The Minaret Ban in Switzerland

When majority of Swiss voters endorsed the ban on the building of minarets in Switzerland during its November 29th referendum, they were making a political statement. Contrary to angry reactions from various Muslim groups who saw this vote as an act of suppression of religious liberty, backers of this measure said that it was not their intention to prohibit Muslims from practicing their religion. “The goal, they explained, was to prevent what they described as the growing political impact of Switzerland's Muslim minority, which they said is symbolized by minarets pointing into the sky; women wearing full veils; and observance of sharia, a Koran-based legal system.”1 Walter Wobman, a People’s Party member of Parliament, adds, "The minaret is the power symbol of political Islam and sharia law."

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki of Iran saw otherwise: “values such as tolerance, dialogue and respecting others’ religions should never be put to referendum,” and warned the Swiss of “consequences.”2 This vote, he said, “went against the prestige of a country which claims to be an advocate of democracy and human rights.”

The question of religious liberty vis-à-vis Islam is a complex one. For Islam is at once both a religion and a political system. While it offers a set of moral teachings, it also endorses political power with which to carry out those moral teachings. Inherent in it is the union of clerical and political powers, creating a state within a state, if it happens to flourish in a foreign political community. Granting it the right to exist in the name of religious liberty is providing it space to exist as a political entity.

This, I think, is the political statement that the Swiss voters are telling us. This is also what Tocqueville said in his chapter on religious freedom in democratic settings:

"Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Koran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.” (Democracy in America, vol. 2, part 1, chapter 5).

But Christianity has had its dark period as well when, during the Middle Ages, the papacy wielded both ecclesiastic and political powers in its effort to establish a world empire. It took a Reformation to rein in this papal power, leading to the birth of a modern state where, under the principle of separation of church and state, political affairs were left in the hands of the state, and religious matters in the hands of the church.

Modern republicanism upholds the separation of church and state. It is one of the key foundations of the free society. It is basic to individual liberty. By removing theological differences from the political arena, as Professor Harry Jaffa of the Claremont Institute has argued, “people could worship freely according to the dictates of their consciences, thereby promoting confidence and even friendship among citizens.”

Those who are protesting the minaret ban in the name of religious liberty must first understand what it is that should belong to the public realm, and what it is that must be kept private.