Dec. 10, p. 6
It took me by surprise that news of the ban on erecting minaret, passed recently through a referendum in Switzerland, has stirred scant attention and comment among Muslims, including in Indonesia.
It seems that news on the recent bank scandal that has plagued the country over the last few months has overwhelmed Muslims in Jakarta and other major cities in Indonesia.
As I perused national and local newspapers, comments by Muslim figures were hardly heard on this “incident” in Switzerland, neither in electronic and nor print media.
The ban itself might not qualify as an “explosive” issue that strikes the Muslim nerve. Apparently, the incident pales in comparison to the Salman Rushdie affair, for instance.
However, the fear circulating in Switzerland right after the referendum is that it will provoke an aggressive response from the Muslim world, as people learned from the past incident of the Danish cartoon on the Prophet Muhammad. (By Ulil Abshar Abdalla, Contributor, Jakarta)
Your comments:
Why don’t more people write
like this?
J. Parsons
UK
Indonesian Muslims should see that while Islam is trying to survive in Europe, through the many cases of injustice.
Yet the same thing is happening here, like the burning of churches around the archipelago and the difficult procedures to build new churches.
Mohammad Ali
Jakarta
The reason why Muslims countries aren’t making a fuss about the ban is that they don’t want the West to say: If you want to complain about Switzerland, then what about what is going on in Muslims countries.
Herly
Denpasar
Wouldn’t it be nice if “freedom of religion” was also a common phrase in the Islamic world? And it was possible for Christians to build churches there? Right now, it isn’t.
You try building a Christian church in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on. Maybe in the backs of their mind, people in “Muslim countries” are aware of this. And maybe that’s the reason they are only reacting in a mild way? I hope so. And if so, we are halfway on the road to understanding. It takes two to tango.
Jan van Dam
The Netherlands
I still think it is due to ignorance from the people that voted for the ban. There’s a lot of ignorance here too from the majority of people, maybe even worse than what they have there in Switzerland.
Ryan Octavianus
Jakarta
The indignation of the Grand Mufti of Cairo is surprising, as it is not possible to build a Christian church (never mind a steeple!) in Egypt.
Andre S.
Canada
