It's official, the Swiss are islamophobes.  What is considered a large turn-out, 57% of those voters voted "Yes" to ban minarets.  The government is going to respect the peoples choice and put this into the Swiss constitution.  I think this is totally backward and that the voting topic misses the point.  The Swiss are already known for being xenophobes, and I think the government could have done more to educate people about the consequences of such a decision.  It is not going to stop Islam in Switzerland, it is just going build a larger divide between the "traditional Swiss" and the Islamic community (many of whom are Swiss).

In another backward decision, the voters voted "No" on the Weapons export ban.  68% voted against.  This one is easier for me to see how poeple voted this way, since it would have had a significant impact on the economy.

Is there any news of this in NZ, or elsewhere?

November 27 is voting day, it is the 4th national referendum for 2009 in Switzerland.  Each referendum has one or more initiatives to vote on.  There are 3 national initatives to vote on this month, these are:

• Banning of Minarets - this is a peoples initiated referendum, which means someone managed to collect 100'000 signatures to start this referendum.  I think it will fail (most peoples initiated referendums fail).  I also think it's against religuous freedom and would be really bad for the image of Switzerland.  You can probably guess the way I voted.  The government recommends voting "no" on this.  UPDATE: Here is an interesting article with video, it seems that this is going to be a close call.
• Banning of the export of war material - this has been a growing industry in Switzerland in the last few years.  In 2008 around CHF800 million worth of war material (e.g. weapons) were exported, mainly to Europe, but also to North and South America, Africa and Asia.  This will have a huge affect if it comes into force.  I know people who would most likely loose their jobs.  The government recommends voting "no" on this.
• There there is some referendum on airplane taxes, I don't know much about this.  I think the government recommends voting "yes" on this one.

On top of the national initiatives, there are cantonal initiatives.  For the canton of Luzern (Lucerne) there are two:

• Voting on a project to do some study for an underground railway station in Luzern.  We already voted on this last time, but this is around the details of it.  The underground railway is a "go", I believe.  The plan is to have the Luzern station be an underground station by 2030!!  It will save a whopping 13 minutes on the train journey to Zurich (note sarcasm).  Yay, I will almost be retiring by that time.
• The other vote is around spending money on a some rescue system.  But, I don't know the details too well.

Okay, the reason I don't know much of the details is that my German is pretty rusty, so I only read things if I have to.  And some of these things I don't really care that much about.

I will keep you posted on the results, they will be available on voting day normally in the late afternoon.  Unlike in NZ when you have to wait how many months for all the votes to be counted?