When 'block thinking' on Islam blurs all subtleties

Almost every reason for toleration's apparent fall into disrepute concerns Islam. Even simple requests, like that of schoolgirls to wear headscarves in class, are suddenly weighed down with immense political significance and treated as issues that must be resolved at the highest level of government. People - and their elected leaders as well - often have the feeling that such seemingly innocent proposals are in fact part of an ominous "hidden agenda."

That agenda is "Islam," which many imagine to include all the terrible things that we can read about in the press every day: the stoning of adulterous women under sharia law in northern Nigeria, the amputation of thieves' hands in Saudi Arabia, honor killings of women who refuse arranged marriages in Pakistan (or even English cities like Bradford and Manchester), the willingness to justify suicide bombings.

If you reply that the girls who want to wear headscarves to school aren't living in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, and almost certainly don't share the extreme Wahhabi views found in those countries, you will be met with a look of almost indulgent pity, reserved for the terminally naive. Or you will be told stories about how Saudi-trained imams are twisting the girls' arms, turning them into unwilling stalking horses for "Islam."

Indeed, it is virtually impossible nowadays to talk about headscarves as an issue in its own right. All the sociological evidence about the girls' motives, which are in fact very varied, is swept aside as irrelevant. All that matters is the threat posed by Islam.

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