Tuesday, October 06, 2009

That Racist Burqa

We reported last week on the Bayonets of Islam, i.e. minarets, and the upcoming referendum in Switzerland on a ban against the construction of minarets.

Minaret ban 2Now one of the posters (shown at right) used by the supporters of the minaret ban has been declared “racist” by the municipal authorities of Basel.

Look at the picture and tell me what’s “racist” about it. The burqa obscures all evidence of its wearer’s race — how do we know that the figure does not represent Helena Benaouda? The assumption that all Muslims are “brown” seems to me to be an insult to all Caucasian converts to the Religion of Peace, and is itself an example of racism.

Yes, the burqa and the minarets are black. Is that what makes it racist?

Does that mean that the colors of the Swiss flag insult both Native Americans and “persons of European background”?

Here’s the full tale of PC-MC insanity, as told by Swissinfo:

Anti-Minaret Poster Ruled Racist

Basel city authorities have banned as racist a poster which the right-wing People’s Party planned to use in its anti-minaret campaign.

The poster shows a woman in a burka and a Swiss flag pierced by minarets springing up out of the ground.

An initiative to forbid the construction of minarets in Switzerland comes to a nationwide vote on November 29.

A spokesman for the construction and traffic department of the half-canton of Basel City said the decision to ban it in publicly-owned spaces was based on a law against spreading racist ideologies or classing groups by ethnic, religious, cultural or physical characteristics.
- - - - - - - - -
The committee behind the anti-minaret initiative reacted angrily, describing the decision as “purely arbitrary, coming from the left,” and said it was an attack on free speech.

The chairman of the committee said they would fight the decision. He said the posters would go up on private ground and flyers would be distributed.

Meanwhile other cities are still undecided about what attitude to adopt towards this and other anti-minaret posters.

Lucerne, Zurich and Winterthur are waiting for an expert opinion of the Federal Commission against Racism before taking a decision.


Hat tip: C. Cantoni.

11 comments:

Homophobic Horse said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Homophobic Horse said...

It's not insane. The logic of PC is that the rightness or wrongness of an idea is measured by its social consequences and not by its objective truth.

While it is objectively true that Islam is a pernicious danger to Switzerland (i.e. Minarets shooting out the Swiss flag), the social consequences of that idea mean it is not true because it gives Swiss people a reason to be hostile to the Muslim foreigners.

In the PC pseudo reality, no one has a reason to be hostile or disapproving of anyone's group because they are all substantively equal.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

"based on a law against spreading racist ideologies or classing groups by ethnic, religious, cultural or physical characteristics."

Not only have the Swiss managed to outlaw a poster character they have also outlawed themselves and the entire human race.

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute. Did you say "based on a law against [...] classing groups by ethnic, religious, cultural or physical characteristics" ? If such a law really exists, it means Switzerland must be the most totalitarian country of all on the PC scale.

Obviously, it means it's illegal to speak or write about "Muslims", "classical music lovers", "obese people", "Blacks" or "the French".

Or "the Swiss", for that matter.

spackle said...

Ominous is the new "Racist".

Anonymous said...

classing groups by ethnic, religious, cultural or physical characteristics"

Amazing. I wonder how Swiss banks manage to identify their customers.

sheik yer'mami said...

Switzerland is mostly driven by the love for petro-dollars.

The almighty banks and the political stooges they push into positions of power will allow nothing to come between them.

Jedilson Bonfim said...

While mahoundianism is not a race, it's the only "religion" on the planet that actually reserves a position of inferiority for black people, regardless of whether or not they're mahoundians. Here, here, here and here are some examples of how it is so.

And, just so that we can once again remind ourselves of how hollow Buraq Arafat Saddam Hussein Osama's following words in his surrender speech at Al-Azhar "University", "And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality" truly ring, here's an additional excerpt on the topic of mahoundian racism against blacks from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's autobiography Infidel:

"All the girls at madrassah were white; I thought of them as white, and myself, for the first time, as black. They called Haweya (her sister) and I Abid, which meant slaves. Being called a slave – the racial prejudice this term conveyed – was a big part of what I hated in Saudi Arabia."

Anonymous said...

Calling any Swiss reader who might possibly be lurking here (or Switzerland-aware bloggers) : seriously now, it would be very helpful to have some insight on the content, scope and actual use of that law which prohibits "classing groups by ethnic, religious, cultural or physical characteristics".

Is that the exact wording ? What's the spirit of the law ? What court decisions have been taken on that basis ? Isn't there a huge potential for suppression of freedom there ? Isn't the scope of this law far broader than "anti-racist" laws of other countries ?

BigBird said...

Since I am lurking around here anyway, I might as well say something for once.

Lucerne, Zurich and Winterthur all decided in favor of letting the posters go up.

The Commission against racism did state to the press that while they have no legal ground to forbid the poster they would still like to see all citys ban the political advertisements for this initiative.
But since they have no real legal power and the citys can decide for themselves its not a huge deal.

Its no surprise to me that the commission made such a statement, basically using the charge of racism in the hope of persuading the authorities to take action against it, as this commission is a tool of the left to try and silence/slur the political opponent.
This way they don't have to deal with the inconvenient questions.
Long story short: They are a bunch of moonbats.

They said that its their opinion as well that the political party which supports this initiative (S.V.P.)is more dangerous to this country then islamisation which is complete and utter nonsense.

On a a brighter note: the decision to forbid those posters by the city of Basel has triggered a lot of uproar and criticism from people all over this country who angrily pointed out that this is nothing less then a flat out assault on freedom of speech.

In my opinion the authorities of Basel decided this way cause they are afraid of what might happen in their city when they allow these posters. - They have a lot of "youths" there too and don't want to provoke them.

You can find the official statement of the commission on their website

The website of the supporters can be found at minarette.ch Its available in german, french and italian.

Will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

BigBird said...

This here by the way is the actual text of the law translated into English by google:

Articles 261 to 1

Racial Discrimination

Those who publicly call against a person or group of persons because of their race, ethnicity or religion to be hatred or discriminated

who publicly disseminate ideologies, which are directed towards the systematic reduction or defamation of members of a race, ethnicity or religion,

who organize with the same goal propaganda campaigns, promoting or taking part,

who publicly, by word, writing, images, gestures, assault or otherwise a person or group of persons because of race, ethnicity or religion in a manner contrary to human dignity diminishes or discriminated against, or any of these reasons genocide or other crimes against humanity, deny or justify grossly downplayed seeks

who refuses to offer a benefit which is intended for the general public, to a person or group of persons because of race, ethnicity or religion,

shall be punished with imprisonment up to three years or a fine.