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This year brought us not only a global strive for freedom as to be seen in the remaining oppressive rulerships and monocracies or the occupied territories. It brought us also in another form together, learning about other believers' religious views. Be it the Buddhism of the Tibetans in their struggle for independence even as well as the Christian Orthodoxy of the Belarusians which are facing at the moment arrest for praying in open spaces.

The Islam was here in Europe always watched with a grain of concern about a latent aggressivity. Fact is that a radical minority still acts in words and deeds and through a generalization the whole religion is to be blamed for. Some parts of the Christian rooted Western societies regard it as a 'general threat' to their own values and life principles. But most of them are simply forgetting about their concerns that the Christian religion a) had a real bad period in the times of the colonialisation urging many native tribes to confess on Jesus Christ and the Bible or to face the certain death and b) radical Christians have always played a more or less active role as a fundamentalist minority.

It's a well balanced scale of respect and tolerance that allows you to get as Non-Muslim in contact with the world of Mohammed The Prophet. If you visit a mosque you certainly won't do that bare-naked or with your shoes on. Same it is vice versa: inadequate behavior in a Roman-Catholic church won't be accepted at all like loud conversation and flashlight shooting during the prayers. What is 'harram' to a Muslim mustn't be forbidden for us. But the respect demands from us to avoid 'harram' in the presence of a Muslim. It's our entry ticket in their world and we shouldn't be presumptuous to expect the same from them regarding our own liberties which are - let us be honest - partial offending to other religions, not only the Islam.

Modern Christianity is waving proudly the banner of Aufklärung due to the theological-philosophical developments mainly of the last century. Our thinktanks, mainly the reformed protestants, have deconstructed the Christian fundament and built it again up. But some streamings - let's call them the retro-extremists - have closed their eyes to the necessary tolerance interacting with other religions. They focus their newly formulated belief under the umbrella of fear and mistrust. In times of the great global get-together an alarming and also dangerous attitude. Main target of those retro-extremists are not agnostics or tribal rooted sects: they see the biggest threat in the confrontation with the Islam.

If we take a closer look to the progression the Muslim society is now heading to mainly due to the Arab Spring it appears somehow as if we are looking in a mirror. Similarities aren't all but incidentally. I like to pick up three examples to demonstrate my point of view:

First, the role of the women in the modern Muslim society. The uprising in Yemen for example is also led by a group of strong, courageous and very resilient women from all classes including mothers as well as young academics. Their constant thrive for freedom and a new political era under usage of strictly non-violent methods in one of the poorest countries in the region was appreciated with the Nobel peace price this year for Tawakkol Karman. Those women don't let themselves reduce on their headscarf. But that doesn't mean that they rebel against the Holy Book of the Quran. They simply rise up against antiquated conceptions of patriarchy. Sounds that somehow familiar to us? Of course it does, from the Sufragette movement to modern feminism the discussions about equal rights for women are meanwhile a natural part of our social life. The biggest trap we could step in is to conclude an incompability of the women's rights with the principles of the Islam. Some of the retro-extremists rely upon this Manicheism due to their lack of tolerance and understanding.

A closer look on Tunisia leads me to the second example. Tunisians were the first who toppled their dictator and now they're having their first free elected parliament. Hue and cry started among the Islamophobes when the election victory of Ennahda was announced. Fears of an islamization and therefore radicalization circled around the lobby of worriers. But they all forgot two evident things to implement in their concerns. The Tunisian society is in comparison to the Egyptians for example generally conservative orientated. And Ennahda is the political branch of a moderate Islam comparable to the Christ-Conservative parties in Europe. Nobody would implicate Germany's Christian Democratic Union in fundamentalist radicalization. The same should apply to Ennahda.

Finally I will bring a very strong image into the minds I've seen several times now in Syria. The Assad regime strays since months sectarian fears as one of their propaganda lies to maintain their murderous rulership. Christians and Alawi Muslims should feel threatened by the possible coming into power of the Sunni majority. But the reality in Homs and other cities speaks a different language: prominent Alawis are joining the protests in Sunni districts. Muslims are praying together with Christians. Somehow a déja vu regarding similar images here in the recent. France may try to ban the Niqab, Geert Wilders may lament in the Netherlands about too many Muslims in the country - in the end the pictures of a community which has overcome the stereotypes of segregation will remain in our minds. A quite remarkable example for that is the continuing work on a successful integration of the Turkish community in Germany. Sure, not all works well and some differences still have to be discussed but the general tendency is a big point for integration instead of assimilation.

Extreme situations are bringing people from different religions together instead of dividing them. In normal situation it takes a bit more self-motivation stepping towards each other. Especially in these times of digital globalization it is possible to be connected with other cultures and therefore also other religions even without leaving our country. Open-hearted tolerance is the first step approaching each other. The second is the respect for the vis-à-vis' opinion.

The Islam isn't the big threat a minority among us wants to make us believe. The understanding for that can only grow in the direct confrontation with the world and the views of the Muslims, not through closing the eyes or watching away. And isn't it much more exiting to learn about others together with them instead of defending the borders of the own picket fence against imaginary threats?