This came in my email:
Sometimes it’s the little things that are most telling.
In Switzerland it has long been customary for students to shake
the hands of their teachers at the beginning and end of the school
day. It’s a sign of solidarity and mutual respect between teacher
and pupil, one that is thought to encourage the right classroom
atmosphere. Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga recently felt
compelled to further explain that shaking hands was part of Swiss
culture and daily life.
And the reason she felt compelled to speak out about the
handshake is that two Muslim brothers, aged 14 and 15, who have
lived in Switzerland for several years (and thus are familiar with its
mores), in the town of Therwil, near Basel, refused to shake the
hands of their teacher, a woman, because, they claimed, this would
violate Muslim teachings that contact with the opposite sex is
allowed only with family members. At first the school authorities
decided to avoid trouble, and initially granted the boys an
exemption from having to shake the hand of any female teacher.
But an uproar followed, as Mayor Reto Wolf explained to the BBC:
“The community was unhappy with the decision taken by the school.
In our culture and in our way of communication a handshake is
normal and sends out respect for the other person, and this has to
be brought home to the children in school.”
Therwil’s Educational Department reversed the school’s decision,
explaining in a statement on May 25that the school’s exemption
was lifted because “the public interest with respect to equality
between men and women and the integration of foreigners
significantly outweighs the freedom of religion.” It added that a
teacher has the right to demand a handshake. Furthermore, if the
students refused to shake hands again “the sanctions called for
by law will be applied,” which included a possible fine of up to
5,000 dollars.
This uproar in Switzerland, where many people were enraged
at the original exemption granted to the Muslim boys, did not
end after that exemption was itself overturned by the local
Educational Department. The Swiss understood quite clearly
that this was more than a little quarrel over handshakes; it was
a fight over whether the Swiss would be masters in their own
house, or whether they would be forced to yield, by the
granting of special treatment, to the Islamic view of the proper
relations between the sexes. It is one battle – small but to the
Swiss significant – between overweening Muslim immigrants
and the indigenous Swiss.
Naturally, once the exemption was withdrawn, all hell broke
loose among Muslims in Switzerland. The Islamic Central
Council of Switzerland, instead of yielding quietly to the Swiss
decision to uphold the handshaking custom, criticized the
ruling in hysterical terms, claiming that the enforcement of the
handshaking is “totalitarian” (!) because its intent is to “forbid
religious people from meeting their obligations to God.” That,
of course, was never the “intent” of the long-standing
handshaking custom, which was a nearly-universal custom in
Switzerland, and in schools had to do only with encouraging
the right classroom atmosphere of mutual respect between
instructor and pupil, of which the handshake was one aspect.
The Swiss formulation of the problem – weighing competing
claims — will be familiar to Americans versed in Constitutional
adjudication. In this case “the public interest with respect to
equality” of the sexes and the “integration of foreigners” (who
are expected to adopt Swiss ways, not force the Swiss to
exempt them from some of those ways) were weighed against
the “religious obligations to God” of Muslims, and the former
interests found to outweigh the latter.
What this case shows is that even at the smallest and
seemingly inconsequential level, Muslims are challenging the
laws and customs of the Infidels among whom they have
been allowed to settle [i.e., stealth jihad toward sharia
dominance]. Each little victory, or defeat, will determine
whether Muslims will truly integrate into a Western society or,
instead, refashion that society to meet Muslim requirements.
The handshake has been upheld and, what’s more, a stiff
fine now will be imposed on those who continue to refuse to
shake hands with a female teacher. This is a heartening sign
of non-surrender by the Swiss. But the challenges of the
Muslims within Europe to the laws and customs of the
indigenes have no logical end and will not stop. And the
greater the number of Muslims allowed to settle in Europe,
the stronger and more frequent their challenges will be.
They are attempting not to integrate, but rather to create,
for now, a second, parallel society, and eventually, through
sheer force of numbers from both migration and by
outbreeding the Infidels, to fashion not a parallel society
but one society — now dominated by Muslim sharia.
The Swiss handshaking dispute has received some, but
not enough, press attention. Presumably, it’s deemed too
inconsequential a matter to bother with. But the Swiss
know better. And so should we.
There’s an old Scottish saying that in one variant reads:
“Many a little makes a mickle.” That is, the accumulation
of many little things leads to one big thing. That’s what’s
happening in Europe today. This was one victory for the
side of sanity. There will need to be a great many more.