There are some mosques with facilities for women; it's usually a back room with a back-door entrance.

I lived in countries that had no democracy... so I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom.

I would rather clean than beg.

European children are educated in a narrative of human tolerance every day, and if you want to be sure to prevent a backlash, you should at least think of bringing Muslim children and teenagers into the fold of that narrative of tolerance.

I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non-Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.

The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.