asked for a
permit to build a 6-meter minaret.
• 2006-2008: Swiss People’s Party and Federal Democratic Union attempt to launch initiatives banning the minaret.
• November 29th, 2009: referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques was backed by a solid majority.
• Switzerland became the first country in Europe to vote to curb the religious practices of Muslims.
Swiss Minaret Ban
KEY PLAYERS:Egerkinger Committee• Made of the Swiss People’s Party
(SVP) and the Federal Democratic Union
Recep Tayyip Erdogan (PM of Turkey)• Speech in 1997 was misquoted by SVP
and FDU equating minarets to guns, which helped fuel the propaganda
Ulrich Schluer• Member of SVP, helped launch
initiative against minarets
Ergodan
Schluer
Islam and the Narrative in Europe• Islam in Europe versus Islam of Europe
Mahomet the Prophet or
Fanaticism by Voltaire
Battle of Lepanto, 1571
The Women of Algiers, 1834 by Eugène Delacroix
Religion in Public Space
• Decline of Religion in the Western public space• With modernity, change in religious
consciousness• Democracy: self-governing, free, equal citizens
which make choices based on rationality, not religious convictions
• Religion sometimes enters the sphere of public debate
Islam in Public Space
• Minarets reveal the Muslim actor in public space
• Islam: a political and cultural resource for singularization of immigrants
• In Swiss society, minarets symbolize the difficulty of recognizing newly-settled Muslims
• Movement of Islam to the West confronts Muslims with questions about visibility an invisibility (aesthetic, architectural, economic, religious, spatial etc.)
Minaret in Zurich, Switzerland