The BBC reports that “A political row has broken out in Switzerland over a campaign poster from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party….” The poster that everyone is mad about is pictured here, because I couldn’t find a picture of the other one: it’s three white sheep kicking a black sheet off of Switzerland’s flag.

While this is disgusting enough, the Swiss Racist Party has another poster which I’m equally as angry about, and which is actually relevant to the blog. The poster shows veiled Muslim women accompanied by the words, “Where are we living, Baden or Baghdad?”

Apparently, Muslims aren’t “Swiss” enough for the Swiss People’s Party. Not even the Muslims who were born in Switzerland.

The Swiss People’s Party doesn’t have a friendly track record when it comes to Islam, either. In May 2007, members of their party started a campaign to ban minarets. “We don’t have anything against Muslims,” said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People’s Party. “But we don’t want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it’s a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over.”

I don’t think Mr. Freysinger has ever been to Spain (part of Europe), where Muslims ruled for something like 500 years, and left behind some great architecture, which includes minarets. And were they ruling using a “political and aggressive Islam”? Well, why don’t you ask the Jewish minorities who lived peacefully under Muslim rule in Spain until King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella purged the country of non-Christians starting in 1492 through the use of The Inquisition?