Swiss voters ban minarets

There was very disappointing news from Switzerland today of discrimination against Muslims. A ban on building minarets has passed. Currently there are 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland and only 4 minarets, while church steeples are everywhere. This follows a French ban on headscarves and a German controversy on building mosques. This goes to the root of something that really bothers me about Europe. Europeans see themselves as liberal, egalitarian and democratic, but immigrant populations, particularly Muslims, are expected to become culturally European rather than maintain a distinct cultural identity. I have heard Germans tell me that they don't like Turks, for example, because they are arrogant (which is extremely ironic coming from a German) and don't want to "integrate." (And yes, I can hear the comments coming, I know Americans can be arrogant, we have our own historical problems, and are as anti-Muslim as anyone, but that doesn't mean I don't have a valid point.) There seems to be trouble in Europe of seeing ethnicity as separate from the country you are living in (e.g. you can be "Irish" and "American,"or "Jewish" and "Canadian," ... but in Europe there is emphasis on "becoming" either Irish or American exclusively--as a metaphor).

A while back I talked to a group of Germans about this (and I apologized before hand that I do not want to be telling them what they should do, and that I understand this is for German citizens to decide, but I do want to ask this question) and asked, why not take a traditional Turkish holiday and celebrate it in Germany, as a gesture to accept Turkish immigrants, and their culture, into Germany. Like it or not, Turkish culture is a part of Germany now, why not be open and accepting of it rather than adversarial and trying to stamp it out? My suggestion didn't go over too well and they looked as if I had asked them to do something strange that would normally never be considered--"but this is Germany." Then they discussed it some more and said perhaps it would be OK to adopt some "harmless" Turkish holiday as a gesture (it's hard for me to understand how one could be harmful).

Unfortunately, as much as Europeans like to say they are more sophisticated than Americans regarding cultural differences, there is a great deal of xenophobia in Europe and I don't see the general acceptance of European Muslims happening anytime soon.