Harry's Place

“That movement should be sharply distinguished from the secularist and liberal defence of the principles of a pluralist society. ”

Switzerland has always struck me as a nativist nation devoted to securing a good civic order for its citizens and only for its citizens, and where as a foreignborn Jew I could at best hope to be politely detested.

Is there any indication that a majority of Swiss ever wanted a pluralist society for themselves?>

Surely the Swiss are merely resisting foreign pressure, and the malign meddling of their capitalists and political elites? They have made it clear to a minority of new citizens in their midst, that a degree of compliance and integration is required of them, if they want to be well thought of. A reminder to an immigrant community that they do not get to call the shots, and quite a few of their traditions are not acceptable to their hosts.

This is nonsense. Muslims are a small minority in Western Europe and their median fertility rate is declining.

Weasel words from a cockweasel. Remind me never to go to Kamm or his prattling uncle for sage advice.

The key point is that, in the UK at least, the birthrate is below replacement level. Bengalis and Pakistanis, by contrast, average 5 and 4 children per family respectively. Something like 25% of primary school children were born to mothers who are not native to the UK, with the majority of immigration outside of the EU coming from Muslim-majority countries, it’s not difficult to imagine the sort of country my children will be growing up in.

The Swiss electorate has, by contrast, struck a blow against freedom of association and conscience. It should be speedily overturned.

His ideological stupidity is palpable: he plucks two anodyne pillars of democracy out of the ether, freedom of association and conscience, and then proceeds to contrast them with the Swiss choosing to ‘ban’ minarets. In the same breath, much like his heroes in the EU Commission, he swats aside a Swiss plurality in favour of the proposal as so much plebiean jingoism.

Oliver Kamm: possibly the biggest cockweasel in the world after the anti-Arab racist Dennis Macshane.

The European population has been bullied, kicked, slandered, and sledge-hammered into accepting significant levels of immigration, and a multicultural agenda they never asked for, never wanted, and never needed, and it has been going on for years.

Diversity, vibrance, assertiveness, edginess. All good things we are told, and told, and told. Incessantly.

Funny how everyone shrinks back in horror when a European population starts getting assertive, and edgy, and starts making demands.

The Swiss referundum is what happens when the mainstream political parties are too busy appeasing terrorists and terrorists sympathizers, in this case the Islamists, to reasure the majority who then find in a rascist party the solution to their fears: In this case that the Muslim minority contains members who are anti-democratic. Of course the solution any rascist party puts forward will be bigoted and will affect all the members of the minority in question. But the majority will support it in lieu of anything positive being done to meet the legitimiate concerns of the majority by the mainstream political parties.

Read the rest of it.

Yawn.

Populism is a dreadful manifestation of – gulp! – the way ordinary people, blast them, THINK!

http://www.labourlist.org/blind-need-white-working-class-immigration-debate-alex-smith#Comment63810

Not at all like US CLEVER ONES think. I mean, on all sorts of subjects OUR views are SO much in advance of THEIRS!

It quite makes one shudder!

If you’re any sort of decent Hampsteadian Labourite, you are already programmed to despise the opinions of the ghastly sort of people who traditionally vote Labour.

WE – the clever ones – know that their iews or school and family discipline are tantamount to child abuse, their opininions about capital punishment are utterly barbaric, on issues like patriotism they’re sullen Little Englanders, on Europe they’re downright xenophobic, on immigration they’re often downright racist and such issues as gay marriage they’re really quite disgracefully bigoted.

Oh dearie me!

http://www.labourlist.org/culture-clash-how-labour-can-look-to-reconnect-with-the-poor

Weep before you try reading it.

Anyway, it’s quite obvious that Ordinary People must NEVER be consulted in a referendum!

supposedly alien influence spread by Muslim populations.

Supposedly FFS!

Now Kammo IS being a bit of a twat.

Kamm is absolutely right. He is also fighting a fierce battle with the cultists at Media Lens over Srebrenica and massacre denial and needs your support.

Exile your posts on Yoani Sanchez are vile. You are sick in the head man.

Kamm’s response is predictable, he fits into the Harry’s Place mold, PC multiculti dhimmitude while at the same time setting himself apart from the moonbats of the radical Left and their anti-Semitism and support for the Jihad, ie positioning himself as a moderate and reasonable Centre-Leftist. Kamm proves along with HP that there is no reason and sense whatsoever when it comes to Islam anywhere on the political Centre-Left – they are all moonbats on that front.

“supposedly alien influence” He is more than a bit of a twat, he is clueless, a dhimmi to the bone. That’s why HP respect his opinions so much.

However with that said, Kamm has done a good job exposing Media Lens for the fascist liars that they are (as eddie points out), and he has also done a good job exposing Chomsky and Pilger for the lying scum that they are.

I give credit where it’s due. Islam is just his blind spot, like it is with most people.

Within five or six posts a thread becomes unreadable by any one with a scrap of intellectual self-respect. A Harry’s Place record?

I just tend to ignore any posts mentioning “dhimmitude”, “PC”, “the multicultural agenda” and other such tedious cliches.

Excellent piece by Kamm.

Norm is also spot on here http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/11/minaret-ban.html

If you want to distinguish between the “Parties of the Right [that ] have campaigned vigorously against the supposedly alien influence spread by Muslim populations” from “the secularist and liberal defence of the principles of a pluralist society”, why do you have any truck with the Centre for Social Cohesion ? After all, Baroness Cox, who invited Geert Wilders to the UK – supposedly one of the right wing populists you want to avoid – is a director of the Centre for Social Cohesion. And Douglas Murray has views much closer to the right wing bigots you say you want to avoid. When Murray gave a speech saying

“Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop”

And claimed that political correctness and relativism where the “AIDS of the West” leading to the the “opportunist infection of Islam” which is “deadly”

you published a post claiming this right wing bigoted speech was about “equal rights”

@Eddie – thanks for anticipating me! (at 8.22)
@Ann on – I believe Douglas Murray has apologised for that remark about immigration from Muslim countries having to stop.

I agree with Alex (9.23) – and Norm is indeed spot on!

Larkers, it was well on it’s way by post three:

>> Oliver Kamm: possibly the biggest cockweasel in the world after the anti-Arab racist Dennis Macshane.

That’s the anti-Darfuri racist, Bashir, off the hook. Idiot.

Sarah “I believe Douglas Murray has apologised for that remark about immigration from Muslim countries having to stop”- that’s interesting.Where did he do that ? (did he apologise about the Aid/Infection/Islam bit as well ?) Because his researchers are still defending the speech – not least on this website – as about “equal rights”. While Baroness Cox seems to have become a CSC director at the beginning of this year, which suggests the CSC is heading towards right wing populsim, not away from it.

Who is Kamm’s “prattling uncle”?

Trouble is, the path Kamm is taking is rapidly turning into a tightrope.

And to wave away the demographics – which no doubt are of little direct concern to the Kamms of this world in Hampstead or Holland Park or wherever he lives – is typical of his de haut en bas arrogance.

@Ann on

You seem to have a major gripe with the CSC; a gripe based on ideological rather than practical differences. So blinded are you by your prejudice that you claimed to have read the CSC report on Hizb ut-Tahrir and attributed falsehoods to the authors that are inconsistent with the content.

Tell me, are you a member of HuT1 or HuT2…or anothet splinter group? To whom do you pledge allegiance?

I don’t think Murray has apologized, but he hasn’t repeated it. Still a disgraceful remark to have made.

That said, and Ann On may be different, those who common cite it tend to be able to wave aside far more illiberal elements in their tent.

Vlyum Hi-Yes “you claimed to have read the CSC report on Hizb ut-Tahrir and attributed falsehoods to the authors that are inconsistent with the content” – no I did not, you are simply wrong here. I have quoted from the report and shown the problems in it, you have simply made false assertions in a pompous way. Can I add that I am not (nor have I ever been) a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir .

I think, Alec M, you mean that various Islamists are keen to hughlight Murray’s rant – which is true. The thing is, in this instance,they are correct : Murray did make the speech. You can’t make that go away by murmuring “islamists”. It is also the case that Baroness Cox did join CSC as a director. The CSC shows all the signs of being a right wing, bigoted organisation. If you really believed in keeping away form right wing campaings on the European model, you would keep away from the CSC and give Murray a wide berth. I think that probably holds for “Standpoint” magazine as well.

Norm’s premise is skew. His article of faith premise – that religions should somehow have a special exemption from discrimination, that all religions should be treated equally – is stark raving bonkers. We don’t apply this in any other sphere – political or social.

Why should a form of Fascism, which mainstream Koranic literalist Islam very clearly is, be exempt from discrimination because it happens to be wrapped in the guise of a religion?

That makes no sense whatsoever; it’s an addled brained, misguided notion of what it is to be a classical liberal. What’s more, that attitude is a at best a form of pre-emptive Stockholm syndrome.

We cannot afford to tolerate intolerance. Islam in its mainstream form, is intolerant, we should reciprocate.

Who is Kamm’s “prattling uncle”?

The Labour stooge and ubiquitous man in the white suit, Martin Bell-end.

That’s the anti-Darfuri racist, Bashir, off the hook. Idiot.

Are you excusing Macshane’s inebriated performance at a recent debate, Alec? And for the umpteenth time, what the bejesus are you talking about? Your comments seem to fit into 3 categories:

1) bootlicking unctuousness

2) obtuse aiming at intellectualism

3) random tangential miscellanea

and Norm is indeed spot on!

About what exactly? Conflating religious freedom with the right to emit politico-religious propaganda upwards of 11 times per day (5 prayers, 5 iqamahs plus the Shurooq adhaan). He seems very confused and, much like Kamm, is not in anyway qualified to discuss the relative merits of minarets or their place in Muslim orthopraxy.

has apologised for that remark about immigration from Muslim countries having to stop

What’s to apologise for? What was once immigration has become colonisation with no ostensible benefits for the host population. When the colonisers perpetuate cultural, religious and genetic apartheid together with a high birthrate fueled by the taxes of those who helped to foster modern affluent Britain, then the time has come to put a stop to it once and for all.

Just read Norm. He says:

“Argument to the effect that the ban is justified because of the subordinate position of women within Islam is misguided.”

Are some Swiss actually using this as a reason? The same country that gave women the vote in 1990, 60 years after Turkey?

What a truly freakish little country.

P.

then the time has come to put a stop to it once and for all.

But, as the Alan Bennett character says on Dead Ringers, “they won’t, will they?”

It’s Switzerland or Australia otherwise.

I have quoted from the report and shown the problems in it, you have simply made false assertions in a pompous way.

I’ve read your faux citations interspersed with your lies on another thread. You claim that the CSC report was the first to propagate the Pathfinder confusion. A rapid search through the pdf document reveals your claims to be unfounded.

Can I add that I am not (nor have I ever been) a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Fair enough, but why are you trying to muddy the debate over their connections with the ISF schools?

Vilyum, I did not lie or make any “faux assertions ” (not telling the truth in French ?): I quoted, clearly, from the CSC report, which shows they did begin the confusion – perhaps unwittingly, perhaps merely by being slack, over “Pathfinder” funding. Whereas you simply keep writing things which are not true , in an ever more pompous way. Writing things more pompously does not make them less false. You seem to be suggesting that some facts , that even though they are true, cannot be uttered lest they aid Hizb ut-Tahrir. Which is a very odd logic

An [uncited] inebriated preformance ‘>’ rampaging janjaweed.

Still an idiot, VH-Y. You didn’t say Kamm is a bigger cockweasel than MacShane; you said he was the biggest in the world.

Your categorizing my response is not so much a whatabout as a whaaaaaat?

Nick,

I don’t see why the liberal principle of anti-discrimination privileges religion?

I’d equally oppose arbitrary constraints upon the activities of Liberal Democrats, Trekkies or Barry Manilow fans.

It is more that religious minorities have often historically been on the receiving end of restrictions imposed by over-zealous majoritarians and, as a result, discussion has largely focused on this area.

When religious groups make demands for special treatment they should be told to get lost. This, however, is not a demand for special treatment but a demand that one particular group not be saddled with prohibitions that do not apply to anyone else.

Kamm makes the mistake of thinking – wishfully – that Islam is a religion like any other, when in fact it is a dangerous, supremacist political ideology like any other.

Populist protest indeed. There’s no snob like a socialist snob.

I quoted, clearly, from the CSC report, which shows they did begin the confusion

I’d like to see your ‘clearly quoted’ exposition of the CSC report’s shortcomings on this thread, if I may.

This, however, is not a demand for special treatment but a demand that one particular group not be saddled with prohibitions that do not apply to anyone else.

To my knowledge, no other faith seeks to broadcast its creed to all and sundry. The minaret, in it’s original form, was always that of a propaganda broadcaster.

We can turn away Jehova’s Witnesses and avoid Evangelical pamphlet stalls, but we can’t protect our eardrums from the incessant wails of the muezzin; we can’t turn him off.

There’s a double irony in so-called democrats dismissing not just the democratic wishes of the Swiss, but also the political nature of the ‘lyrics’ of the adhaan. For instance, depending on the madhab, the words ‘Allah is the greatest’ are broadcast upwards of 70 times per day (including iqamahs and the Shurooq adhaan); the adhaan begins and ends with those words and are a subtle reminder that, whatever the democratic wishes of the majority, government, civil society and private behaviour must operate within the bounds of the Shari’ah straightjacket; that there is, as the Khomeinist Mohsen Milanin calls ‘limited popular sovereignty’ subordinate to the will of Allah the Moongod and his clerical interpreters.

The minaret and its primary function are antithetical to liberty and no sane person would seek to encourage their spread.

As far as I understand, the ban is specifically aimed at the building of minarets rather than the call to prayer.

It would be perfectly legitimate to curb unwarranted loud praying under existing noise legislation.

Vilyum, you seem confused. You said “I’ve read your faux citations interspersed with your lies on another thread” so that’s where you need to look to see that I use quotes. Not complicated: You rely on a mixture of silly swearing, pompousness, and empty assertions. I use quotes (click through my name to the link if you are having trouble)

If it pisses Kamm off, then I’m for it. this man has twisted himself into impossible contortions in an effort to gloss over not just the fact that multiculturalism is an abject failure, but also the frightening reality that the clueless euro-elites (ageing hippies and beatniks to the last) have no strategy to keep a lid on a popuilation that simply won’t behave or integrate.

All cultures are equal…not!

Vilyum, I don’t know why you think anyone should listen to you about this when you write three complete falsehoods in your first 2 paragraphs. You should probably realise when you’re spouting statistics that someone will check up on them.

Mark Steyn (whom Kamm predictably dismisses in a line) has this on Christopher Caldwell on immigration:

“We can’t talk about immigration”

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/13/we-can%e2%80%99t-talk-about-immigration/2/

When religious groups make demands for special treatment they should be told to get lost. This, however, is not a demand for special treatment but a demand that one particular group not be saddled with prohibitions that do not apply to anyone else.

Well it’s hardly Kristallnacht, is it?

When Islam’s all too numerous enthusiasts stop their endless shit in the name of Islam and play nicely, maybe they will be viewed like most of us view Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, atheists, Jews and the bulk of Christians and not see it as the savage, totalitarian, imperialist threat that it most certainly is.

A minaret is worse than a big tower with a BNP logo on it. Mainstream Islam is a far worse political ideology than the BNP’s racist, nationalist collectivism.

Now I don’t think BNP logos as such should be banned. But if BNP supporters displayed a predilection for building towers with BNP logos on them and 100,000 people signed a petition arguing for a ban on this, and a vote was held and it was passed, I really don’t think we’d be hearing even a murmur from muliticulturist relativists.

@Ann on

I use quotes

You are a compulsive, habitual, and pathological liar:

The CSC report refers explicitly to Pathfinder Preventing Violent Extremism money a couple of times

Liar! The CSC report, which can be accessed here contains a grand total of 3 references to ‘Pathfinder’ (pp.97, 115, 116), only one of which is related to the Islamic Shakhsiyyah Foundation (p.97).

There is no mention (explicit or otherwise) of ‘Pathfinder Preventing Violent Extremism [sic]‘ money and the ISF in the same context. Indeed, the sentence (that you later quoted) is in the context of a paragraph whose rationale is funding, and DCSF funding in particular – there is no mention of the Home Office Prevent initiative:

ISF confirmed that the money came from the government’s ‘Free Entitlement’ and ‘Pathfinder’ programmes.

and also says the schools were funded by “Pathfinder” money, without making any reference to this being a different , and educational , fund.

As the report makes no connection between the ISF and PVE Pathfinder funds…anywhere, this is a moot point. Elsewhere, the report makes it explicit that PVE Pathfinder funding found its way into the slippery hands of British-Iraqi Islamist Anas al-Tikriti’s Cordoba Foundation (p.115) and the East London mosque (p.116).

Later on, you claim that because the authors didn’t write something extra (e.g. DCSF Pathfinder funding) to differentiate the single mention of ‘Pathfinder’ in the context of the ISF from the other two mentions of ‘Pathfinder’ funding (where they DO make it explicit that it’s PVE cash) not in relation to ISF…they’re at fault.

Your ideological hatred of the CSC has been pursued with the utmost disregard not just for the facts, but the wider sectarian implications of HuT’s involvement with children.

Vilyum, I don’t know why you think anyone should listen to you about this when you write three complete falsehoods in your first 2 paragraphs. You should probably realise when you’re spouting statistics that someone will check up on them.

And those 3 complete falsehoods are, SOC?

A riposte to Kamm and co.:

“Swiss voters: stop the Minarets!”

http://newsrealblog.com/2009/12/01/stop-the-minarets/

Bengalis and Pakistanis, by contrast, average 5 and 4 children per family respectively.

and

the majority of immigration outside of the EU coming from Muslim-majority countries

As far as I understand, the ban is specifically aimed at the building of minarets rather than the call to prayer.

One logically leads to another. Why have minarets whose sole rationale, the spewing out of malevolent sectarian agitprop umpteen times a day, is prohibited. Far better to ban the minaret before pressure groups and Islamist lobbying caucuses’ sussuration into the right ears reaches a critical mass.

It would be perfectly legitimate to curb unwarranted loud praying under existing noise legislation.

Your use of the word ‘pray’ in this context tells me that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

Minarets are used to broadcast various things:

1) the 5 time-a-day ‘call to prayer’

2) the 5 time-a-day ‘iqamah’ [a shortened call to prayer just before salat/namaz/prayer begins]

3) often the prayer itself led by the imam including prayers said aloud (Fajr, Maghrib and ‘Isha) and the takbir ‘bits’ for the quiet prayers (dhuhr, ‘Asr)

4) often a daybreak call to prayer, annoncing the rising of the sun/end of the night

5) extended Taraweeh prayers during Ramadhan after ‘Isha

6) sectarian hymnals chanted prior to both Salat-ul-Eids

7) the Friday ranting sermon, when politics and incitement to hatred truly intersect

8) the poly-takbeered Salat-ul-Eids

If broadcasing religious agitprop is prohibited, then there’s no need for minarets. Problem solved.

That’s really wierd Vilyum – all the quotes you use seem to indicate the opposite of your odd assertions, so it is hard to know how to respond : You have a fairly sober set of quotes that say one thing, and your overheated interjections inbetween – “pathological” -”hatred” -”sectarian” -”compulsive” -saying something else , and saying it in a somewhat unbalanced way. It may be that you think by cranking up your rhetoric-o-meter, you are able to make your arguments seem stronger, but it actually makes them weaker. Or perhaps you are not in full control in some way. It is such an odd thing for you to write that I suppose I should leave it to speak for itself.

CJCJC,

Gimlet’s uncle is Martin Bell, a character who won the Tatton Seat supposedly as an independent. Actually, as the Campbell Diaries make clear he was never anything other than a Nu-Labour stooge. Gimlet was his Uncle Martin’s campaign manager and he never twigged to the game that was being played. That’s just the way that Gimlet is – at Oxford a mate of mine named Tony Goodman used Gimlet as a stooge to do plenty of donkey work, with the promise that he would be run for office in the Union Society. Needless to say, poor Gimlet ended up being dumped when he had served his purpose.

Eddie,

I am not so sure that a throw away comment about Yoani Sanchez, aka old scrawny, is worth a reply by itself, especially as the full comment has been censored. However, if it is then it is worth more than a one-liner that contains nothing more than an unsubstantiated allegation. Please don’t do that as it makes you look like A. N. Other Webmong.

If the western world had been assiduous in implementing secular democracy, with all of the other issues like tolerance, freedom of speech, and of the press, without regard for race or creed, it would be easier to decry this result in Switzerland.

But we have not. We have squirmed and tied ourselves in knots trying to allow one sector of the population to censor our speech, and our media, interfere with the due process of the police, create no-go areas in our cities, broadcast their intolerance in the streets, threaten apostates, cartoonists, authors and publishers, refuse to comply with medical hygiene procedures, and create hostile confrontational situations in workplaces so they can then sue for constructive dismissal. The accumulation of these things has created a priviledged class on the one hand, and on the other, a large residual mass of second class citizens.

Having achieved that, you can’t expect people to stand up for secular democracy now.

I think that here in the UK, we would get a significant groundswell of support for any party or campaign to re-instate secular democracy, and all the freedoms, right across the spectrum. Regardless. That would make more sense than banning minarets, which are just an outward show.

But we should never have let that slip from our fingers in the first place.

Larkers says “Within five or six posts a thread becomes unreadable by any one with a scrap of intellectual self-respect. A Harry’s Place record?”

I could not agree more (no criticism of HP contributors, the problem is the commenters).

Unfortunately neither Kamm, Norman or amnesty International are legally speaking strictly correct about this.

The right to practice a religion is one thing, and a legal entitlement to it as in the European Convention on Human Rights of which Switzerland is a treaty signatory, however the public manifestation of religion is a far more complicated issue and there is no clear cut ‘right’ for a confessional group to be able to demand each and very manifestation of its creed that it wishes from a polity.

The ECHR for example has upheld the ‘right’ of the secular nations of Turkey and France to prevent the public expression or manifestation of one symbol or feature associated with Islam, the headscarf or hijab, in national government employ or other civil national institutions the schools, universities and civil and military services for example.

Arguably minarets are not a necessary requirement for the free and unfettered practice of the Muslim faith either in private or together with co-religionists.

Whilst I think such a measure is unnecessary, even undesirable i cannot see that it is clearly illegal according to the jurisprudence of the ECHR and definitely not that of Switzerland.

It is certainly not undemocratic.

Switzerland is a multi religious federal republic of 27 autonomous Cantons and has maintained a careful neutrality between its Catholic and Protestant Cantons, historically ensuring peace, through a studied public downplaying of ostentatious religiosity, Catholic churches never feel, well, that Catholic in Switzerland.

Despite its history Switzerland has never made a pretence of being a modern European multi-cultural state and is indeed rather closed to social, political and cultural pluralism.

Switzerland has never made any pretence either of its treatment of non-citizens being treated equally before the law, non-citizens are tolerated and subject to a greater degree of oversight and socially expressed disapproval if they are seen as diverging from Swiss ways than citizens are.

As Muslims represent 400,000 residents but only 11.7% of it’s citizens, the Swiss attitude is likely to be rather one of ’so what?’ we decide what buildings are allowed to look like in Switzerland and we don’t want minarets disrupting our Heidi sense of harmony.

How a Swiss supreme court would decide on this matter is far from clear and would depend on the extant to which this is seen as an infringement of religious freedom, though I doubt that the court would rule against its plebiscite democracy deciding democratically how they wish Switzerland to look physically buildings and all.

Neither is it clear (compare headscarfs) if the Swiss constitutional court were to find against a Muslim plaintiff that ECHR would find against Switzerland as within the overall requirement of preserving religious freedom, the margin of appreciation, i.e. to what degree Switzerland may meet those obligations while still remaining within Swiss acceptable political, moral and social norms.

And as for norms assertion that the Muslim oppression of women is irrelevant to a freedom of religion claim, again not quite.

As I keep trying to point out the religious foundation of human rights law rests on the equitable principle of ‘clean hands’, that is a claimant claiming that their human rights have been violated should not be heard if they on the other hand themselves deny other human rights.

In other words you cannot plead a right to deny a right.

In summary the outlawing of certain architectural embellishments traditionally , but no means exclusively, associated with Mosques is far less a problematic inhibition of religious freedom than, say, the banning of certain kinds of religious speech (e.g. inflammatory sermons) would be, and in a democracy perhaps no more preventable.

You have to dig deep to find out above the 57 per. cent. that is was 22 out of 26 Cantons who carried the vote!