Interesting article about Islamic people and Europe and the recent Swiss vote on banning minarets.  Article poses a lot of challenges that they face.  From the article, it doesn’t seem like this is an issue that Europe wants to face directly. They have ignored the issue at times and hoped that it would go away.

But the Swiss, who are neutral, took a very strong position on the issue of minarets.  This is especially sad, coming from a country that many consider the first “real” democracy in the world.  The citizens are able to vote on bills like this, unlike in the US and other countries.  So this vote does not just represent the views of the old, white men in their government, but rather the population as a whole.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks and months with this issue.  But it will be interesting to see how the European Union and Switzerland handle deal with a growing Muslim population.