Home
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Stumble Upon
Technorati
Mixx
Sphinn
Twitter
SphereIt
Propeller
Gmarks
Newsvine
Yahoo! My Web
Live Journal
Blinklist
E-mailIn recent years, Switzerland has seen the rise of a xenophobic Right. Of course, like nearly all European nations the country has long had an extreme-right faction but the last few years has seen a once dormant movement rise to relative heights. The cause: European Islamophobia. The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) seeks to stroke worries about Muslims. The party claims that Muslims in Switzerland want nothing but the Islamization of Swiss society. Though unfounded, these fears are shared by a many Swiss and have contributed to electoral success for the SVP (the party still remains a very small minority faction, however). The SVP is unabashed in its racism. A campaign ad in 2007 did not even portray opposition to Muslims being rooted in opposition of Islam, but simply a question of race:
Ironically most Muslims in Switzerland - 400,000 - are not Black or Olive-skinned Arabs and Berbers, but Bosnian, Albanians and Turks of whom the former two are identical in facial features to the Swiss. The point of the SVP ad, I believe, is not that Muslims are Black but that Christian Swiss are the pure “White” people and all Muslims the “Black” welcomed “Other.”
A favorite of the European far-right is rallying opposition against the construction of Mosques. In the effort, the small Swiss town of Langenthal has provided a new opportunity to showcase the SVP’s intolerance.
Home to 14,000 people, 8% of Langenthal’s population is Muslim according to town mayor Thomas Rufener. While there are 11 churches in Langenthal, not a single Mosque exists.
The town Muslim community is committed to building such a Mosque and in doing so brought on its head the SVP’s propaganda machine. The SVP claims it does not want to ban Mosques per se, but only minarets in all Mosques because, it claims, they represent not only Muslim aspiration to dominate the country and a threat to the Swiss constitution (that constitution, by the way, did not even give women the right to vote until 1970).
The town has become representative of the debate about Muslims in Europe.
Ulrich Schüler, an SVP MP, stated: “They are symbols of a desire for power, of an Islam which wants to establish a legal and social order fundamentally contrary to the liberties guaranteed in our constitution.” This is unfounded racism against Muslims. Most Muslims come from secular countries where sharia law is non-existence. Turkey, Bosnia and Albania are all secular democracies. And they all give women the right to vote and run for office long before the Swiss did. Turkey has had a female prime minister, Switzerland has yet to.
The heart of the SVP is nothing but historical Western, predominantly Christian, opposition to Islam. Muslims do not pose a threat to Swiss life and their culture is not antithetical to it. This is just a campaign of vilification by White supremacists.
Fortunately all mainstream Swiss parties have endorsed the Mosques and the local town council has given its approval both for a high dome and minaret. The Mosques is expected to be able to house 100 people in time for Ramadan.
RSS 
There is a belief among ethnic minority parens that the British schooling does not adequatly address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response.
State schools with monolingual teachers are not capable to teach English to bilingual Muslim children. Bilingual teachers are needed to teach English to such children along with their mother tongue. According to a number of studies, a child will not learn a second language if his first language is ignored.
Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Muslims
have the right to educate their children in an environment that suits their culture. This notion of ”integration”, actually means ”assimilation”, by which people generally really mean ”be more like me”. That is not multiculturalism. In Sydney, Muslims were refused to build a Muslim school, because of a protest by the residents. Yet a year later, permission was given for the building of a Catholic school and no protests from the residents. This clrearly shows the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and racism. Christians oppose Muslim schools in western countries yet build their own religious schools.
British schooling and the British society is the home of institutional racism. The result is that Muslim children are unable to develop self-confidence and self-esteem, therefore, majority of them leave schools with low grades. Racism is deeply rooted in British society. Every native child is born with a gene or virus of racism, therefore, no law could change the attitudes of racism towards those who are different. It is not only the common man, even member of the royal family is involved in racism. The father of a Pakistani officer cadet who was called a ”Paki” by Prince Harry has profoundly condemned his actions. He had felt proud when he met the Queen and the Prince of Wales at his son’s passing out parade at Sandhurst in 2006 but now felt upset after learning about the Prince’s comments. Queen Victoria invited an Imam from India to teach her Urdu language. He was highly respected by the Queen but other members of the royal family had no respect for him. He was forced to go back to India. His portrait is still in one of the royal place.
There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools with bilingual Muslim teachers. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.
Iftikhar Ahmad
www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk