Islam is the second largest religion in Europe today. In spite of periodic persecution and discrimination, Islam seems to be not only surviving but also steadily growing in numbers in terms of converts and influence. The Muslims in Western Europe are those who immigrated from Africa, the Middle East and the South Asian subcontinent after the Second World War due to manpower shortages and industrial growth. The migrated Muslims kept their cultural, religious and ethnic links with their mother countries and never integrated themselves to the country they migrated to. The Muslim community in Switzerland is growing at an alarming rate in the past few years. Official figures suggest the Muslim population has doubled in recent years, but some sources say there are also about 50,000 Muslims in the country illegally staying. The first Muslims arrived as workers in the 1960s, mostly from Turkey, the former Yugoslavia and Albania. They were joined by their families in the 1970s and, in recent years, by asylum seekers. Since then there is no looking back to these migrants, over years the population has grown. Over the years the population has multiplied in numbers with each family of Islam followers bearing 5-6 numbers of children compared to the Switzerland natives bearing one or maximum two children, making the population ration tilting towards to the Muslim population.

With this alarming growth in population between the natives and the migrant community it is expected that the Christian majority of Switzerland would turn into minority within 5 to 10 years. The growing immigrant population has reached a level of extended settlement that now demands no assimilation with the country. Leading Islamic groups in Switzerland are seeking to establish a single national representative body that will enable all of the country’s Muslims to “speak with one voice.” The organizers say their new “parliament” will be called “Umma Schweiz” and be based on the principles of Islamic Sharia law. Reports suggested by the government agencies where the religious minority has much representation in the country to stand for its own demands from the nation. Contesting a parallel government is one such approach of the group to establish their foothold in the nation, it was to be functional by the year 2015. Ummah is an Arabic word that means “nation”, in this context it refers to the entire Muslim community throughout the world. In recent years, Muslims have stepped up efforts to unify the globally fragmented ummah in an effort to revive an “Islamic Caliphate” or “the empire”. Many Muslim scholars view the political unification of the ummah as a prerequisite to the consolidation of global Muslim power and the subsequent establishment of an Islamic world order. One of the “not spoken” agenda’s of “Umma Schweiz” is to attract a big vote bank in the Swiss elections and in the long run act as a political party.

According to Swiss analysts reports the initiative was an effort to establish a “parallel” legislative body in Switzerland that will be a mouthpiece for Islamic fundamentalists who are seeking to impose Sharia law on the country. Umma Schweiz is being spearheaded by two of the leading Muslim groups in Switzerland: the Coordination of Islamic Organizations of Switzerland (KIOS), led by an Iranian; and the Federation of Islamic Umbrella Organizations in Switzerland (FIDS), led by a Palestinian. The effort to unify Muslims in Switzerland comes amid calls by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to establish an umbrella organization for all Swiss Muslims to counter discrimination. The OSCE also noted that Muslims in Switzerland are increasingly unifying around their religious identity, according to an advance copy of the OSCE trip report. Currently, there are more than 300 Muslim associations in Switzerland, and several umbrella organizations.

The new Muslim demographic reality is raising tensions across large parts of Swiss society, especially as Muslims become more assertive in their demands for greater recognition of their Islamic faith. When in 2011, the immigrant population demanded the Switzerland government to modify the national flag and remove the cross from the flag as it represents the Christian community. The ensuing controversies are fuelling a debate over the role of Islam in Swiss society and how to reconcile Western values with a growing immigrant population determined to avoid assimilation. There are several cases of Mosques inciting hatred against the neutrality of the Swiss Government and forcing the Swiss government to take stand on the current killings of Muslims in Middle East by west forces.

It is a big problem for the nation when the immigrant population has grown in equal strength to the locals and has put forward it demand for ethnic and cultural identity, extremism would take no time flourish under such circumstances. The issues like honor killing, forced marriages, erection of minarets and creation of religious parliaments are the ones which came into light and got attention of the government but same attitude cannot be attributed to problems like spreading radical ideology in that case. It is necessary that the government becomes vigilant about such situations and cures the root cause of such ethnic diversity.

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