At the end of the session (which included an excellent discussion sur les lois du paysage, a game involving images and our responses to them [an excellent way to test my French knowledge: triste and charmant I did know...but I'm still working on a few others], and a discussion about modern art and a mountain made of potato purée), we were left with one final comment by the moderator. She was reminded of the political and symbolic nature of landscape by the results of the recent referendum in Switzerland, that resulted in 57.5 percent of voters supporting a ban on minarets. In a country that is known for it's commitment to religious freedom, the largest party in Parliament has called the mosque towers "symbols of militant Islam."
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| Mostar, Bosnia. May 2007 |
My picture for todayis inspired by this issue of European/Western negotiations with Islamic populations. It comes from my first visit to Europe, in May and June 2007. Arriving in Bosnia, I had the chance to see my first minaret on the landscape. Coming from Eastern Canada, without any mosques on PEI, I was struck at how much these towers reminded me of church steeples at home - almost every little village we could pass through would have one or two of them rising above the other buildings in the area, reminding those passing by of the majority Muslim population in the country.
À la fin, notre modérateur nous a rappelés que le paysage français, avec son histoire catholique mais une population musulmane croissante, est toujours un paysage sans minarets.
Je me demande combien de temps il prendra pour celui à changer.
*Tandem is a new term for me, which refers to a language study partner and the process by which you study both of your languages: you spend half of your time together one language, the other half in the other. This way you're practicing your non-native languages in tandem.
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