This is not the first time that the issue of handshakes has drawn attention and controversy in Sweden. In 2016, a Muslim member of the Green Party withdrew his candidacy for a seat in the party’s leadership after he was publicly criticized for refusing to shake hands with women, including a television journalist who was going to interview him.
That was the only acceptable decision. if he wouldn’t shake hands with a woman, he had no business being a candidate for a leadership position in the Green Party, and no business being in Swedish politics at all, given that gender equality is one of the most important principles of Swedish society..
“I stand for equality among people,” Stefan Lofven, the prime minister, told Parliament in April 2016, according to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. “For me, it’s the same as women and men having the same opportunities. It also means that in Sweden, we greet each other. One shakes hands with both men and women.”
What does Stefan Lofven think of the 3-2 decision that says he is flatly wrong, and that in Sweden one no longer need shake hands with both men and women? What does he think of Sweden’s future as an advanced Western society? Anything? Nothing?
Mr. Mork of the ombudsman’s office acknowledged the importance of such greetings in his country. “In Sweden, one shakes hands,” he said.
But, he said, “This is very much viewed under the lens of integration and gender equality.”
“It has become a little bit of a symbol question for how Sweden deals with its religious minorities,” he added.
“A little bit of a symbol question”? The tortuous phrasing reflects a certain confused embarrassment over the outcome. It’s not a question of symbols. It’s a question of who is to be master, that’s all. The Swedish people in Sweden or others, who may be citizens but have shown themselves unwilling to accept Swedish ways, such as shaking hands with people of both sexes. That practice is not just a symbol, but a long-established custom that reinforces the notion of gender equality. It is reasonable to ask all those who benefit from the laws of the well-ordered Swedish state and the customs of an advanced Swedish society, to observe those laws and customs.
“The question of balancing local custom with religious freedom has also been playing out in other countries recently. In 2016, the authorities in the Swiss canton of Basel-Landschaft ruled that two Syrian boys who studied at a public school in the town of Therwil could not refuse to shake their teacher’s hand on religious grounds. Shaking a teacher’s hand before and after class is part of Switzerland’s social fabric, and the canton authorities said that parents whose children refused to obey the tradition could be fined up to 5,000 Swiss francs, or about $5,020.
The Swiss, more hard-headed than the Swedes and more attached to their folkways, were not about to allow those who had been given generous refuge in their country to refuse to honor a Swiss custom, one that was always deemed to be an important part of the teacher-pupil relationship. For the Swiss, the handshake between teacher and pupil both before and after class was a sign both of solidarity and respect. If two Muslim boys refused to shake a female teacher’s hand, that reflected the lower standing of women in Islam, and was not to be tolerated.
“On the other hand, a school in Sydney, Australia, caused an uproar last year by adopting a policy allowing Muslim schoolboys to refuse to shake hands with women, as long as they instead placed a hand across their chest.
This places rules of some — not all — Muslims above those of Australian society. This clearly endorses a view of women as inferior, instead of requiring that everyone in Australia observe the rules of gender equality. If Muslims enjoy the great privilege of being allowed into Australia in the first place, especially considering the kind of places they likely came from, they ought to be willing to observe those rules of gender equality. This is the unwritten bargain immigrants have struck with their host country. Apparently the school authorities, in their diseased sympathy for The Other, and hellbent for “diversity,” did not agree. A nation-wide policy on the shaking of hands needs to be put in place, with the force of law. Australia ought to emulate steadfast Switzerland or, even better, France:
And this year, France’s top administrative court ruled that an Algerian woman’s refusal to shake hands with male officials at a French naturalization ceremony was sufficient grounds for denying her citizenship.
To that decision, which shows the French in their take-no-prisoners mode, one can only say “Attaboy.”
Meanwhile, I’d like to end on a lighter, less Islamic note. A Sicilian fisherman of my acquaintance, now living in America, told me once that in 45 years as a fisherman, he never had to sign a contract. All of his agreements were based, he said, only on a “shakanza.” I looked puzzled. He took my hand and shook it. “Shakanza,” he said. “Una shakanza.”