BBC Have Your Sieg Heil
The Swiss, as we know, have made a bold decision to be known for more than just cuckoo clocks, chocolate, Nazi gold and banks: now they want the world to see them as racists as well. The decision to ban minarets would strike any right-thinking person as ultra-nationalist at best, straightforwardly racist at worst. Well, you'd think so, but then you, my friend, haven't read the BBC Have Your Say discussion on it...
These are the most recommended comments, by the way - and it keeps on coming.
It always amuses me when the BBC is portrayed as a leftist institution when it's more than happy to allow this kind of debate to be swamped by the far right*. Well I imagine it's not more than happy, but what can you do? There are a couple of possible reasons for this: perhaps the vast majority, the 'silent majority' of people who read the BBC's news content, are extreme nationalists who hate Muslims of all shapes and sizes; or perhaps, just perhaps, ultranationalist groups target discussions like this in order to make their poisonous views seem more popular than they actually are. You can believe what you like, but if the views on this discussion are really representative of the majority of people in Britain then it is me, not them, who feels like a stranger in his own country and wants to leave.
SudaNim's comment sums up the classical 'oppressed white man' myth: that somehow, despite having all the advantages in life, white men are actually the ones who are most discriminated against. Chris in Nottingham brings out the textbook "If you don't like it then you can get out" attitute towards minorities so beloved of racists everywhere; and DaMuttzNutz produces the standard "Islamification aaargh we're all gonna die!" though I would have given bonus points for the use of 'dhimmitude', which I'm sure will turn up in the discussion somewhere.
Here's another argument you'll see time and time again: that because Saudi Arabia does something, we should be just as vile as them. But I don't think Saudi Arabia is really a nation whose values anyone should aspire to - is it? If Switzerland wants to be the Saudi Arabia of Europe, then it's more than welcome to. But I don't think it's a good argument to say "Islamic countries can be really repressive, therefore we should be just as repressive, out of spite" - that isn't the kind of society I want to live in. I don't want to live in a country that's taking part in a reactionary anti-freedom pissing competition.
And on, and on, and on it goes. A simple two-word comment like that gets voted positively by 54 people, but where are the opposing views? 4 pages in and still no sign of them... does everyone in the world really think that minarets are a terrible thing and that because there is little religious freedom in the Arab world, so that policy should be extended across Europe, and that's a good thing? Is that what we really think?
Oh, hang on:
But that's a mere island in the discussion, a mere moment in which another voice is raised, only to be squashed by the shouting of others.
I'm always left wondering what these debates actually achieve. What does this debate achieve, other than portraying westerners as idiots and racists? What does this do for anyone, except giving racists a place where they can congregate together and spout their angry invective? What have we gained from this, other than hearing that a lot of people think Europe should be more like Saudi Arabia, somehow, for some reason, or think that other cultures should not be allowed freedom of expression? Now I understand that's a perfectly legitimate viewpoint to have, vile though it is; but why are the BBC providing debates that are a touchstone for these extremist thoughts? This is just the sort of way in which the ultranationalist far right will claim it's actually in the majority or represents the real views of people.
Forty-seven per cent of people in Switzerland, you'll remember, voted against the ban on minarets. Yet you'd be hard-pressed to find 47 per cent of BBC Have Your Say correspondents who feel that way. So it's not even representative of Switzerland, the country which imposed the ban, let alone Britain, or let alone the wider community in Europe or reading these debates across the world. Again, you have to ask: what does this do, apart from over-represent those who hate, those who are prejudiced, those who want to cause division and those who want to drive out minorities?
* No, racists are not extreme left-wing, no matter what kind of "Aha, but National Socialists, weren't they, eh?" sophistry you try and pull out of the bag.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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November 30th, 2009 - 09:54
"But I don't think it's a good argument to say "Islamic countries can be really repressive, therefore we should be just as repressive, out of spite" – that isn't the kind of society I want to live in."
Exactly how I feel.
November 30th, 2009 - 09:59
Great post. Let me guess: SudaNim has got to middle age and, to his shock, all life's rich advantages are not piled up ready for him to roll in, as he obviously believes they should be. Chances are that his crap job, still-living-with-his-parents situation and total lack of a girlfriend are a direct result of his own indolence, self-immersion and offputting sense of entitlement. But it's a lot easier to blame blacks, disabled people, women, gays and Muslims, especially since he hates them already.
What really gets my goat, as you hint at with the BBC "leftism" point, is that these people present themselves as some kind of fearless counter-cultural rebels, whereas, as is clearly evident from BBC Have Your Say and many other fora, they actually completely dominate the debate. They say the most thoroughly pro-status quo, least counter-cultural things possible, all of which are centred around shoring up up middle-class, able-bodied, white, male, Christian privilege. And they attack anyone who dares question this.
November 30th, 2009 - 10:13
The Swiss don't have a very robust constitution if it can be trashed by a simple majority vote.
November 30th, 2009 - 10:52
SudaNim is, of course, wrong about Switzerland and migration. EU nationals are free to live there provide they are working or can support themselves financially because despite not being in the EU even Switzerland realises the benefits of free movement and free trade etc.
Imagine that….
November 30th, 2009 - 10:59
It was with a sense of dread that I approached this story when it broke because it really is going to bring out the worse in us as a nation.
I see Lib Con are running a story on it and the comments promise to be brutal no doubt…
November 30th, 2009 - 11:06
I'm afraid I believe you have missed the point on this one (as have the commenters but in a different and more racist way).
This is simply about architecture.
Switzerland is full of chocolate-box beautiful towns and cities. Have you ever been to Zurich? It's wonderful. The Swiss simply want to keep it that way, and so have decided that any mosques must fit in architecturally and not have imported middle-eastern elements.
Imagine an Islamic-style mosque next to Pulteney Bridge in Bath? Or up against the city walls in York. It would look out of place and spoil the character of the area, in just the same way a massive glass skyscraper would in the same locations.
It's neither anti-Islamic, nor racist, to ensure anything built in a heritage city fits in with the area. And any Muslims who might claim it is, are being as much victimised as the Christians who can't wear their cross on show at work. Neither is a tenet of the the faith.
November 30th, 2009 - 11:17
I really don't think it is about architecture. I guess you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.
November 30th, 2009 - 11:22
I don't think there should have been a referendum in the first place. Our government shouldn't need to ask permission from the electorate to build minarets so why should Switzerland? If our government had asked the electorate for permission to authorise civil partnerships, the electorate might well have said no. I don't think any Government in the Western World should need to ask the electorate for permission for things that allow fairness and tolerance.
And although Saudi Arabia doesn't allow the building of churches, it's fair to point out that other gulf hotspots like Iran, Iraq and especially Syria do have churches and that the minority of Christians within these countries are allowed to practise their faiths in them.
November 30th, 2009 - 11:33
Ah, because of course Saudi Arabia is representative of all Islamic majority countries – they must all be like that! It's not like you'll find churches in Jordan or Egypt or Syria would you?
Then again, if the HYS commenters were to educate themselves on such matters they wouldn't have as much time for frothing at the mouth racism. Priorities!
November 30th, 2009 - 11:34
Although you portray it in your simplistic way as being racist, being anti-minarets is rather low on the racistometer, somewhat akin to not wanting women to cover their faces. Modern minarets are, by and large, ugly and unnecessary, and if a community doesn't want one to be built in its area, it shouldn't be shamed into having one.
November 30th, 2009 - 11:36
Electroweb, if it were about architecture then the posters against the minarets – have you seen them? do look them up – would not have likened them to missiles strewn across the Swiss flag while a dark figure of a veiled woman looms over. That imagery is hardly about architecture.
And even if it *were* about architecture, I would suggest that you look up historic pictures of Mostar or Sarajevo where churches, both Greek and Roman, display the beauty of their artistic tradition next to mosques and minarets. They're gorgeous and go rather well together aesthetically. Now, of course, that the ex-Yu war has torn all that asunder, you can see what things look like when they're kept apart. Not as pretty a picture, is it?
November 30th, 2009 - 11:43
Adrian: I don't like church bells every Sunday. Should I be allowed to ban churches? I might think they're ugly and unnecessary, but do I have the right to prevent their freedom of expression because it annoys me?
November 30th, 2009 - 11:55
There is no doubt that there is an element of religious intolerance in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq. I get really annoyed when I read complete wankers saying that Muslims wish to ban things like Christmas over here. If these fuckwits bothered to do a tiny bit of research, they'd find out that in even countries like Iran, people are allowed the freedom to celebrate Christmas and in places like Dubai they have huge malls with twinkly light shows of the sort you rarely see over here.
November 30th, 2009 - 11:57
Couldn't agree more – most of the coment pages I look at, esp have Your Say, are lately dominated by comments like this.
Great comment by Jicky – they dominate the debate because that's exactly what they're used to doing.
November 30th, 2009 - 12:04
Anton: several communities have complained about church bells, and although I don't think any church has been forced to stop them being rung, some have (rightly) reduced the amount of bell-ringing.
November 30th, 2009 - 12:40
If it was just about architecture, surely it could safely be left to the Swiss version of planning regulations? By making it a nationwide referendum, the intent is obviously to send a message, and from what I've heard, they basically state as much quite openly.
November 30th, 2009 - 12:50
There is also a difference between moving next door to a church that has rung bells for a century, and objecting to the installation of bells into churches and or the building of something else that is going to be noisy, be that a new church with bells, a minaret broadcasting the call to prayer or Richard Dawkins with a megaphone.
Now, I'm not saying that racism hasn't come into the argument – either on HYS or on Swiss posters (which I assume are not official – more some racists hijacking the campaign).
But I can fully understand why they don't want minarets popping up in Zurich. And frankly, I'd like to see a ban in central York, Bath and old town Edinburgh and anywhere in the Cotswolds. You rightly point out that Mostar and Sarajevo have a melting pot of religious architecture. Indeed they do and many cities owe their charm to the hotch-potch of historical styles. But some owe their charm to hegemony and picture-postcard scenes. If you built a new mosque next to the Charles Bridge in Prague, or a replica of Salisbury cathedral next to the Pyramids of Giza it would look odd and out of place and ruin the character. Some might even call it a bit crass and tasteless.
Is there a law against building new mosques? No, there isn't. Therefore it seems to me to be about buildings and not religion or religious worship.
November 30th, 2009 - 13:53
really good post. i was open mouthed watching this on the news last night.
the problem with things like Have your Say and even CIF is they get dominated by these particualr voices because people like me who disagree with the sentiments expressed find it too tiring to argue back…lazy i know but i just can't bear to engage in a debate with them.
and yes, these "silent majority" people seem to talk very loudly about how renegade they are, when in fact they are status quo, frightened rabbits.
i hate this "white middle class men" are the underdog attitude.
November 30th, 2009 - 13:57
It's the absolute idiocy of these people that can't be matched.
"I would love to vote on a set of standards that visitors must abide by"
There's already a set of standards, it's called the law.
November 30th, 2009 - 14:12
To be honest, I think this ban is a good thing. If only we could now get rid of ALL religious symbols. Ahh, the world would be a great place!
November 30th, 2009 - 14:40
If it was about buildings than surely they could treat it on a case by case basis, and not via a 'Ok let's ban building them completely now' approach.
And if it is about buildings, can we have referendums whenever someone wants to inflict some new building monstrosity on us over here.
November 30th, 2009 - 15:48
When i was a teenager i visited the ancient mosque in Cordoba, Spain.
It was beautiful, but what striked me the most was, even though, the inquisition began there, and the persecutions against muslims were rife after the reconquest, they didn't strike it down, or attempted to blot away the memory of it. But quite the opposite they preserved it and built a Catholic Church literally next to it, without walls seperating the two buildings.
For bloody sake! If Spanish Inquisitors tolerated mosques right next to their churches in the dark ages, then how come people in the 21st century, who are supposedly more "enlightened" can't.
November 30th, 2009 - 15:48
Why do we keep calling discrimination against Islam and it's adherents 'racism' when Islam isn't associated with any race, in theory or practise?
In this case we don't even have to stretch to 'xenophobia'; 'bigotry' will do nicely.
November 30th, 2009 - 16:50
To be fair, I think that the Swiss are possibly worried about the dangers posed by militant Islam, especially their record of Women's rights. (The fact that Switzerland only finally gave women the vote in 1971 is of course an irrelevance!)
November 30th, 2009 - 18:57
I'm really quite disappointed with this article. It's the same old chesnut of confusing culture with race in order to shout Racist at anyone believes that some cultures are better than others – Enlightened ones, for example, believe in equal rights, Islamic culture, on the other hand, believes in gender oppression.
The Swiss people, like everyone living in a governed country, are born into a social contract. They have no choice but to pay taxes and live by the laws and regulations of that country, and are only permitted to leave at the whim of that country.
Anything which allows them to have a say in the social "contract" is a good thing – A really good thing. Referendums that allow a people to govern themselves are applaudable pieces of democracy in action.
No amount of shouting racist will disguise the fact that you're calling for a people to be denied a voice on how their land is run.
And as for the whole no-platform agenda for anyone who disagrees with you, the recent successes of the BNP after years of no-platforming is a testament to how ineffectual it is, and that's realpolitik, not even touching on how illiberal it is.
2/10
November 30th, 2009 - 19:06
Hello Pavlov's cat. Can you point to where I advocated No Platform?
0/10
November 30th, 2009 - 19:08
to be fair…
to be fair bollox!
it ws only militant palistinians the isrealis were worried about in gaza.
i think the phrase runs along the lines of 'collective punishment'
November 30th, 2009 - 19:31
"visitors to our country"
That's "visitors to our country"
Why the need for such a divisive and simplistic statement of national identity in a discussion purely about town planning? This is classic us / them reductionism, a large component part of what is commonly understood as racism.
Great post, by the way.
November 30th, 2009 - 21:50
Electroweb: Just so you know, there is a minaret in Edinburgh Old Town. And as it goes, I think it looks really nice. What's wrong with architectural diversity?
Not that the Swiss campaign was about architectural diversity. Great post. Spot on.
November 30th, 2009 - 22:15
isn't one of the primary duties of the state to prevent the tyranny of the majority over the minority?
or something along those lines?
November 30th, 2009 - 23:32
"Why do we keep calling discrimination against Islam and it's adherents 'racism' when Islam isn't associated with any race, in theory or practise?"
Well, even if we ignore the fact that the political tendencies (and, often, the same people) that used to complain about 'Pakis' are the ones who are most virulently anti-Muslim/anti-Islam, anti-Muslim/anti-Islam bigotry becomes indistinguishable from racism when Islam is racialised; when opposition to Islam is grounded on demographic terms, when Islam is imagined by its opponents not as a belief system but an inter-generational constant. Which is exactly what so much of the 'Enlightened' European anti-Islam/anti-Muslim thought boils down to.
November 30th, 2009 - 23:44
Anton, you question "what these debates achieve" and the BBC's motivation for allowing comments to "be swamped".
I find it unlikely the BBC moderate in favour of the far right, so I assume the comments aren't moderated at all.
Your article hinges on questioning the morality of the BBC's actions. So, I think it can be safely inferred you prefer a no platform policy, or censorship in favour of a more balanced comments section – which comes down to imposing rules on a public forum supported by taxpayers?
December 1st, 2009 - 00:04
So you've failed to find the bit where I advocated a no-platform policy then. Keep trying and you might find it in there somewhere.
Do you honestly think there are no rules on the BBC forum as it stands? Why don't you actually go over there and see the extensive rules for BBC HYS debates? I'm not imposing rules on them – there are already loads there, as you would see, had you actually looked.
It's ridiculous to assume that editorial decisions aren't made as regards content, particularly when that content is supplied by readers; or that any attempt to impose editorial control would equate to 'no platform'.
Since you bring up the public funding, I question the value I'm getting out of my licence fee in having the BBC provide a regular forum for extremists. ITV don't do it on their website – why should the BBC? Or are ITV therefore 'no platform' in your eyes? I mean, they haven't said they are and they'd probably deny it, but that won't stop you, will it?
December 1st, 2009 - 01:13
ITV are a private company so that's a bunk analogy – They would do very well to be No Platform and generally keep their nose clean.
And these people you refer to as "Extremists" happen to be the British Public.
Also, I'll own up to making a mistake here and using shitty iPhone keyboard in my previous post, I meant moderated at all in favour of a political bias beyond the usual "All of X must die" bans.
In your worldview, the HYS forum – Run by a leftist, state funded BBC that's very pro-multicultural bloc, a forum run very much by people with the same political slant as you – Is somehow a forum for "Extremists."
It's a forum for the public. The public pay and make use of it. Your, as far as I can tell, inferred arguement is that it should be censored in favour of the greater good, in favour of providing better balance.
I put forward to you, before I get a sane amount of sleep and leave you the final word, that taking a step towards balanced editorial control is censorship, and is the first step on a very short road towards no-platforming, and denying people a democratic voice in a forum they have paid for.
I also find your disgust at the British public quite disquieting. The comments on the HYS forum are the results of people who are fearful of their culture – Let's not forget, a white and if not christian, at least enlightened culture – Being eroded. They are not racists. They are people who are scared of their national identity being swept away by a religion that takes pains to present itself as militant. To label middle class, secular, well educated humanist folk who in all likelihood find the idea of making a Sieg Heil towards a genocidal policy physically abhorrent as "racist extremists" is simply barking up the wrong tree.
Hating the BNP is one thing, labelling everyday people as genocidal nutters is quite another.
For the record, Godwins law was broken by your post title. I believe there's a latin phrase for reducing an arguement to absurdity.
Goodnight.
December 1st, 2009 - 09:20
Pavlov, I don't think we're going to agree on this and you're frankly in danger of becoming a bit tiresome and trolling. I think it's a fundamentally bad thing for a publically funded broadcaster to provide a forum in which almost every single discussion is skewed in favour of a shouty load of people who often have extreme views. Yes, they're the 'British public' but so are British people with fundamentalist Islamist views and I'd be pretty pissed off to see them dominating every discussion on the BBC forums; I wouldn't blithely think, oh well, at least the BBC haven't committed the terrible sin of exercising editorial control, so everything's jolly lovely.
Ah yes, but people are afraid of their 'enlightened' culture being 'eroded'. Yes, I think I start to see where this is going.
December 1st, 2009 - 11:19
How does being part of "the British public" put someone above contempt?
Wordveri: lowleg
April 4th, 2010 - 17:37
They don’t seem to understand that the fact that the UK has cultural diversity and Saudi Arabia etc doesn’t makes the UK the BETTER PLACE TO LIVE. It’s not that complicated. While we’re on the subject, Switzerland does has more direct democracy than Britain, but it has resulted in more widespread apathy. A tiny minority of the population dictate laws by which the rest of the country have to be represented. In Switzerland it is illegal (or has been at one point) to flush a toilet after a certain time at night, because of noise pollution. Just because it’s law, doesn’t mean it’s right.