Over a year after Swiss voters’ banning the construction of minarets and thus sending a shockwave throughout Europe, the small Alpine nation is back to business as usual. The minaret ban has all but disappeared from public discourse and the nationalist political parties advocating it went on to another anti-foreigner campaign.

The calm may seem surprising given the thunderstorm of international condemnation that descended onto Switzerland after the November 2009 referendum. UN human rights officials called the ban discriminatory, Muslim countries and the Council of Europe asked the Swiss government to lift the ban, and even neighboring governments did not spare criticism of what they said was an expression of intolerance.

The 57.5 percent approval of the minaret ban tarnished Switzerland's image of tolerance and liberalism and was a slap in the face of the government, which had campaigned against it.

But after a few weeks of heated public debate, including small street protests in Switzerland condemning the vote, the fire has come down to a small flame of discussions among Muslim associations and academics.

The minaret ban is now enshrined in the Swiss Constitution and will probably remain there, although the European Court of Human Rights has yet to rule on around half a dozen complaints against the ban. That can easily take years and even if the court orders Switzerland to lift the minaret ban, it lacks enforcement powers.

But the ban has so far had little practical implications on the ground.

Switzerland, a nation of 7.5 million inhabitants, has four minarets and they remain untouched because the referendum only banned the construction of new ones.

One dispute about the construction of a new minaret is pending before court in the town of Langenthal. But the case dates back to the time prior to the referendum. A lower court had ruled last September that the construction can go ahead because town authorities had authorized it before. Opponents have since appealed to the next higher court.

But in general, minarets in Switzerland have attracted little public attention before some nationalist parties decided to join a European-wide anti-Islam discourse and exploit the topic to boost constituency.

Three years ago, most ordinary Swiss people would not have known how many minarets there are in the country and where they are located.

An estimated 400,000 Muslims live in Switzerland, mostly in the cities. The majority of them come from former Yougoslavia and Turkey who live peacefully here, respecting law and order.

Beyond minarets

Despite these facts, nationalist parties led by the Swiss People's Party managed to paint a picture of massive Muslim immigration and instill fear upon a majority of Swiss voters. The negative stereotyping of Muslims since Sept. 11, 2001, made it easy for those politicians to sell the minaret as a symbol of Islamist power threatening the secular Alpine nation. Hence the debate was not about minarets per se, but about Islam in Switzerland, including the integration of Muslim immigrants and potential Islamism.

It became clear that Islam has a negative image in Switzerland, similar to trends observed in other Western European countries, where debates about Islam have been reduced to the focus on a potential security risk.

Among the supporters of a minaret ban were not just right-wing voters, but also many women who apparently wanted to protest against a religion they perceived as discriminatory toward women and were upset seeing women wearing niqabs in Switzerland. The fact that the minaret itself had nothing to do with gender discrimination got lost in the emotional discussion.

With an all-encompassing debate about Islam in Switzerland, the outcome of the referendum was of high symbolic value. The Swiss, traditionally considered as peaceful and tolerant, suddenly appeared intolerant, expressing unease and distrust toward Muslims. What had happened with this nation proud of its long humanitarian tradition, home to the European headquarters of the United Nations and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights? Swiss are a nation known for its multiculturalism, where people from different origins have been peacefully living together for decades.

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