Democracy vs the Muslim Bayonet

The media is filled with outrage today at the decision by Swiss voters to ban the construction of new minarets by the growing number of Muslims living in Switzerland. The vote which has been opposed by the Swiss government and both the Catholic and the Protestant churches once again demonstrates that populist democracy is the only real barrier to an Islamist takeover. But at the same time the reaction to it betrays a great deal of hypocrisy.

Going by the outrage at this ill treatment of Muslims, one might assume that Muslim countries are a haven of religious freedom. But in fact one of the codes of the Dhimmi prohibited building Synagogues and Churches taller in height than Mosques. This can be seen even in churches in Europe that were once located in Muslim ruled territories, such as the Church of Sveti Spas in Macedonia which was built mostly underground to avoid falling afoul of Muslim rules while still allowing for a high interior space. The same phenomenon can be seen in the many sunken floors of Jewish synagogues built in the Middle East.

It is ironic that all the Swiss did was pass a law that treats Muslims, much the same way that Muslims treat non-Muslims throughout the Middle East. Furthermore many of the Muslim refugees from Yugoslavia who have inflated Switzerland's cantons and want to fill the country with minarets and the vulture shrieks of radical Imams calling the faithful to prayer, have relatives back home who are busy burning every church they can find. Naturally the same human rights activists who are terribly worked up because the Muslims of Switzerland will have to make do with only four minarets, couldn't care less. Just as the same European elites who become agitated every time a Palestinian Arab is made to wait an extra 5 minutes at a border crossing to insure that he isn't wearing a bomb strapped to his chest, could hardly be less interested in the Muslim firebombings of churches belonging to the dwindling minority of Arab Christians in the area.

And while Muslims resort to the usual riots and terrorism when they fail to get their way on Jerusalem, not only are there no Synagogues or Churches in Mecca-- non-Muslims are not even allowed to enter Mecca. And of course the reason that Mecca, once one of the most religiously diverse cities in the Middle East has no non-Muslims, is because they were all massacred by Mohammed's followers. Muslim ethnic cleansing and persecution of religious minorities is the reason why the Middle East has so few non-Muslims. The one exception, the State of Israel, a democratic non-Arab and non-Muslim country in the middle of the Middle East, has faced repeated attempts at genocide for its entire history.

The human rights activists agitated over the Swiss ban on minarets might ask just how many new Churches and Synagogues have been built in the Middle East over the last 20 years. As opposed to how many new Mosques have gone up in Europe. While Europe's proportion of Muslims continues to rise, the proportion of Jews and Christians in Muslim countries continues to decline. If they were truly interested in protecting religious freedom, they would be at least as agitated over the treatment of non-Muslims in Muslim countries, including the deaths of thousands of guest workers in Dubai, the ghetto prepared for Jews in Yemen, the oppression of Christian Copts in Egypt or the second class status of Zoroastrians in Iran. But somehow religious freedom only seems to matter when it's the religious freedom of Muslims.

The question though is why should non-Muslim countries be expected to grant rights and privileges to Muslims, that Muslims are not willing to grant to non-Muslims? Why should France and Germany respect the Burka while Christian schoolgirls are whipped in Sudan for wearing to the knee skirts? Why should Christian and Jewish countries guarantee equal rights to Muslims, when Muslim countries treat their Christians and Jews as second class citizens? Why should Muslim guest workers in Germany have rights, when Asian guest workers in Dubai are treated like cattle? Why should Muslims be able to have mosques in Jerusalem and Rome, when no non-Muslim is even granted access to Mecca since Mohammed's original ethnic cleansing of the region? Why should Muslims in Switzerland be able to erect their minarets, while churches are being torched in Yugoslavia? And finally and above all else, if non-Muslims cannot live in peace and equality in Muslim countries-- then why should Muslims expect to live in peace and equality in Europe, Australia, North-America and Israel?

The short answer is that there isn't a single reason why. Noblesse oblige might prompt First World nations to offer equal rights to Muslims, but those rights would be eroded by rising Muslim demographics. Thanks to growing Muslim populations, Jews have once again become a persecuted minority in Europe. And native Europeans are quickly following them. The paradox of extending equal rights to those whose religion prevents them from accepting the liberal premise of human equality is that this attempt at equality will ultimately undermine and destroy any notion of equality for all.

Muslims have always rejected human equality as antithetical to the values and teachings of the Koran. And as a country draws closer to legalizing Sharia, the first casuality is human equality, whether it is equality between men and women, or between Muslims and infidels. And so former republics dedicated to freedom and equality die the death of a thousand accommodations, making concession after concession, silencing dissent and finally bowing their heads to the sharp knife of Islamic rule.

When London Mayor Boris Johnson calls on non-Muslims to fast during Ramadan in order to better understand Muslims, have Muslims or anyone else been called on to fast during Yom Kippur or Lent in order to better understand Catholics or Jews? But Johnson has gone from a rational examination of the Koran and Islam in 2006, when he stated;

To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers. As the killer of Theo Van Gogh told his victim’s mother this week in a Dutch courtroom, he could not care for her, could not sympathise, because she was not a Muslim.

... to singing the praises of Islam. But that has become the price of political power in the First World, with the first order of business being to bow your head to Mecca, to pretend that the Koran is not a genocidal text, and that Islamic terrorism is some sort of baffling accident that has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, aside from the coincidental similarity of the names.

This has nothing to do with morals, and everything to do with politics, with Saudi money and Muslim immigrants who create their own sullen angry ghettos, reacting to any real or imagined slight with ugly violence. There is no love for Islam, outside of the ivory towers of a few universities and civic buildings, but there is a great deal of fear.

And thus time and time again, it is the people who can be counted on to defy Islamic supremacism. While the politicians kneel facing Mecca, there are still a great many citizens who understand the value of civilization and sense how the rising power of Islam threatens their values and their families. Switzerland, where democracy is not just a word used by leftist politicians to shout down their opponents, as it tends to be throughout the First World, has repeatedly thwarted the integrationist aims of its political leaders at the ballot box.

And so Swiss voters spoke and the minarets tottered. Of course the political elites are already rushing to undo the damage. The Swiss government put out a press release in Arabic, even though tellingly most of its Muslim residents don't even read Arabic. There is talk of Supreme Court action, and if not then the European Court of Human Rights may intervene. Either way this temporary outbreak of democracy is to be squelched in the name of what will be euphemistically described as human rights, but in reality is Islamic power.

When Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan proclaims that, "the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the (Muslim) faithful our soldiers", a culture war is being telegraphed that only the blind can ignore. Turkey's own planned entry into the EU parallels the bayonets and soldiers spreading across Europe. Swiss voters decided that they did not want any more Muslim bayonets in their country, thank you very much. If an honest referendum were held on the subject in just about any First World country, the results would be much the same. And every politician in office who bows his head to Mecca and praises Islam to the heavens knows it too.

And if Muslims feel aggrieved, then maybe it is time we had a rational conversation about rights and responsibilities. And perhaps when there are churches and synagogues in Mecca, then there can be minarets in Switzerland. Perhaps when synagogues in Europe do not need to build tall walls around themselves and churches do not need guards against arsonists-- then no one will protect rising Islamic demographics. For the moment though Muslims demand at the point of a bayonet, what they are not willing to grant to others. And in the fact of such unrelieved dogmatic hostility and intolerance, any talk of equality transforms democracy into nothing more than a suicide pact.