A Morning of Minarets and Mueslli

Today, was another morning of shock and awe for the Associated Press and CNN and MSNBC and all because the Swiss said that the predominant spires in their land should be their own, the natural ones, the Alps.

Most of the American-based news outlets were shocked by the Swiss referendum which mandated no more minarets on mosques in that country and they could not understand why.

But I can.

The Swiss are indeed a breed apart. They have survived as a tiny country for a 1000 years or more for a couple of reasons. Every dictator, every potentate, every king or emperor or Bernie Madoff needs a place to put his stash with no questions asked.

Well the Swiss did all that and more. They took Nazi gold during World War II and placed those ingots into safe keeping even when the provenance of that gold was not clean. They knew that some had been ripped out of the mouths of dead Jews with pliers.

So, clearly, the Swiss are not exactly the stuff of adverts just for cheese and yodeling and the happy life,

In fact, they are very conservative and yesterday they proved it. And it wasn't even close as shown by the fact that the measure passed by a margin of 58 to 43 percent out of more than 3 million votes. Anyone who knows anything about Western Europe is going to tell you pretty much the same thing which is that academics and politicians may mouth the platitudes but the indigenous populations tell a very different story in the pubs and their homes.

In the case of the Swiss, they fear being overrun and they see that the best way to protect their way of life is to hold the stakes for all comers while limiting the impact these immigrants from Kosovo, Albania and Turkey have on the local scene

Now I can’t claim first hand knowledge for all of this as far as Switzerland is concerned but I can tell you a little bit about England.

The national flag of England is not the Union Jack. The flag of England is the cross of St. George which is a red cross on a white background and its derivative is seen on the shirts of the national soccer team. The Muslims resident in England objected because it looked like a Crusader’s shield.

My own daughter’s employer, a bank, used to run a campaign to attract savers which employed a piggy bank. Well that clearly had to go as well because pigs are anathema to Muslims..

Eventually, even the Swiss were not going to take it anymore.

I doubt they will be the last.