these things make me sad

All of this seems more than counterproductive to me, this kind of prejudice just pushed moderate people to be extremists. It breeds anger and hate along completely irrational lines. How a person dresses, what buildings look like, and even our actions only point to the larger problem of having flawed and broken hearts.



The New York Times

November 30, 2009
Swiss Ban Building of Minarets on Mosques
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and STEVEN ERLANGER

GENEVA — In a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam and undermined the country’s reputation for religious tolerance, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, in a referendum drawn up by the far right and opposed by the government.

The referendum, which passed with a clear majority of 57.5 percent of the voters and in 22 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, was a victory for the right. The vote against was 42.5 percent. Because the ban gained a majority of votes and passed in a majority of the cantons, it will be added to the Constitution.

The Swiss Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but the rightist Swiss People’s Party, or S.V.P., and a small religious party had proposed inserting a single sentence banning the construction of minarets, leading to the referendum.

The Swiss government said it would respect the vote and sought to reassure the Muslim population — mostly immigrants from other parts of Europe, like Kosovo and Turkey — that the minaret ban was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.”

Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the justice minister, said the result “reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies.”

While such concerns “have to be taken seriously,” she said in a statement, “The Federal Council takes the view that a ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies.”

The government must now draft a supporting law on the ban, a process that could take at least a year and could put Switzerland in breach of international conventions on human rights.

Of 150 mosques or prayer rooms in Switzerland, only 4 have minarets, and only 2 more minarets are planned. None conduct the call to prayer. There are about 400,000 Muslims in a population of some 7.5 million people. Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, said Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Switzerland.

“Most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote,” said Farhad Afshar, who runs the Coordination of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland. “Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community.”

The Swiss vote reflected a growing anxiety about Islam, especially its more fundamentalist forms, in many countries of Western Europe. France, for example, has been talking about banning the full Islamic veil as a way to stop the influence of the more fundamentalist Salafist forms of Islam, popular among some of the young and also converts.

Pre-referendum polls had indicated a comfortable, if slowly shrinking, majority against the proposal, after a controversial campaign that played aggressively on the same fears of Muslim immigration and the spread of Islamic values that resonate in other parts of Europe.

Media Tenor International, which monitors television coverage, said that the main Swiss evening news programs tended to report about Islam “primarily in the context of terrorism and international conflict.” Representatives of Islam “were quoted only infrequently,” said the group’s president, Roland Schatz.

“That Switzerland, a country with a long tradition of religious tolerance and the provision of refuge to the persecuted, should have accepted such a grotesquely discriminatory proposal is shocking,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International’s deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia.

Campaign posters depicting a Swiss flag sprouting black, missile-shaped minarets alongside a woman shrouded in a niqab, a head-to-toe veil that shows only the eyes, starkly illustrated the determination of the right to play on deep-rooted fears that Muslim immigration would lead to an erosion of Swiss values.

In a recent televised debate, Ulrich Schlüer, a member of Parliament from the S.V.P., said minarets were a symbol of “the political will to take power” and establish Shariah, or religious law.

He also claimed that Switzerland already suffered from thousands of forced marriages.

That debate prompted the government to mount a public relations campaign overseas to try to avoid a backlash like the one Denmark faced in Islamic countries after a newspaper published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and to avoid damage to lucrative commercial and banking ties with wealthy Muslims.

Muslim leaders have tried to keep out of the spotlight and to avoid internationalizing the issue, shunning interviews with most news outlets from Muslim countries, according to Youssef Ibram, an imam at Geneva’s main mosque and Islamic Cultural Foundation.

Still, the campaign was accompanied by sporadic shows of hostility. Last week, vandals threw stones and a pot of paint at Geneva’s main mosque.

In an interview before the referendum, Mr. Ibram said that whatever the outcome of the vote, Muslims would lose out from a campaign that had played on fears of Islam and exposed deep-seated opposition to their community among many Swiss.

Nick Cumming-Bruce reported from Geneva, and Steven Erlanger from Paris.


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

14 years

As I look through my fourth grade year book I find it almost refreshing how much I cant remember.

The Book of Romance by Tommy Nelson

This is also framed as a quasi-commentary on the Song of Songs (which is precisely why I was reading it now) and Nelson also focuses more on application than in depth study (hence the quasi) however I find more sense in the ideas put forth.

While I may not agree with all of his propositions they are largely issues not relevant to the points being made.

One thing I really appreciate is the distinction he draws between dating and courting considering them equally valuable but for different purposes. The case he makes for the inclusion of both in the way we do Romance is compelling.

I would absolutely recommend it, but you may want to skip the Honeymoon chapter because he is not bashful when explaining the meaning behind the metaphor.

Marriage is a Commitment by Dr. Jack Hyles

This is a book I cannot recommend. While there are moments where Dr.Hyles seems to be onto something they are lost in his explanations. He seems to contradict himself(like suggesting married folks ought not have friends outside of each other but they should do hobbies apart to stay interesting to one another - who are you supposed to be engaging in these activities with?) and say things that I find simply wrong (like that you should hold back from your spouse so that you remain interesting and ignore the Biblical mandate of oneness while building his case on the surrounding verses). He frames his advice as a quasi-commentary on Song of Songs while drawing out ideas that have no grounding in the text itself.

Again I concede that some of his points are worth considering but I really dont know that it is worth wading through the garble and slush. There are other marriage books out there.

Lately I have been Studying the Song of Songs. Its meaning is not agreed upon and I cannot pretend to fully understand it but it is beautifully composed

I dont have many bad

I dont have many bad days at work but today was one.

Books I have recently read or am in the process of reading

For less than half my

For less than half my budget I bought over half of my groceries (and some good impulses) . I heart grocery safari!

I abandoned deep theology for

I abandoned deep theology for the simple applications of "Brown Like Coffee" and it is just what I needed.

Nothing like a weekend with

Nothing like a weekend with a toddler to give a solid dose of emotional birth control. Even a sweet one like Monet will get you ragged.

Since we dont have internet

Since we dont have internet at our apartment I am going to take a go at updating this via text. They will have to stay short and....

psalms

I am a huge fan of Jon Acuff's blogging and often it gets me thinking ... I don't usually comment because I feel like it is silly since if it is read, it is most likely read by people who don't know me.

You may not know me, but it is much more likely that you do, so I thought this would be a better place to post such things.

Today he asked what books of the bible terrify you and I replied James didn't (a fact I credit in part to John Fooshe - one of my high school youth pastors as it was his unapologetic favorite) but sometimes the psalms terrify me.

They are emotional and so human - and lets be honest some of the sentiments expressed are more than shocking in their violence and self righteousness. Really what scares me about the psalms is how they are so many of the things I fear.

I may be one of the most obscenely emotional people on the planet - I definitely feel that way sometimes. And I hate it. Not for good reasons, not even for particularly logical reasons but I do.

And the psalms are chock full of emotion, and they don't always make sense (which I suppose is true of much of the bible) and they are pretty and popular (and lets be real I have some unfortunate trouble liking popular things).

But even as I type this I am reminded of the things I learned from Lewis' Reflections on the Psalms and from Dr. Judge's class and I have to say there is a lot of good there (funny how that happens in the bible).

True Words from Lee and Acuff

"I think, as humans, we miss God. Alot. Our sinful nature hides Him from us... God isn't hiding, maybe just I am." Erin

Really you could say we have always been hiding - we just found new fig leaves.

Other Relevant Thoughts

My life and readings

Life and wedding planning are coming along well. Apparently I will be Mrs. Fox in 61 days - that is a little daunting but exciting.

We have been trying to find a place to live. We found one we both like but we have a few places left to check out before we commit officially. Life feels weird, transitions are like that I suppose.

I haven't been reading as much as I would like, but here are my recent completions

Feb 17 - Crazy Love by Francis Chan
It was a phenomenal book. I would recommend it unflinchingly because he addresses issues where we are not living as the church ought, but he does it from a place of love. Loving the church and the reader - not just pointing to specks.

Feb 26- Ish by Peter Reynolds
It doesn't really count toward my goal of reading 3 books a month since it is a kids book (in the way curious gorge is not in the way that Narnia is) but it is also wonderful. It is basically about a boy giving himself the freedom to create. I want to own this someday - and read it often.

Mar 10 - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
My first reaction is merely to sigh. Jane Austen somehow manages to run the entirety of my emotions through a ringer - even though there is never a moment where you can doubt the ultimate happiness of her main characters. The circumstances are not suspenseful, no one's life is ever in any real jeopardy and yet there were moments were I could not read more than a page or two without having to stop in utter consternation and overflowing emotion (of course I found myself at those pages while in the company of my fiancee and his 18 year old brother and they were not sympathetic to my plight) . Personally I think Jane Austen is brilliant beyond reason. You don't have to agree with me, but I love her.


Keeping up with my photoblog has been going pretty well (largely because I discovered the joy of scheduled posts, which are perfect for people who don't necessarily get online daily) - I am rediscovering how much beauty the world holds and that is lovely. I am even entering a piece from the beginning of the year in a juried show in Anderson - so we shall see how that goes.

Two goals

I have made it my goal to update my photoblog daily (and the others at least monthly - but I have said that before). It is my way of pretending I am using my degree.

I have also made it my goal to read at least three books a month since graduation. I haven't precisely succeeded so far but I have read

Dec 16 - Porn Nation by Michael Leahy
An interesting read where one man discusses how he progressed from porn to sexual addiction and the havoc that played on his life.

Dec 24 - An Acceptable Time by Madeline L'Engle
It was a good bit of fiction. L'Engle has interesting ways of playing with time and seems to have an awkward relationship with the idea of the noble savage because on the one hand she refutes it, then tries to create the one exception to it with the People of the Wind. A general trend I have seen in her fiction is that she seems torn between ideas that don't seem (at least to me) to fully play out together, but they are still great stories.

Jan 5 - The Four Loves by CS Lewis
Of course I loved it. As the title suggests it is a look at the different ways we love, where those loves come from and how they affect us. It raised good questions and answered unspoken anxieties. I like Lewis so it is no surprise that I liked it.

Jan 22 - Confessions of the Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
I LOVED IT SO MUCH! Oh malanta, I personally think he is a genius in the way he crafts a shockingly convincing and realistic back story to one of the most well known and re-fitted fairy tales. It was phenomenal, set in Holland among painters during tulip mania. I really can't stop geeking out about it, I plan to re-read it soon. Although maybe I should just watch the movie '-P

Feb 4 - The Voice of Matthew by Laura Winner
Winner translates/paraphrases the gospel of Matthew (the gospel written for Jews) from her perspective as a Messianic Jew as part of the voice project (which recognizes that the bible is filled with books written by different people and is trying to translate the books in a way that allows that individuality to remain). It was good to just sit and let the story of Jesus soak in with new language and thinking about nuances I hadn't previously.

Feb 8 - His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harely Jr.
This is the book Chris and I were given for premarital counseling. I gulped it down in part because I didn't like it at all in the beginning. I am still not sure that I like it, but I think it will be a good place to begin discussions and it surely brings up some of the awkward and/or unpleasant things that Chris and I might not have gotten around to talking about on our own (which is kind of the point of premarital counseling).

Right now I am reading "Batman and Philosophy" and Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" and I am loving them both ....

Commands - not suggestions

I think we like to soften Jesus. We like to take his commands and make them optional, turn his "when you" statements to "if you"

But Jesus doesn't say if you pray, if you fast, if you give to the needy. Those things aren't optional, he just clarifies how to do them well. (see Matthew 6)

juststopandthink.com

"Right now you and I are standing on a giant ball that's spinning at a thousand miles an hour. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird? The fact that we're flying around this ball of fire that is about a million times our size. We're flying around this thing at 67,000 miles an hour, and we go, eh its just another day." Francis Chan

A New Year ...

It is a new year. Newer still because I have graduated with my bachlors in art - perhaps an unimpressive degree but it marks a transition in life none the less.

The holidays where good in spite of all of the working and running around. It was good to take a go at compromising on Christmas traditions with Chris, it was very good to have different people in and out of my house all of the time. And even though I kind of resented it sometimes, it was good to be working.

In this transitional time I want to read more and listen more. To take walks for the sake of walking. To be ok with being alone and to actually return phone calls. I want to pursue photography without being bound up by my fears and to trust God with this whole weird engagement thing.

Call them resolutions if you want (although I won't) but I do want to be intentional with my time, especially in a phase of life where it would be very easy to just get by and have nothing to show for these years when the mythical future morphs into the annoyingly unavoidable present.