Europe:

The Dangerous Rise Of Anti-Islam Far-Right

In fear of 'Eurabia'?

Last Sunday, over 57 percent of Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of Muslim minarets. This vote is yet another sign of the rise of racist far-right European parties, which focus their agenda on anti-Islam and anti-immigration issues.

Minarets are turrets or towers attached on Mosques from where Muslims are called to prayer. Only four cantons in Switzerland rejected the proposal. Switzerland has four minarets, the new legislation would block any further construction of the edifice.

The country biggest political party, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) had forced the referendum on the government under Swiss electoral regulations allowing a referendum if at least 100,000 signatures are collected on a specific issue.

There are an estimated 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland in a country of 7.5 million people. A large fraction of the Muslim population is originally from Bosnia.

This trend of right-wing anti-Muslim intolerance is spreading elsewhere in Europe. In England it is anti-Pakistanis; in Germany it is anti-Turks; and in France anti-Arabs.

On Monday, far-right parties in France and the Netherlands called for referendums over minaret construction and other issues.

The Swiss referendum was strongly condemned across the Muslim world. In Indonesia, the vote was condemned and described as a manifestation of religious hatred. In Egypt, Mufti Alo Gomaa, the government key official in Islamic law, referred to the minaret ban as “an insult to Muslim across the world, and an attack on freedom of beliefs”. In Pakistan, Vice President Khurshid Ahmad said it “reflects extreme Islamophobia among people in the West”.

The rise of Islamophobia in Europe, just like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, will have the side effect of becoming the best recruiting tool for Islamic fundamentalists.

The US and NATO troops in Afghanistan will increasingly have two targets on their backs, the first one as an invader, the second one as a “Christian crusader”.


This wave of religious intolerance and xenophobia needs to be put in an historical context. The last time far-right parties all across Europe were building popular support on similar themes of racism and intolerance was in the 1930’s, with the Nazis in Germany and the fascists in Italy and ain.