Swiss people ban building of new minarets

[hotatlboi]

That's really scary.

So what. Most Christians in the US reject evolution. That makes them ignorant, but that doesn't mean we should take away their freedom to conduct their religion however they see fit as long as they are not harming others.

 

[archive]

There are two problems with these minarets.:

1). Unlike church towers, they don't fit in the established landscape, because there weren't any before.
(This is really a big deal in Europe, because many cities and landscapes are protected historical sites).

2). The minarets on mosques like these, look nothing like the ancient minarets in (say) Turkey. Instead of being made out of costly natural stone, they're just made out of concrete with white paint. In ten years time these mosques will look like old gas-stations in third world countries.

This is not America where a religious building can just be a badly constructed cowshed with a crucifix attached. They actually have architectural standards in Switserland for this sort of thing.

while all this is probably true....i dont live in europe....its almost 2010....and minarets have been there before now....its taken the swiss this long to ban them?....your argument (while substantiated) doesnt support that....

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

while all this is probably true....i dont live in europe....its almost 2010....and minarets have been there before now....its taken the swiss this long to ban them?....your argument (while substantiated) doesnt support that....

Remember that in Europe "old" can easily mean "500 years or more"...

 

[archive]

Remember that in Europe "old" can easily mean "500 years or more"...

i know...but that still doesnt answer why now

all im saying if this ban was passed ten years ago...it wouldnt even be a story....

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

i know...but that still doesnt answer why now

all im saying if this ban was passed ten years ago...it wouldnt even be a story....

It would, because it's going to be an amendment to the Swiss constitution.

 

[archive]

It would, because it's going to be an amendment to the Swiss constitution.

you keep repeating the story back to me...we both know how to read...but yet you still have not supplied an answer the the question of why now...but imho from my stance....i dont think we will ever know why...there will only be conjecture

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

The minarets are our bayonets.
The domes are our helmets.
The mosques are our barracks.
The faithful are our soldiers.

..................................................

 

[SoulSearcher]

There are two problems with these minarets.:

1). Unlike church towers, they don't fit in the established landscape, because there weren't any before.
(This is really a big deal in Europe, because many cities and landscapes are protected historical sites).

2). The minarets on mosques like these, look nothing like the ancient minarets in (say) Turkey. Instead of being made out of costly natural stone, they're just made out of concrete with white paint. In ten years time these mosques will look like old gas-stations in third world countries.

This is not America where a religious building can just be a badly constructed cowshed with a crucifix attached. They actually have architectural standards in Switserland for this sort of thing.

The vote on the ban has nothing to do with the aforementioned, just like the vote to block gay marriage had nothing to do with family values. A lot of people already have an obsessive hatred for Islam and Muslims, and it manifests itself in these ways. And judging from some of your other posts....

 

[alfaPA]

There are two problems with these minarets.:

1). Unlike church towers, they don't fit in the established landscape, because there weren't any before.
(This is really a big deal in Europe, because many cities and landscapes are protected historical sites).

2). The minarets on mosques like these, look nothing like the ancient minarets in (say) Turkey. Instead of being made out of costly natural stone, they're just made out of concrete with white paint. In ten years time these mosques will look like old gas-stations in third world countries.

This is not America where a religious building can just be a badly constructed cowshed with a crucifix attached. They actually have architectural standards in Switserland for this sort of thing.

As I said, your minaret example was an eyesore [strike]and should have been blown up purely on aesthetic grounds[/strike].......it really does look like a missile, doesn't it? But I'm certainly a proponent of protecting the integrity of historic sites and implementing architectural standards for historic and even most non-historic sites. Yes, those standards might keep a perfectly wonderfully designed contemporary building from being built in a protected historical area and that could be an unfortunate compromise.

I couldn't resist:

1). Unlike [strike]church towers[/strike] traditional marriages, [strike]they[/strike] gay marriages don't fit in the established [strike]landscape[/strike] society, because there weren't any before.

BTW they do in fact have protections and aesthetic standards, even in the vulgar USA.

 

[bankside]

You can't build whatever you like in most of Western Europe, there are very strict building aesthetics regulations. Why should mosques be exempt from those?

Two points:
1.Google "modern swiss architecture" and have a look at a culture willing to innovate. Æsthetics can change in Switzerland.

2.If this amendment banned the imposition of church spires as well, then it would pass the discrimination test in that it would be equally discriminatory.

But if a minaret is a symbol of impending overlordship of the muslim faith then a church spire is certainly the equivalent symbol of perverse "political christianity." Indeed Europeans have had to work very hard at great sacrifice to restrain christian power mongers from meddling in politics throughout several centuries. If anything, the church spire is a proven, documented symbol of past oppression, while the minaret in Europe is more of a speculative symbol of repression.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Two points:
1.Google "modern swiss architecture" and have a look at a culture willing to innovate. Æsthetics can change in Switzerland.

Both traditional and modernist architecture are based on seperate sets of concepts.

Mosques often derive the shape of their architecture from ratio based on a simple square grid, and have a floorplan and functions that are mostly derived from tradition. (geometric and symmetrical).

Blue Mosque: floorplan based on two squares; the size of the courtyard
equals the size of the mosque itself.

'Modern' buildings derive the shape of their architecture from the (simplified) shapes and sizes of the human body and the overal shape is defined by the function of the building. (hence geometric floorplans are very rare in true modernist architecture).

Notre Dame du Haut: shape of the spaces defined by their function rather than by a variation to a predetermined floorplan.

Now take a look at this...

Can you see the 'subtle' difference in architectural quality between this Swiss-Turkish mosque and the Blue Mosque in the first picture?

Mosques of this kind are almost always beneath the quality of their architectural surroundings. (rather than built to far higher standards as is the case with the Blue Mosque and Notre Dame du Haut).

 

[bankside]

So you are advocating that the Swiss repeal their law and instead enforce minimum architectural standards for all new mosques? Postmodern minarets would be okay by you?

 

[SoulSearcher]

So you are advocating that the Swiss repeal their law and instead enforce minimum architectural standards for all new mosques? Postmodern minarets would be okay by you?

It is irrelevant what is ok with people who simply hate Muslims. I encourage anyone interested in Switzerland and this voting initiative to research the history and working of this party. Unless Muslims in Switzerland are taking over and putting native Swiss on reservations as some "civilised" people did not too long ago, then this whole mess is based on bigotry and fear, nothing else. A majority should not decide if minorities should have rights and liberties. If it is a building codes and zoning issue, Switzerland has proper institutions to monitor and enforce those laws, it wouldn't have been put to vote to a population heavily leaning towards neo-Nazi ideologies.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

So you are advocating that the Swiss repeal their law and instead enforce minimum architectural standards for all new mosques? Postmodern minarets would be okay by you?

I'm not. I just wanted to point out that most existing mosques in Western Europe have no value architecturally.

I dislike the Postmodern fashion (which I think has been over since the early nineties) because it was mainly about architectural jokes rather than architectural quality.

I think the main idea was to prove that a building can be designed in such a way that the appeal of the building isn't "Form Follows Function", but rather the opposite.

Hence the minaret would be on top of the bowling alley, but never the mosque.

 

[bankside]

Okay well I'm sure Frank Gehry would design one of his famous "blobitecture" buildings for use as a mosque if you would prefer to see something post-postmodern. But that is not especially what I want to debate with you. I would probably agree with you about architectural standards.

What I don't understand is why you repeatedly single out Islam, irrespective of architecture. You seem to fail to appreciate the danger posed by Crazy Pope Ratzinger to the progress made by the enlightenment. He is in a stronger position to do mischief to the civilisation carefully and painfully built by Europe, consolidated after the war, than any crazy imam. Europe is reacting to its encouter with Islam by running to the comfort of its failed and superstitious past, which should be dead and buried in one of those inoffensive church yards.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

What I don't understand is why you repeatedly single out Islam, irrespective of architecture. You seem to fail to appreciate the danger posed by Crazy Pope Ratzinger to the progress made by the enlightenment.

Catholicism is losing ground in Europe.
Joseph Ratzinger does not pose a serious threat to LGBTs in most European countries. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about radical Islam.

Islam wants to conquer Europe and Europe's mendacious leaders seem to think nothing of handing over other people's liberties to them, just because it suits them better.

 

[SoulSearcher]

Catholicism is losing ground in Europe.
Joseph Ratzinger does not pose a serious threat to LGBTs in most European countries. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about radical Islam.

Islam wants to conquer Europe and Europe's mendacious leaders seem to think nothing of handing over other people's liberties to them, just because it suits them better.

And where do you get this about "Islam", who speaks for Islam? You just repeat what other bigots and Islamophobes say. What do you say about US evangelicals that are supporting Members of Parliament in Uganda that are trying to pass legislation to execute gays? Bigots are so fast to portray Islam as one monolithic entity, but would never do the same thing about Christians and Christianity. You people have troops in more than a 100 countries, you have an immoral war and occupation going on in Iraq, you support friendly dictatorships all around the world, your corporations dominate the "free" markets of much of the world, you supply a majority of small weapons that are used in all low intensity warfare around the world, you supply all the cluster bombs that kill almost exclusively civilians, I can go on and on. I have been reading so many of your posts, and I'm sorry to get personal, but I notice that you have an obsessive hatred for Muslims, and for reasons that should make you hate Christians as well, but you don't.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

And where do you get this about "Islam", who speaks for Islam?

It's the bad experiences that I've had myself, and the one other western European LGBTs are having now, because of the utter contempt Muslims have for European culture.

Me and my boyfriend were recently pelted with stones by Moroccan kids. In own old neighborhood.

 

[SoulSearcher]

It's the bad experiences that I've had myself, and the one other western European LGBTs are having now, because of the

utter contempt Muslims

have for European culture.

Me and my boyfriend were recently pelted with stones by Moroccan kids. In own old neighborhood.

I was punched by two Christian white guys who called me anti-Semitic names outside my college campus in California, should I issue a blanket statement about Christians or white people?

And you're doing that again!!!!!!! Unbelievable, I'm not gonna assume what level of education you have, but do you realise that there are a billion Muslims out there, you say, "utter contempt Muslims have for European culture", should I be able to say that I don't like the "utter contempt that Christians have for Muslims" because there are many Christians in the US military who enjoy shooting Arabs, or because a largely Christian military forces of America raped Iraq for no reason these past few years? You can't just talk about "Muslims" this and "Muslims" that. Educated and intelligent people don't do that. And what is European culture? There are millions of native Europeans who are Muslim.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

I was punched by two Christian white guys who called me anti-Semitic names outside my college campus in California, should I issue a blanket statement about Christians or white people?

Yes, if you feel the hatred was inspired by a Christian sentiment, like the age old "The Jews killed Christ", you have every right.
Other Christians might not have been abusing you, but they are responsible in that they upheld these beliefs.

You can't just talk about "Muslims" this and "Muslims" that.

Muslims are followers of Islam. The tenets of Islam are known.

Educated and intelligent people don't do that.

I think you can't accept an idea that is very threatening to you, and that's why you are convinced that I must be wrong about this.

And what is European culture? There are millions of native Europeans who are Muslim.

Not in Western Europe (and certainly not Switzerland), there are not.
Here they are all immigrants, most of whom came after WW2 and barely any from before that.

Get your facts straight first.