Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) the great Protestant reformer of the sixteenth century would have been impressed with the determination shown by his countrymen this year. Controversy arose with the refusal of two male students to shake hands with their female teachers, a Swiss custom.

When school authorities initially allowed two Syrian brothers to refuse to shake hands it sparked off a national uproar and an educational department ruling that they had to comply with Swiss custom or face fines of 5,000 francs. Further, an application by that family to become Swiss nationals was put on hold.

It was a salutary lesson to the country’s 350,000 Muslims (in a population of eight million) that the Swiss were not there to fit in with them but they had an obligation to observe Swiss traditions and rules. The Swiss instinctively realised this was more than a squabble over a cultural custom and tradition of politeness. At stake was whether the Swiss would be masters in their own house or whether alien traditions of Islam would prevail.

The Swiss argument stated that the public interest of Switzerland was in equality between the sexes and the maintenance of a courteous tradition between teacher and students. Islamic organisations rarely accept with grace rulings that go against them and the ruling was described by them as ‘totalitarian’ in forbidding their commitments to Allah.Given the deplorable and murderous treatment of religious minorities in Islamic Middle Eastern hell-holes the accusations of totalitarianism impresses very few westerners. Indeed, the Swiss followed up the handshake ruling by refusing to grant citizenship rights to two Muslim girls, (12 and 14), who refused to comply with the school curriculum to swim with the boys.

‘Whoever does not fulfil these conditions violates the law and therefore cannot be naturalised,’ Stefan Wehrle, the president of the naturalisation committee said, in late June. Meanwhile, in another case, a Muslim father of two girls was fined 4000 francs for the same reason.

Thus, the Swiss attitude is that failure to interact within the community is reason enough to deny Swiss citizenship. So just as Zwingli possessed a profound patriotic sentiment, that once caused him to inveigh heavily against the hiring out of soldiers to fight as mercenaries, the Swiss today are determined not to have foreign ‘mercenaries’ fighting from within against them. They are unconcerned about being called ‘xenophobes,’ or any other tripe words used by Islamophiles and leftist dogmatists, because Switzerland consistently applies the integration rules to everyone. Candidates for citizenship must prove they have assimilated into their local communities and respect local customs and traditions.

Initial decisions on such applications come from local towns, or villages, and if deemed suitable flow on to canton (state) and federal authorities for processing.

In 2014, an American, Irving Dunn, who had lived in Switzerland for almost 40 years, was rejected for citizenship because he could not name any Swiss friends or neighbouring villages. Dunn did not deny the charge; he was mainly after personal advantages that the Swiss citizenship offered him. In contrast, Muslims regard it as their personal right to create, rather than integrate, new laws and conditions that do not fit in with their interpretation of the laws of the Koran and Hadith.

There is no rendering to Caesar whatsoever. Islam has consistently shown a propensity to initially insist on the creation of parallel laws, in any state where Muslims emigrate until they become numerically superior, then comes total domination. The attempt, in 2011, by an immigrant Muslim group to have the white cross removed from the Swiss flag, representing the country’s Christian roots, was a particularly arrogant example, and one resisted by Switzerland.

The Swiss know just how influential the Reformation was in their own country and further abroad; profoundly affecting politics, law, science and education, democratising Christianity and allowing for individual conscience. Our liberties today are due to the work and battles of great reformers, like Zwingli. Reformation is conspicuously absent from Islam, an apostasy rooted in the medieval past.

In November 2009 the Swiss held a referendum in which citizens approved a ban on construction of minarets, a feature of Islamic architecture where the call to pray goes out. This was not an attack on religion, as alleged by overheated Western dhimmis who ironically oppose school chaplains, prayer and indeed all things Christian, but rather an attempt to maintain national cohesiveness. The initiative sponsored by the conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP) said the minaret symbolised the growing self confidence and intolerance of the Muslim community. The SVP described the minaret as an example of a ‘religious-political claim to dominance’ and one that threatened ‘the constitutional rights of others.’

A European Court twice concurred by dismissing Muslim protests against the ban. It is hard to object to that when the increasingly fascist leader of Turkey, Erdogan, has bragged, ‘the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful are our soldiers.’ He didn’t stop there either, telling Muslim immigrants that ‘assimilation is a crime against humanity.’

Erdogan’s comments should not be an amber light to the West but rather a red one and should be heeded well by policy makers. Erdogan remains the antithesis of everything the great Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) once stood for and the phony coup of recent times simply demonstrates the connivance and plotting of the current, despicable Turkish incumbent.

Elsewhere Western voters are calling out for leadership and for the entry only of immigrants prepared to integrate fully. Malcolm Turnbull’s response was to invite a hate preacher to visit Kirribilli House, for a post-Ramadan dinner, just before the 2016 election. This ‘first’ by an Australian PM was one of the reasons for the dramatic reduction of his numbers to the barest one seat majority at the ensuing poll. In pandering to the most aggressive religion on the planet, and one of the smallest in Australia, Turnbull was simply seen as the new Neville Chamberlain.

When the Islamic apostle of hate was exposed by the media, Australia’s most politically correct chameleon then said it was ‘totally unacceptable’ and blamed his office for not vetting the guest list!

Clearly Turnbull is no adherent to the Harry Truman School of where the buck stops and, unlike Zwingli, the Australian PM will never fall defending the faith, customs and tradition of this nation.

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