The Swiss campaign framed minarets as military conquest symbols threatening women’s freedom

Evidence

The Swiss People’s Party campaigned fiercely in favor of the amendment. One of the party’s major spokespersons, Oskar Freysinger, invoked the specter of an Islamic conquest taking the form of minarets, referring to them as “the flags that generals place on strategic military maps to identify a conquered territory.” This militant image found expression in the campaign’s most infamous poster, depicting a Swiss flag populated with minarets in the form of missiles. The party warned that minarets would open the door to Sharia law and to the oppression of women. In fact, the same poster also contained the image of a veiled woman in the foreground. Minarets and the loss of freedom for women became intertwined in the campaign. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 637

Categorization

• XREF: Military-invasion framing of Islam echoes the Crusade-era polemics the reader is tracing into the modern West. — connects to: The Swiss minaret ban rested on framing Islam as foreign to Western values — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 57

Broader Connections

• The Swiss minaret ban rested on framing Islam as foreign to Western values #expands (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 57