The Glade 4.0

Minarets (, from Arabic manāra (lighthouse) منارة, usually مئذنة) are distinctive architectural features of Islamic mosques. Minarets are generally tall spires with onion-shaped or conical crowns, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure.

(CNN) -- Swiss voters on Sunday adopted a referendum banning the construction of minarets, seen by some on the far right as a sign of encroaching Islamism.

"The Federal Council respects this decision," said a statement from Switzerland's government. "Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted. The four existing minarets will remain.

"It will also be possible to continue to construct mosques," the government statement said. "Muslims in Switzerland are able to practice their religion alone or in community with others, and live according to their beliefs just as before."

Nearly 58% of Swiss voters Sunday cast their ballots in favor of banning the construction of new minarets in the Alpine republic, a surprise result that led at least one Swiss member of parliament to declare that "the foundations of Switzerland's direct democracy have failed."

That is clearly wrong. Swiss direct democracy shows its mettle when Swiss voters use it to stand up to their political elites, as happened here. Having said that, Sunday's vote, for all the hand-wringing leading up to it, was a decidedly mild-mannered sort of protest. The construction of new minarets is banned, but the building of mosques is unaffected, and the vote does not affect the four existing minarets in the country. Nobody's freedom of worship is threatened, but a symbolic message has been sent.

But what message, exactly? The vote betrays an undercurrent of fear among the Swiss—a fear that is not without cause. There is no denying the connection between radical imams and terrorist acts. Nor should anyone look away from the fact that too many European Muslims flatly reject the norms of their host countries, sometimes in ways that are criminal: honor killings, child brides and the like.

Yet banning minarets does nothing to address that fear. It merely makes it less likely that the average Swiss will be confronted by a visible symbol of Islam upon his skyline. Thus, even as a symbolic gesture, it seems to encourage a head-in-the-sand approach toward the 5% of Swiss who are Muslim. In much of Europe, this is the norm anyway, the result of political correctness and cowardice.

Rather than being a blow against that attitude, Sunday's vote seems only to reinforce it. Banning minarets won't do anything to assimilate Switzerland's or Europe's Muslims, or to ensure that economic opportunity is available to everyone of whatever creed, or to deal with Western Europe's demographic problem of too few newborns.

The ban, in other words, does too much and too little at once. Too much because it becomes a very visible and easily exploited symbol of supposed European intolerance. But it accomplishes too little because it seeks merely to hide from view the problems that gave rise to the fear of the minaret in the first place.

The article is pretty stupid, too. The author seems to be slyly suggesting that the only acceptable response to Islam is to run it out on a rail. There are millions upon millions of Muslims that are not anything close to a violent radical, but the quote seems to want to paint them all with a broad brush. In fact, I would argue that his paranoia about Islam is probably a similar (and similarly foolish, irrational, and misguided) outlook that drove this vote.

Imagine if the people of a town in America voted that churches couldn't erect crosses.

The article is pretty stupid, too. The author seems to be slyly suggesting that the only acceptable response to Islam is to run it out on a rail. There are millions upon millions of Muslims that are not anything close to a violent radical, but the quote seems to want to paint them all with a broad brush. In fact, I would argue that his paranoia about Islam is probably a similar (and similarly foolish, irrational, and misguided) outlook that drove this vote.

Imagine if the people of a town in America voted that churches couldn't erect crosses.

That doesn't make the swiss look very good.

The Swiss have an idea that's full of holes?

Par for the course, I'd think.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Thats because the French have forced economic and social seperation on all immigrants.

I see what you did there ... I'm fairly certain that's the worst bit of wordplay originating from you ... ever.