Islamists Meet Their Match

The Swiss are a tolerant people, so tolerant, in fact, that they have three official languages. They managed to stay out of both world wars. Over the centuries, Switzerland has been a haven for the persecuted.

Naturally it raised some eyebrows around the world last week when the tolerant Swiss passed a law that forbids the construction of new minarets. Minarets are the tall towers built alongside mosques where the muezzin calls the faithful to prayers.

There are only four minarets in the whole country. Most Muslims in Switzerland are from Turkey or Kosovo. Most of those are not Islamic fundamentalists or extremists. Many people in Switzerland and elsewhere are distressed by the ban, but it is merely an unintended consequence of jihad.

During the last 25 years of so, not a month has gone by without news of some terrorist incident. Since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended Northern Ireland's Troubles, almost all of these incidents have involved Islamists.

There have been bombings in India, Spain, and Great Britain, and then there was 9/11. Blowing up buses full of children in the West bank was one thing. Blowing up western commuters in the subway is entirely another. While the jihadis were planning to scare the world into bending to their will, they were not thinking about what else might happen.

France, another society famous for its tolerance, has forbidden schoolchildren to wear any kind of religious dress. Girls may not wear headscarves; boys may not wear yarmulkes. They are considering a ban on wearing the burqa, not just in school, but in public by anyone. The French have also begun refusing citizenship to women who insist on wearing it. Their reasoning is that if one wants to be French, one should embrace French culture, which does not include covering women head to toe.

The fact is that Islamic terrorists have indeed terrified Westerners. The Islamists preached about infidels and planned to conquer the world by applications of high explosives. Meanwhile, regular, rational people watched, and came to the conclusion that these extremists were a little unbalanced. It was a completely logical conclusion. The laws that grow from this conclusion will be logical responses to what people perceive as threats to their safety.

The terrorists wanted to terrify, but chances are they did not intend to frighten people so badly that they outlawed their religion. Oops.

Pressure from moderate Muslims has not worked. When imams preach tolerance of Western culture and society, they risk being labeled heretics. One often hears that Islam is a religion of peace, and that for every extremist there are hundreds of thousands of peace-loving Muslims who would never hurt anyone. These people seem to lack influence with their radical brethren.

Westerners are growing tired of the destructive and violent ways of Islamists and are searching for ways to end their temper tantrums. Appeasement is impossible. Groups exist that will continue to terrorize the world until they rule it absolutely under Islamic law, regardless of the desires of those they would rule.

Western Europeans' tolerance failed, so they are trying intolerance. It makes sense. At the same time, it arouses the question of more unintended consequences, because outlawing a religion gives it an attractiveness it might not otherwise have. Radical Islam has all attractiveness it needs. It seems to be particularly attractive to angry people who like to make bombs.