Although it is not popular, perhaps even not done, these days to spend time and attention to the oppression of Moslems, I’m going to do it nonetheless. And, even less popular, I’m going to criticize an ‘enlightened’ Western country.

You see, there is something serious going on in Italy; the country where fascism was so popular in the 20th century. Moslems are being oppressed in the northern part of it, and it seems likely that the oppression will spread to the rest of the country.

The cause for the oppression: the Lega Nord.

The Lega Nord is a highly popular party in the northern part of the country, for instance in the city of Milan. Its main policy is to make life impossible for Moslem immigrants. They, this merry party believes, are all extremists (in the making) and should, therefore be stopped. Since mosques are the main place where Moslems assemble, the Lega Nord has made it virtually impossible for them to build places of worship.

One million Moslems live in the northern part of Italy. They live there, they work there, they pay taxes. But they are not given the right to worship as they see fit.

Andrea Gibelli, national MP of the Lega Nord, says that mosques discourse integration “as places of cultural indoctrination, that are sometimes connected to international terrorist organizations.”

He, and his entire party, believes that Moslems “cay pray anywhere they want to,” which means Moslems do not need a mosque. Moslems collected money to build a mosque in Milan, for instance, but construction was prevented. Instead of praying in a mosque every Friday – the Friday service is the Islamic equivalent of the Sunday service in Christianity – they are forced to go to a cyclingtrack. They listen to the Imam’s preach there… and pray there.  They cannot enter their own places of worship because they do not exist and the ruling party of the northern part of Italy does not allow them to build new ones.

At this moment alone, no permission is given to Moslems to build mosques in the cities of Venice, Bologna, Trente and Trevision. Well, these are only some of the cities in which Moslems are not allowed to exercise their human, dare I say God given?, rights.

To make matters even worse, the Lega Nord is part of the new ruling coalition of which Silvio Berlusconi is the leader and, thus, prime minister. Instead of focusing completely on the northern part of the country they are now trying to spread the oppression to Italy as a whole.

They have proposed a law – and from the looks of it, it could very well get accepted – that would make it illegal for Moslems to build a mosque ‘too close’ to a church. ‘Too close’ means 1 kilometer.

Now, that rule in itself is ridiculous – in countries like Turkey, a so-called Moslem country, churches and mosques exist next from each other – but what makes it even more insane is that Italy is a strictly Catholic country, with a whole lot of churches.

Furthermore, the law would make it illegal for Imams to speak in Arabic to the congregration, connects the size of the mosque to the size of the congregration (‘you don’t need such a big mosque!’), and outlaws the muezzins from calling their fellow Moslems to prayer – that would make too much noise.

The latter is, of course, acceptable; you can’t have a voice in a Western country singing five times a day so that members of one particular religion know it’s time to pray. But the other points are none of the government’s business. The size of mosques may sound reasonable to some, but the problem is that the Lega Nord and its allies are and will abuse that rule in order to prevent Moslems from building mosques of any reasonable, beautiful size.

That’s not all, however. The proposed law also makes it illegal to build minarets at the mosque and, in the end, forces the government to ask permission to the local population. A referendum will be organized – like it is done in the north now – in which peoples of other faiths or no faiths will be asked whether they give permission to Moslems for building their own place of worship.

This may go OK in some parts of the country, but in many other parts it does not; the dictatorship of the majority is a very real danger, and its being proven time and again to be in the north. There referenda serve to prevent Moslems from building mosques. Nearly every time they are asked, non-Moslem citizens say ‘no.’

The same is likely to happen in other parts of Italy if the proposal of the Lega Nord is accepted.

Some of you may wonder what the goal of all the above is. Why are they making life impossible for Moslems? Simple. “To stop the colonization of our culture,” in the words of before mentioned Gibelli.

Liga Nord and its supporters and facilitators want to limit the growth of Islam. Instead of letting people decide for themselves what religion they want to follow, they are falling back to fascist methods that discriminate severely against Moslems.

Italy is in the very real danger of becoming a safe haven for racists and Moslem-haters (some simply hate Moslems because most Moslems are of a different ‘race’). And Italy is not alone. In the Netherlands too people like Geert Wilders can count on the support of millions. He too wants to make it impossible for Moslems to build mosques. He too wants to discriminate on the basis of religion.

What makes the above quite ironic is that Europe continues to lecture other countries on freedom of religion and human rights in general nonetheless. Every time something happens in another country, in another part of the world, Europe interferes, preaching the gospel of humanism.

Perhaps the EU should talk a little bit less about all that’s wrong with, say, Turkey, and a little more about what’s wrong with Europe. Especially now that polls clearly show that both anti-Semitism and anti-Moslem feelings are growing on the continent.

To put in words ‘Catholic’ Italy may, perhaps, understand: “First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Source: Dutch newspaper Trouw.