By G.P. Malouchos

Islamophobia in Europe has started to provoke a senseless paranoia.

A few weeks ago, the Berlin State Opera decided to cancel scheduled performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” in order to avoid offending local Muslims. What prompted the decision was a planned scene with the heads of the Prophet Muhammad, Buddha and Jesus. The irony is that such a scene would have not created any problems a few years ago.

Shortly after the move, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened to reassess this unprecedented act of self-censorship by such a respected institution in the European art world.

But a sense of unease continues to exist, in London for example, and the focus of the discomfort is not an opera but an entire city. Moreover, this is not about avoiding actions that might offend Muslim citizens but about the restriction of an activity which does not even concern them. And what is worse, this move is not the result of a government decision but appears to be the spontaneous reaction of a nervous society.

To what do we refer? An initiative by London stores to scale back their Christmas decorations, just in case followers of Islam take offense!

This is, of course, entirely illogical. But the fact that such a large proportion of stores, in the city which has one of the staunchest traditions in Europe of dressing itself up at Christmas, have decided to hold off on those decorations this year is very worrying.

It seems that the fear of Islam has become so deeply rooted that neither logic nor tradition can banish it. Citizens didn’t even make these holiday concessions during the heavy bombing of the British capital during World War II.

One would hope that, in the countdown to Christmas, this disastrous wave of paranoia will finally subside.

But the real question is how far will it go? And what are its causes? It is true that many people were killed in the London metro bombings of 2005. If people now believe that by refraining to decorate their stores for Christmas they will be exorcizing the evil that caused these bombings, this proves one very important thing – that the terrorists behind these attacks caused far greater damage than they had intended.

Maybe a good antidote would be for local Muslim organizations to start handing out Christmas decorations on the street.