Timothy Garton Ash, writing in the Guardian displays the jarring sensibilities that comes inevitability from holding the sort of fuzzy authoritarian statist views that prevail these days. On the subject of the Swiss ban on new minaret construction…
That is to put the clock of religious toleration back 300 years, to a time when even protestants in Catholic France could not worship in public. Of course, planning regulations and the local townscape must be respected. Architectural tact and syncretic innovation are desirable, as brilliantly exemplified in the new buildings of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies or Boston’s Islamic Cultural Centre. But this vote was not about urban planning.
Actually it is about ‘urban planning’, just not for the sort of reasons the writer approves of.
But what makes me laugh is that Ash has no problem whatsoever using the force of the state to make people build in ways he approves of. It is clearly axiomatic to him that the state gets to have planning regulations over what you can build on your own private property, even over mere aesthetic issues (i.e. he likes the fact the political trumps the social completely when it comes to your property). He just wants what people like him thinks is ‘desirable’ to be allowed.
Yet somehow when that political process he accepts as axiomatic produces something he does not think is ‘desirable’ to his Guardianista sensibilities, I doubt it occur to him that maybe it is his acceptance of people exerting force backed political power over others in pretty much every aspect of life where the problem lies.
Muslims in Switzerland wishing to build minarets on buildings dedicated to praising the words of their mass murdering Dark Ages warlord only have the problem they now face because people like Timothy Garton Ash think it is perfectly alright that the state to be allowed to ‘plan’ what people can do on their own property.
Um… and wouldn’t it be better to compare this to life in Calvinist Geneva for Swiss Catholics?
Or if you want something more familiar to the general historical knowledge of the UK reader, why not go with the ban of Catholic Mass in the UK until a couple hundred years ago? Why go to a very brief period in France for your historical analogy?
As a sign of protest, some muslims in Switzerland are now organizing a talk by a prominent Islamic speaker. To show just how clueless they are about the concerns behind the minaret initiative, they have invited a militant speaker whose stated goal is the conversion of everyone to Islam and the enforcement of Shariah law everywhere.
I suppose we should thank them: this proves that concern about militant Islam is, in fact, entirely justified. That concern is, of course, the real reason that the minaret initiative passed in the first place.
With all respect to our host, the questions of the Swiss minaret ban has been asked and answered on this blog. And the main observation has been the internal contradiction within Libertarianism around the need for collective action to preserve individual freedom.
If you want a more pertinent example of ‘state’ action, look to the action of Obama’s EPA in the US — declaring CO2 to be a dangerous gas over the opposition of the majority of the population, on the basis of what is clearly junk science.
A state action opposed by the majority is a very different case from a state action imposed by a majority.
bradley13 is correct about the real reason. Forget that Islam is a religion, because that is not important… that it is also a totalitarian political system when taken seriously is the important issue.
I am all for letting people build minarets, but I am also for not using the power of the state to prevent people confront Islam culturally and go out of their way to offend Islamic sensibilities… the state’s only involvement in that process is to arrest and possibly even shoot at whoever starts throwing rocks first.
Sorry for being thick Perry, but are you or are you not for banning the minarets?
“I am all for letting people build minarets…”
Seems quite clear to me Alisa!
“Not” Alisa and “indeed” Mike 🙂 Just because I am hostile to Islam that does not mean I want Islam suppressed by the state or suddenly find myself in favour of state planning laws governing what is built on private property.
I think state intervention (welfare state in effect subsidising some people’s decision to not integrate in the host society, anti-discrimination laws used to prevent people having free association (and disassociation), suppression of free speech, etc. etc.) has actually caused the problem of “problem” Islam by forcing the host culture to not react as it naturally would to an anti-integrationist ideology in its midst… more state intervention is unlikely to make things better.
Yes, Mike, you are right: I seem to have missed that somehow.
Timothy Garton Ash has a long record of lying.
For example, he has (several times) described the E.U. Constitution “Treaty of Lisbon” (which formalized the European Union power grab of most regulatory powers – and sets out the path for how the E.U. can take what powers it does not already have) as a “minimal treaty” and has said (repeatedly) that there is no plan to build a big government E.U.
Please note Timothy Garton Ash is not an honest opponent – he does not say “I want a country called Europe for the following reasons…..” he denies that there is any such plan, whilst (at the same time) working to bring that plan into effect.
Hence Timothy Garton Ash is a lying establishment scumbag – just as one would expect of an Oxford academic.
As for Islam – see Mark Steyn’s “America Alone”.
This provides interesting information on Timothy Garton Ash’s support for a weird combination state that would see the present E.U. linked in to North Africa and the Middle East.
Now as Timothy Garton Ash certainly does not support the conversion of these vast numbers of people to Christianity (or to anything else) this can only mean one thing.
Not only does Timothy Garton Ash support a superstate – it would also be an Islamic superstate.
In short Timothy Garton Ash is a traitor to both Britain and to Western Civilization – a man no better than St John Philby or his son Kim Philby.
To be fair, part of the major problem with Islam is its view that religion and state should be intwined, with religious fervor and blind faith dictating government policy in fascist ways.
I am always in approval of holding statists to their own bloody standards, its poetic, karmic, and simply makes grand political theater. In this case, the muslims are seeing a bit of turnabout put upon them, with Swiss religious dedication to having everything -just so- in swiss clockwork fashion trumping muslim obsession with cultural domination through intimidation. Boo hoo.