North of Berne, in an idyllic Alpine valley, cowbells tinkle, a church steeple rises, and window boxes tumble with geraniums. It has always been like this.
But down by the railway station the 21st century is rudely intruding and the villagers of Wangen are upset.
”It’s the noise, and all the cars. You should see it on a Friday night,” complains Roland Kissling, a perfume buyer for a local cosmetics company. ”I’ve got nothing against mosques, or even against minarets. But in the city. Not in this village. It’s just not right.”
The target of Kissling’s ire is a nondescript house belonging to the region’s Turkish immigrant community. The basement is a prayer room where hundreds of Muslims gather every week for Friday rites.
And in a case that has gone all the way to Switzerland’s Supreme Court, setting a keenly watched precedent, the Turks of Wangen have just won the right to erect a 6m-high minaret.
But if Ulrich Schluer has his way the Wangen minaret will be toppled. An MP from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, Schluer has launched a crusade to keep his country culturally Christian.
”Unlike other religions,” he argues, ”Islam is not only a religion. It’s an ideology aiming to create a different legal system. That’s sharia. That’s a big problem and in a proper democracy it has to be tackled. If the politicians don’t, the people will.”
Switzerland’s direct democracy rules require referendums if there is enough public support. Schluer has launched a petition demanding a new clause in the Swiss Constitution stating: ”The building of minarets in Switzerland is forbidden.” He already has 40 000 signatures. If, as expected, he reaches 100 000 by this time next year a referendum is automatically triggered.
”We’ve got nothing against prayer rooms or mosques for the Muslims,” he insists. ”But a minaret is different. It’s got nothing to do with religion. It’s a symbol of political power.”
The native backlash has begun. And not just in Switzerland. ”It seems our experience here is resonating across Europe,” says a Swiss official in Berne.
”Culture clashes” over Muslim religious buildings have erupted in Italy, Austria, Germany and The Netherlands.
”Christian fundamentalists are behind this,” says Reinhard Schulze, professor of Islamic studies at Berne University. ”And there’s also a lot of money coming in from the Gulf states.”
From London’s docklands to the rolling hills of Tuscany, from southern Austria to Amsterdam and Cologne, the issue of Islamic architecture and its impact on citadels of ”Western civilisation” is increasingly contentious.
The far right is making capital from Islamophobia by focusing on the visible symbols of Islam in Europe. In Switzerland it is the far-right SVP that is setting the terms of the debate.
”This is mainly about Swiss politics,” says Schulze, ”a conflict between the right and the left to decide who runs the country … Islam [is] a pretext.”
Next door in Austria the far-right leader Jorg Haider is also calling for a ban in his province of Carinthia, even though there are few Muslims and no known plans for mosques. ”Carinthia,” he said, ”will be a pioneer in the battle against radical Islam for the protection of our dominant Western culture.”
In Italy the mayors of Bologna and Genoa last month cancelled or delayed planning permission for mosques after a vociferous campaign by the far-right Northern League, one of whose leaders, Roberto Calderoli, threatened to stage a ”day of pork” to offend Muslims and to take pigs to ”defile” the site of the proposed mosque in Bologna.
While the far right makes the running, their noisy campaign is being supported more quietly by mainstream politicians and some Christian leaders. And on the left pro-secularist and anti-clericalist sentiment is also frequently ambivalent about Islamic building projects. Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne has voiced his unease over a large new mosque being built for the city’s 120 000 Muslims in the Rhineland Roman Catholic stronghold. A similar scheme in Munich has also faced local protests.
This opposition is on a collision course with an Islam that is now the fastest-growing religion in Europe and which is clamouring for its places of worship to be given what it sees as a rightful and visible place in west European societies.
”Islam is coming out of the backyards. It’s a trend you see everywhere in Europe,” says Thomas Schmitt, a Bonn University geographer studying conflicts over mosques in Germany.
Estimated at about 18-million and growing, the Muslims of western Europe have long worshipped in prayer rooms hidden away from public view. Their growing self-confidence, though, is reflected in plans for the Abbey Mills mosque, Britain’s biggest, in east London, which is intended to have a capacity of 40 000.
Last month there were scuffles at the site of the Westermoskee in west Amsterdam. A Dutch government minister broke ground for building one of The Netherlands’ biggest mosques last year. But the project is mired in controversy and may not be completed.
In Berne, the Swiss capital, the city authorities have just denied permission to turn a disused abattoir into Europe’s biggest Islamic cultural centre, a £40-million complex with a mosque, a museum on Islam, a hotel, offices and conference halls.
Schmitt says by hiring leading architects to build impressive mosques that alter the appearance of European cities Muslims are making a commitment to the societies in which they live. ”This is a sign of normalisation, of integration.”
But in Wangen, that message falls on deaf ears. ”First it was a cultural centre, then a prayer room, and now a minaret,” says Kissling. ”It’s salami tactics. The next thing it will be loudspeakers and the calls to prayer will be echoing up and down the valley. Our children will ask ‘what did our fathers do’, and their answer will be — they did nothing.” — Â