Excerpt of an Interview on Al Jazeera with Arab-American psychologist Wafan Sultan: http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
I just want to add to above interview, that you just have to exchange the term "Islam" with "Christianity" and scroll a bit back on timescale to see the same stupid things which are done in the name of God. Even if the real cause only lies in traditional patriarchal customs and conservative interpretations. But I fully agree with her, that Islam didn´t get out from the Dark Ages yet. Maybe it´s only, because in (traditional and conservative) Islam it´s impossible to separate religion and state.

I personally, reject every non-secular religion, culture or law, which sanctions inequality and restrains individual freedom/human rights.

"Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant!"
(Wilhelm Busch, German drawer and poet, 1832-1908)
 

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Actual topic: Banning or not banning veil/jilbab/abaja/tschador/burqa here in Europe/Germany:

Yesterday, Reuters reported following news: "AMSTERDAM: The Netherlands said on Friday that it was seeking to ban the public wearing of the burqa and other Muslim face veils, possibly making it the first European country to impose such a ruling. Last December Dutch lawmakers voted in favour of outlawing face-coverings, and asked Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk to examine the feasibility of such a ban. Verdonk warned that since face veils were worn for religious reasons, a ban could directly conflict with Dutch religious freedom laws."

The separation of state and religion in my opinion is one of the only few, but nonetheless the most important achievement of Western democratic society. Europe/Germany is still only at the beginning to set us free from the chains of our conservative Christian background, mostly influenced by the narrow minded, intolerant and misogynistic Catholic Church. Nothing else in my opinion, does Islam stand for. Anyway, I am not having anything against Christians or Muslims - as long as their doing is not oppressing and against human rights. And a veil/jilbab/abaja/tschador/burqa for muslim girls/women is both in my opinion.

Helping establishing the right of wearing veils/burqas in Germany/Europe is either "just" thoughtless, naive and blind for not seeing what a veil really is (mis)used for, or even utterly intolerant and actively refusing women their human rights. The Western World has absolutely no right to force Islamic countries to take over our attributes and achievements of enlightenment. But we can help to make our living in our own countries free from any oppressing dogma, no matter if it´s spread by conservative Christians or conservative Muslims. Cause both of these ideologies - if they aren´t adjusting to modern social and cultural improvements and respect humans rights of any individual being instead of clinging onto an antiquated world view - are a dead end for humanity, equity and for the goal of a peacefully, multicultural society. Given this, yes, I won´t look away silently, if a muslim girl isn´t allowed to join her classmates on holidays or attending sport lessons or swimming. I won´t look away if muslim girls aren´t allowed to make German friends (if female or male) and going out with them alone, without having a brother as their watchdog in their neck. Is it tolerance to let them leaving school or not studying for getting married as early as possible, only because their family fear their daughters could possibly choose a non-traditional/islamic life? That muslim women here in Germany/Europe get even killed in the name of "honour"? To look away when human rights are refused to women in the name of a God or stupid traditional reasons under the premise of tolerance?

A veil/jilbab/abaja/tschador/burqa in the Islamic and pre-islamic traditional meaning, is not only a piece of attire but an instrument, with which women are hold under control by a patriarchic structured religion and culture. The woman body represents the honour of her husband, father, brother - even of her mother and sister. She´s responsible for the status of everyone. What a burden. This is the reason, why she has to wear it and why so many even "voluntarily" want to wear it. It´s the way their whole social and cultural life is built on, it became part of their identity for generations. As long as a wife can be beaten and locked up in the name of Islam when refusing her husband sex or for laying down the veil/tschador, as long as she (or he) is not allowed to marry a non-muslim guy/woman, that she owe´s him obedience in exchange for getting financial support cause she doesn´t even have the equal chance to earn her own money for living a self-determined life, as long as a married muslim woman can get divorced by her husband any time and everywhere by saying a certain phrase and without a court and in the opposite, she only can get divorced under certain circumstances and by calling a court, losing her children, as long as women´s status is only measured by how many children and especially sons she gave birth and how much she obeys her husband and stays at home - as long I will see the pure evil in Islam. As well as I see evil in Christianity and any other religion which spreads such an intolerant and Dark Age-ideology, cause many elements I listed up above are standing also in the Bible or are and still were interpreted by the dictatorial Catholic Church. The difference is, that more and more, the Catholic Church is losing it´s influence in cultural living in Europe/Germany since secularisation, if also very, very slowly.

Is this thinking intolerant? The term tolerance in context to religion was a product of enlightenment in Europe and formed mostly by Voltaire and Lessing. The defenders of enlightenment tried to tear down the boundaries between ideologies - if they are inhibiting peacefully living together. In particular a tolerant society can´t allow intolerance, which would destroy it at the end or which are against human rights and equality.

I ask a different question: Why is tolerance against faiths or traditions, which are intolerance and oppressing, so desirable? The opposite. I am for multicultural living. And in my opinion, there is no bigger obstacle for a multicultural society here in Europe, than these two religions. Both religions claim, to offer the one ond only truth and trying to "save" others by missionaring them or at least not marrying a partner who has a different faith or alternatively has to convert. But the real problem in daily living together is the cultural difference, mostly influenced by religion.

In my opinion, quenching the negative and repressing contents of religions, which are only based on social/cultural circumstances by the time the Thora/Bible/Koran was written or interpreted, is the only reasonable and only logical way, to make humans all kinds of races and faith, able living together. Integrated - not in parallel worlds within the same country. Respecting each other as equal beings, no matter which gender or faith you have. All what we need is our sanity and brain.