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... However, the surprising gains made by Geert Wilders' Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the Danish People's Party, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Hungarian Jobbik, and the British National Party in the recent European parliament elections emboldened many of their leaders to applaud the Swiss vote and encourage similar prohibitions.
Wilders, the leader of the anti-Muslim Freedom Party in the Netherlands, who previously warned that mass deportation of millions of Muslims from Europe may be necessary, called for a vote to stem the "tide of Islamisation" in the Netherlands.
The far-right persistently refuses to face a 21st century reality - to acknowledge and accept the fact that Muslims are part of the mosaic of their nations.
Islam is now a European religion, and, in fact, the second largest religion in many European countries. No longer predominantly first generation immigrants, many are second and third generation citizens.
Despite the acts and continued threat from a very small but dangerous minority of extremists, the majority of Muslims, like their non-Muslim fellow compatriots, are loyal citizens.
The Swiss ban, like some other European countries' policies, highlights a failure of Western liberalism and raises fundamental questions about religious discrimination and freedom of religion.
While there are only four minarets in Switzerland, a country that is home to approximately 400,000 Muslims, supporters of the referendum mindlessly charge that the minaret is a political symbol of militant Islam.
This makes about as much sense as saying that church steeples symbolise militant Christianity.
Western political and religious opinion-makers and the media will need to resolutely address the dangers of Islamophobia as aggressively as they do other forms of hate speech and hate crimes, ranging from racial discrimination to anti-Semitism.
European Muslims will need to continue to speak out publicly, demanding their rights as European citizens and residents and also denouncing religious discrimination and violence as well as limits placed on constructing churches in the Muslim world.
Globalisation and an increasingly multicultural and multi-religious West tests the mettle of cherished democratic principles and values.
Islamophobia, which is becoming a social cancer, must be recognised and be as unacceptable as anti-Semitism, a threat to the very fabric of our democratic, pluralistic way of life.
The continued threat and response to global terrorism coupled with the resurgence of xenophobia and cultural racism have contributed to threaten the fundamentals of liberal democracies in the West and their Muslim citizens in particular.
The fine line between distinguishing between the faith of Islam and those who commit violence and terror in the name of Islam, between the majority of mainstream Muslims and the acts of a minority of Muslim extremists and terrorists, must be maintained.
Blurring these distinctions risks the adoption of foreign and domestic policies that promote a clash rather than co-existence of cultures. They play into the hands of preachers of hate (Muslim and non-Muslim), religious and political leaders, and political commentators whose rhetoric incites and demonises, alienates and marginalises.
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