In Europe, some religions are more equal than others

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 6 June 2011

Europe has gone backward when it come to religious equality.

Religious intolerance is a daily reality in Europe. Mainly targeted at Muslims, attacks on religious pluralism focus on refusing to share public space with non-majority religions or only tolerating practices seen as "secular". The key voices of intolerance are neither marginal nor can they be dismissed as old-style far-right activists. They are today often heads of government, important ministers, or powerful politicians.

Their words express an emerging refrain of official xenophobia. Successive recent salvos by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel on the failure of multiculturalism in countries where that policy has never been promoted, and British Prime Minister David Cameron's February speech associating multiculturalism with Islamic terrorism are among the latest examples.