Sometimes in the midst of evil good things happen that are so unexpected and full of humanity that they nearly take my breath away. Outside of Europe you may not read the story in full so here it is:

(1) France is an extremely secular country since 1789. That's why they have made a new law prohibiting women to wear a headscarf (there is one other word I don't recollect) at school. The Muslim community is full of rage about that law and many Muslim schoolgirls had planned to wear the headscarf tomorrow at the rentree in defiance of the law.

(2) Some days ago two French journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq. The kidnappers have threatened to kill them the by now well known way if the French government does not revoke the law within 48 hours and allow Muslim women to wear headscarf, Burka, or whatever they want.

I guess that was not new to you but it is necessary to know for to understand what comes now:

All over France Muslims and Muslim organisations rally to speak up against this way of fighting for an aim they share. Not this way, they say, even fairly extreme ones and say they have more in common with the French idea of democracy and parliamentary decision making even if they dislike one particular law than with those terrorists pretending to fight for them.

I see the interviews in TV with Muslim schoolgirls who had planned to wear the headscarf tomorrow with all consequences and now say they won't. 'I do not want to have blood on my headscarf' 'They've taken me hostage and they will not force me to do what I would have loved doing voluntarily.' 'Before that I had planned to act in solidarity with my Muslim sisters, but now I can't.'

Whatever the terrorists may have had in mind they have failed dismally. The fundamentalists' war cry that the Muslim only has one nation, the Muslim nation, falls on deaf ears in France. The terrorists unwillingly have done more for the integration of French Muslims into the society than many well meaning people.

Wolfgang