Danielle Levy

Nicholas Sarkozy, the President of France is suggesting a law that would ban all face covering veils in public places, a law that would even apply to visitors. As such wealthy Saudi women shopping on the Champs Elysee would have to have bare faces. There has been much criticism from Muslim groups, but not enough to keep the law from being considered.
Next door in Germany the northern state of Lower Saxony the Christian Democrat party appointed the daughter of Turkish immigrants as minister of social affairs, a first. Aygul Ozkan is a lawyer and a Muslim. In a recent interview she is quoted as saying that crucifixes do not belong in state-run schools anymore than Muslim headscarves. The comment caused an uproar, so much so Ms Ozkan had to disavow it. Crucifixes, critics said, are part of the Christian Democrat party tradition.
Is that the way it is: When the uproar comes from a minority faction within the culture it is easily explained away or overlooked, but when it comes from the majority then it prevails?

The Chinese Government is frowning upon the Tibetan monks who are helping the recent earthquake victims in Qinghai province. They’ve been helping dig through the rubbles brought survivors food and also helped erecting tents. The government which has a long history of suspicion and antagonism towards religion in general and Tibetan Buddhism in particular has now ordered the monks out of the area.
In another area of the world the Iranian government seems to be going along with those clerics who predict that a deadly quake will soon hit Tehran as punishment from god. The religious leaders are asking people to repent. The capital, inhabited by 12 million people sits on the intersection of two major tectonic plates. According to The Washington Post President Ahmadinejad has noted in a recent speech that such an earthquake was unavoidable. As a result plans are being drawn to relocate some 5 million in the coming years and there is talk to move the headquarters of several state institutions. What adds to the picture of what looks like the flight of common sense is that there is also an email circulated by anti-government forces. The email warns that an earthquake will come not as god’s punishment but triggered by Iran’s leaders who believe that such an earthquake would deter the United States from attacking them, for who would attack a country hit by a natural disaster?
It would be easy to make light of all this Still, one can’t help feel compassion for the people affected.

Certain Buddhist leaders in South Korea are uncomfortable with Protestants. It’s not a religious argument it’s just competition for the hearts of North Koreans. Several Protestant sects have been developing links between North and South, discreetly of course, as secretly as they can so that one day when the two countries are united, they can have a strong foothold in the North. Religions are banned in North Korea and people can be prosecuted—or is it persecuted—for practicing. Still, it appears that some find secret ways of connecting to a higher reality, or as some anthropologists have said after talking to North Korean defectors, people are disillusioned with the personality cult of the leader Kim Il-sung and are yearning to fill the void. In that view Jesus is beating Buddha. Hence the interest of the Venerable Bop Ta, one of South Korea’s leading Abbots. He is trying to make sure Buddha has a chance and Buddhism which has a 1500-year history in Korea can eventually overtake Christianity. Although the interplay between these two religions is in itself noteworthy, what is even more so is that they both predicate their actions on the fact that one day Korea will be reunited, and as they do they almost create a self-fulfilling prophecy by the links they ever so secretly establish.