Swiss Ban Minarets

Accordsing to the BBC  Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.

More than 57% of voters from 26 cantons - or provinces - voted in favour of the ban, Swiss news agency ATS reported. The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People's Party, (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which says minarets are a sign of Islamisation.

Opponents - including all the mainstream Churches and Jewish organisations in Switzerland - say a ban would amount to discrimination and that the ballot has stirred hatred.

The Swiss Ban will serve as proof positive to those who argue that Islam and the west are set ona collision course. This analysis - shared by Jihadists and NeoCons alike - is probably best expounded by one of its American advocates Samuel P. Huntington whose book the Clash of Civilisations has been influential amongst those in the last US administration who saw a long term impasse between Islam and the West.

Huntington and his ilk are flawed in their analysis. The coalition against the Swiss minaret ban included people of all faiths and none, muslim and jew, protestant and catholic, orthodox and sikh. The one positive of the ban being proposed was the unfiying of these groups under one banner. It is unfortunate that those on the other side of the argument have sown that fear and bigotry still has the power to overcome the most progressive of coalitions.