It’s not even just Europe. Here in the States it is bad, though not as explicit (No banning of Muslim clothing or prayer in public, but you’d be a fool to deny law enforcement is not ethnically and religiously profiling)
European isn’t the bastion of hope that most liberals like to make it out to be; despite 9/11, I’d still say that Europe has a more intolerant sentiment towards Muslims, primarily because Europe is just so homogenous. When all these people know about Muslims is what you hear about terrorism (which is, unfortunately, conflated with Islam in the West) from the media (i.e. 9/11 and the London bombings), it isn’t surprising that they tend to be intolerant.
France’s burka ban, if you do the math, affects around a DOZEN women, total. They are also not allowed to teach, because their implicit ‘imposition of religion’ will destroy all of the little children’s brains.
Germany has a very intense ‘debate’ (Nazi-reminiscent skinheads protesting in the street and burning several mosques per year, with little police intervention) over Turkish immigration. Thilo Sarrazin is a popular and controversial pundit whose anti-Turk musings (most notably Deutschland schafft sich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen or Germany undoes itself: How we’re putting our country in jeopardy) have struck a chord with a surprisingly sizable proportion of the population, claiming genetic inferiority and berated their refusal to assimilate; most Germans, when polled, actually say that they would be strongly opposed to one of their children marrying a Muslim. Their schools are heavily segregated, making it virtually unheard of for a Turkish child to attend a Gymnasium (like a selective college preparatory high-school/magnet school). Apparently racism is okay, as long as it isn’t anti-Jew. In general, if you were wondering just how homogenous Germany is, consider that the German word for Blacks (Afro-Deutscher) emerged within the past decade.
What I find particularly significant is not the comparable level of racism in Europe, but the comparable level of racism in such socially liberal societies (America is relatively conservative, primarily because of our more religious populace).
thecheekylibertarian 