Comments | azureowl: Surprising? I think not

azureowl

Surprising? I think not

Nov 30, 2009 23:03

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8386456.stm

"In Switzerland the soul-searching has begun following Sunday's nationwide referendum in which voters surprisingly backed a plan to ban the construction of minarets ( Read more... )

Comments 12

spuzbal December 1 2009, 00:36:14 UTC

Seriously. Though I didn't realize there were Western countries that took even longer to grant women's suffrage. Who the hell were they?

Also, there were two cantons that didn't let women vote till the 90s? Did I understand that correctly? Did they just oppose it in their rhetoric, or was it actually still forbidden for women to vote in those cantons? I had no idea about that.

azureowl December 1 2009, 05:55:15 UTC

I think Liechtenstein was last one

Either one or two, not sure on that, but one of the Appenzell's was forced by the Swiss Supreme Court to give suffrage in the 90's

Switzerland is basically Germany's retarded dude-bro cousin

spuzbal December 1 2009, 06:12:00 UTC

Wow. Mind blown.

spuzbal December 1 2009, 06:22:40 UTC

P.S. Have you seen this fucking photo?

( ... )

Thread 5

Surprising? I think not anonymissity December 1 2009, 00:36:48 UTC

What's a minaret?

Re: Surprising? I think not footnotefetish December 1 2009, 01:28:21 UTC

Minarets are architectural flourishes that top mosques.

Re: Surprising? I think not azureowl December 1 2009, 05:56:44 UTC

Bonus propaganda photo!

( ... )

footnotefetish December 1 2009, 01:31:31 UTC

That's a good point about Switzerland's egregiously slow acceptance of women's suffrage. In light of that, the fact that any other kind of bigotry could get a foothold in the country is not surprising. Hopefully it's challenged.

azureowl December 1 2009, 05:59:55 UTC

The problem is, if that gets challenged, it'll be viewed as a threat to Switzerland's democracy. If the ban gets put in that position, it might make tensions even worse because then the campaigners for it will say, "See? We were right about minarets threatening democracy here."

footnotefetish December 1 2009, 16:51:35 UTC

Yeah, the problem is that we're living in a time when more and more people think of democracy as rule by majority opinion--not as protecting the rights of a minority from that majority. So it's "democratic" to let the majority vote on whether or not LGBTQ people should marry, and it's "democratic" to let a non-Muslim majority vote on whether or not Muslims should be able to construct minarets.

DUDE anonymissity December 1 2009, 16:25:10 UTC

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/swiss_vote_down_new_minarets?utm_source=onion_rss_daily