The first is that it is only natural that white, Christian Europeans should be afraid of being swamped by people adhering to an alien, non-European religion.

Switzerland is said to be 5 percent Muslim, and of course this proportion is a recent phenomenon there and so unsettling to some. But Islam is not new to Europe. Parts of what is now Spain were Muslim for 700 years, and much of the eastern stretches of what is now the European Union were ruled by Muslims for centuries and had significant Muslim populations. Cordoba and Sarajevo are not in Asia or Latin America. They are in Europe. And they are cities formed in the bosom of Muslim civilization.

The European city of Cordoba in the medieval period has been described thusly:

For centuries, Cordoba used to be the jewel of Europe, which dazzled visitors from the North. Visitors marveled at what seemed to them an extraordinary general prosperity; one could travel for ten miles by the light of street lamps, and along an uninterrupted series of buildings. The city is said to have had then 200,000 houses, 600 mosques, and 900 public baths. Over the quiet Guadalquivir Arab engineers threw a great stone bridge of seventeen arches, each fifty spans in width. One of the earliest undertakings of Abd al-Rahman I was an aqueduct that brought to Cordova an abundance of fresh water for homes, gardens, fountains, and baths.

So if the Swiss think that Islam is alien to Europe, then they are thinking of a rather small Europe, not the Europe that now actually exists. Minarets dotted Cordoba. The Arnaudia mosque in Banja Luca dates back to the 1400s; it was destroyed along with dozens of others by fanatics in the civil war that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

As for the likely comeback,that Muslims came to Europe from the 700s of the Common Era as conquerors, unlike Christianity, actually both were conquering state religions. It was the conversion of an emperor that gave a favored position to Christianity in Europe, which was a small minority on the continent at the time. And Charlemagne forcibly imposed Christianity on the German tribes up to the Elbe. In the cases both of European Christianity and European Islam, there were many willing converts among the ordinary folk, who thrilled to itinerant preachers or beautiful chanting.

Others will allege that Muslims do not grant freedom of religion to Christians in their midst. First of all, this allegation is not true if we look at the full range of the countries where the 1.5 billion Muslims live. Among the nearly 60 Muslim-majority states in the world, only one, Saudi Arabia, forbids the building of churches. Does Switzerland really want to be like Saudi Arabia?

Here is a Western Christian description of the situation of Christians in Syria:

In Syria, as in all other Arab countries of the Middle East except Saudi Arabia, freedom of religion is guaranteed in law . . . We should like to point out too that in Syria and in several other countries of the region, Christian churches benefit from free water and electricity supplies, are exempt from several types of tax and can seek building permission for new churches (in Syria, land for these buildings are granted by the State) or repair existing ones.

It should be noted too that there are Christian members of Parliament and of government in Syria and other countries, sometimes in a fixed number (as in Lebanon and Jordan.)

Finally, we note that a new personal statute was promulgated on 18 June 2006 for the various Christian Churches found in Syria, which purposely and verbatim repeats most of the rules of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches promulgated by Pope John Paul II.

That is, in Muslim-majority Syria, the government actually grants land to Christians for the building of churches, along with free water and electricity. Christians have their own personal status legal code, straight from the Vatican. (It is because Christians have their own law in the Middle East, backed by the state, that Muslims in the West are puzzled as to why they cannot practice their personal status code.) Christians have freedom of religion, though there are sensitivities about attempts to convert others (as there are everywhere in the Middle East, including Israel). And Christians are represented in the legislature. With Switzerland's 5 percent Muslim population, how many Muslim members of parliament does it have?

It will also be alleged that in Egypt some clergymen gave fatwas or legal opinions that building churches is a sin, and it will be argued that Christians have been attacked by Muslims in Upper Egypt.

These arguments are fallacies. You cannot compare the behavior of some Muslim fanatics in rural Egypt to the laws and ideals of the Swiss Republic. We have to look at Egyptian law and policy.

The Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar Seminary, the foremost center of Sunni Muslim learning, "added in statements carried by Egyptian newspaper Youm al-Saba’a that Muslims can make voluntary contributions to build churches, pointing out that the church is a house for 'worshipping and tolerance.'" He condemned the fundamentalist Muslims for saying church-building is sinful. And Egypt has lots of churches, including new Presbyterian ones, following John Calvin, who I believe lived in ... Geneva. About six percent of the population is Christian.

The other problem with excusing Switzerland with reference to Muslims' own imperfect adherence to human rights ideals is that two wrongs don't make a right. The bigoted Right doesn't even have the moral insight of kindergartners if that is the sort of argument they advance. The International Declaration of Human Rights was crafted with the participation of Pakistan, a Muslim country; the global contemporary rights regime is imperfectly adhered to by all countries -- it is a claim on the world's behavior, something we must all strive for. If the Swiss stepped back from it, they stepped back in absolute terms. It doesn't help us get to global human rights to say that is o.k. because others are also failing to live up to the Declaration.

The other Wahhabi state besides Saudi Arabia, Qatar, has allowed the building of Christian churches. But they are not allowed to have steeples or bells. This policy is a mirror image to that of the Swiss. So Switzerland, after centuries of striving for civilization and enlightenment, has just about reached the same level of tolerance as that exhibited by a small Gulf Wahhabi country, the people of which were mostly Bedouins only a hundred years ago.

The Internet, for those of us old enough to remember dial-up, was supposed to be the great democratizer.  It wasn't supposed to matter here what color you are. Turns out racial identity doesn't actually go away when you're sitting in front of a keyboard.

That point was illustrated neatly last week on the Awl, when Gawker alum and white male oppressor Choire Sicha wrote a provocative post about racial differences in online style called "What Were Black People Talking About Last Night?" 

You can imagine how well that went over.

But Sicha made some astute points. Twitter, he explained, is where we finally really have a chance to mix it up/see how the other half lives. "MySpace and Facebook and (LOL) Friendster didn't have anything to bring different worlds together," he explained. "Your ‘social network' was only yours." But anybody can tweet. Anybody can hashtag their way to glory -- and everybody gets to see what's gaining trending heat. Twitter may be the ultimate online crossover act. And as Sicha pointed out, a new Pew study shows that 26 percent of African-Americans online use status update services like Twitter, as opposed to 19 percent of whites.

Why? Twitter's run by white guys. Its appeals -- its enforced succinctness, its phone-friendliness -- aren't race-specific. And the moment anybody wonders aloud why people demographically use social networking differently, one instantly runs the risk of turning into a lame routine in a basement club. Or worse, a hilariously earnest CNN trend story. OMG black people have discovered the Internet!

On her "But You're a Girl" blog, Adria Richards posed that "I think black people like Twitter because it's fast; you can you can get reactions are other folks instantly," but added the important caveat that "Black people like to get together just like people of all other races."

Of course, wherever people of varying pigments get together, you're pretty much guaranteed an outbreak of ignorance. You don't have to look far or deep on Twitter (or anywhere else on the planet, for that matter) to find astonishing racism. (Currently retweeting up a storm: "I am all for Free Healthcare for Illegal Aliens ... when they are in prison with other CRIMINALS.") But on #whitethoughts and #blackthoughts, mixed in with the idiocy and appalling spelling and copious references to mayonnaise and big booty, there are moments of inspired, crowd-sourced fun. In among the jokey stereotypes, it says something about where we are now when an African-American woman tweets #blackthoughts "Oh crap it's raining....no my haiiirrrrrrrrrr..." while others tweet the #whitethoughts "New Moon Omg23 hrs & 12 mins!" and the sadly true "These Uggs match everything, even shorts!"

Our hair and our boots and movies -- the things we  ostensibly don't bring with us on the Internet -- still define and in many ways divide us. And it says something else that there are plenty of Twitter users of all shades today calling the whole #thoughts trend racist and #notfunny. Some of it is. But looking at race isn't racism. And not all conversation about color needs to serious and political to be meaningful. If it's true that the way to vanquish an enemy is to make it absurd, sometimes the easiest way to defeat our most stinging prejudices is to laugh together at them.

Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy '60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to "hope" for "change." It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of "the 57 states" is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

(Hat-tip to Gawker.)

Then there's RIchard Miniter, the paper's editorial page editor, who's been MIA for some time now. Now, it seems, we know why: He's reportedly filing a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging among other things that he was forced to attend one of the mass weddings put on by the Unification Church, whose leader founded the paper.

"It's a bleaching cream that I apply before going to bed and whitens my skin some," he explained. "It's a cream that I have, that I use to soften [my skin], but has bleached me some. I'm not a racist. I live my life happily."

Though skin lightening may seem like an aberration in America, where tanning skin lotions like Jergen's Natural Glow cause a hoarding frenzy, it's big business worldwide. And a report in today's Bloomberg.com reveals it's booming. In India, where fair skin is associated with attractiveness and marriageability, sales of over-the-counter whiteners rose a dramatic 17 percent in a nine-month period. And the cosmetic companies that make the products, which have long had a loyal following among women in Asia and Africa, are discovering a growing new market among men. When the Fair and Lovely brand spun off a Fair and Handsome line and recruited Indian superstar Sha Rukh Khan to endorse it in 2007, sales went through the roof.

Lighter skin, with its Western, aristocratic associations, isn't peddled overseas as merely attractive. It's a ticket to a better life. In a head-smackingly crazy 2006 spot for Fair and Lovely, a doting father plies his grown daughter with the cream and voilà! She gets a job she'd previously been turned down for -- and captures the eye of a handsome new colleague.

And if you feel like enjoying a little bitter irony, watch the international ad for Olay Natural White followed by the same manufacturer's spot for Touch of Sun, "for a sun-kissed glow." Note how the same magic light sparkles can giveth or taketh away shades of skin color!

Lest you think that hue dissatisfaction ends at the neckline, there are skin creams that will lighten every portion of your flesh, from your armpits to your areola.

Here in the States, where lightening products aren't as ubiquitous, the culture of shade changing is subtler. What goes by the straightforward name of "whitening" on the other side of the world gets the more scientific terminology "pigment reduction."

Why go lighter? It's not as if we still have any cultural biases about color, right? Last year, L'Oreal, makers of White Perfect Re-Lighting Whitening Cream, denied giving Beyoncé a little whitewashing in a Feria ad that depicted the singer not merely as blond but flat-out pale. And in 1995, Time magazine famously darkened O.J. Simpson's mug shot on its cover. Remember, if you're looking to convey "pretty pop star," think light. Stab-happy lunatic? Dark.

Is it any wonder that four years ago, when filmmaker Kiri Davis asked a group of black children to choose between a black baby doll and one white one, 15 of the 21 children preferred the white baby?

Perhaps that's why whitening creams with potentially dangerous ingredients like hydroquinone, which are banned in Europe , are still readily available in many other corners of the world -- including the U.S. Or why ads in which a young woman says, "The obstacle to obtaining my dream job was my skin,"  actually get on the air. Or why a famous Dominican sports star would show up at a Latino event looking like he was on his way to an audition for "White Chicks 2."

Sammy Sosa's publicist told the Chicago Tribune today he's so pleased with the results from his new skin-care regimen that "it may be something he will be endorsing and marketing in the United States in the near future."

It's a "post-racial world," but all is still fair.  

Anecdotes that support that image abound. The Swede from Smaland reportedly still has a 30-year-old "Klippan" sofa in his living room, along with another early classic developed by the furniture giant, the "Billy" bookshelf. These sorts of stories not only illustrate Kamprad's modesty, they also testify to the long-lasting quality of his modestly priced furniture.

The man who wants to turn this pleasant image on its head is Johan Stenebo. Stenebo, who comes from Stockholm, started working at Ikea more than 20 years ago as a trainee in the Kaltenkirchen warehouse just north of the German city of Hamburg. His career trajectory took him right to Ikea's highest management level. He was managing director of Ikea's subsidiary GreenTech and he even worked as Kamprad's personal assistant.

Stenebo left the company nine months ago after disputes with the management. Now he has written a tell-all book, "Sanningen om Ikea" ("The Truth About Ikea"), that has attracted much attention in Sweden. It is the first time in the more than 60-year history of Ikea that negative comments have been made by a senior staff member in public. It's clear that the book is some sort of payback: a mountain of dirty laundry divided into 14 chapters.

Many Swedes are now wondering why he wrote the book. What on earth could 83-year-old Ingvar Kamprad have done that would make a senior staffer like Stenebo swap sides after so many years on the Ikea owner's team?

Stenebo claims that it was a moral issue for him. "I didn't want to go along with it anymore and I also could not stay silent," said Stenebo. In a dedication to his mother, Christina, at the beginning of the book, Stenebo thanks her for teaching him about the "power of a clean conscience."

The book claims that common preconceptions about Ikea and Kamprad are false. In fact, the author asserts, the entire firm is a tightly woven web of well-hidden, calculated lies. Take the anecdote about the old sofa, for example. These sorts of stories were simply made up by Kamprad and then spread by a willing media, Stenebo writes.

Driving down prices

"The company was easier to run when Kamprad played the role of an ascetic, slightly dim geriatric," Stenebo says. "Apart from that, the petit bourgeois façade helped to push down prices with suppliers." At which point the reader might be tempted to ask if the company would really push for lower prices just to -- in Stenebo's words -- "fatten up" one of the richest men in the world and his sons.

The sons are Mathias and Peter, who were promoted to top management five years ago. The elder son, Peter, in particular has been positioned since then as Ikea's heir apparent. Stenebo, however, calls him an "incompetent racist." And anyone that criticized Peter for his chauvinistic attitude was silenced by the patriarch Ingvar, he says.

These are harsh -- and somehow very un-Swedish -- words. Could the book be a personal revenge of some sort? Stenebo strongly refutes this. He says he is the one who has to worry about revenge -- Kamprad's. According to Stenebo, Ikea is no normal multinational business. The company, with its 135,000 employees across 44 countries, is run by the family and the family alone. And the all-powerful Kamprad runs the business like a sect, he claims. "There was an unwritten law for Ikea's upper management -- loyalty to Ingvar until death," Stenebo notes.

Is Ikea really different from any other big company?

This is one of the reasons criticism directed at Kamprad and at Ikea has rarely surfaced, the author claims. Stenebo calls Ikea "one of the most secretive companies in the world." Much to the chagrin of the Swedish press, Kamprad hardly ever gives interviews. And when he does, it is only to selected journalists who, according to Stenebo, are duty bound to angle their stories the way that Kamprad demands. According to Stenebo, this is how the public image of the furniture billionaire was propagated, with the touching stories of his alleged problems with literacy and periodic lapses into alcoholism.

But is all this really so bad? And is Ikea really any different from other big companies run by one strong personality?

If this is really the "truth about Ikea," then the Kamprad family seems to have somewhat eccentric ideas, to say the least, about what constitutes a good public image. After all, the mega-rich are usually known more for their expensive cars, beautiful lovers or charitable activities than a penchant for schnapps and bouts of dyslexia. But Stenebo's alleged revelations make more sense when considered from the perspective of a prodigal son. "I love Ingvar and admire his unique genius," Stenebo says. The former employee says he is motivated by concerns about the future of the company.

Stenebo accuses Ikea of employing methods akin to those used by the East German secret police, the Stasi. He details an alleged tight-knit network of informers who were able to contact Kamprad directly at his private home in Switzerland via telephone and fax. They were expected to regularly update Kamprad on the atmosphere in the company and to pass on personal gossip. According to Stenebo, the Swedish headquarters of Ikea was apparently shaken by a power battle in the late 1990s, during which time "the spies actively took action to get employees onto Kamprad's side." The conflict went so far that at times there was the feeling that the whole company was "split into factions for and against Ingvar," Stenebo claims. None of which goes down very well in Sweden, where the locals would rather seek consensus.

On the executive floor, Stenebo claims, foreigners were repeatly denigrated as "niggers." They apparently had no chance of promotion within the company -- something Stenebo blames on Kamprad's increasing paranoia. Ikea, in spite of being the world's largest furniture company, is run exclusively by people from Älmhult in the Swedish region of Smaland -- the small town where Kamprad himself grew up. "Born on the farm" is how the Swedish describe it. The importance of blood and place of birth within Ikea is no coincidence, Stenebo claims -- blatant racism exists within the company.

The teflon giant

Around the world, Ikea is heralded as a model global corporation. In a 2001 article, Newsweek described the firm as "the prototypical Teflon multinational" because "no charge ever sticks for long." However, Stenebo insists that this has more to do with the company's cynical and underhanded tactics than its supposedly sustainable business model.

Stenebo also makes accusations regarding the company's purchasing practices. He claims that, while Ikea wants to be seen as a shining example of an eco-friendly company, it also wants guaranteed access to a regular supply of wood. "The key to Ikea's low prices is the supply of cheap raw materials," Stenebo says. "And Ikea's furniture is mostly made of wood."

In politically correct times, collaborating with environmental groups is not just a question of good publicity. Many wood-producing nations are under constant pressure from the international community. Nowadays Ikea sources a significant portion of its wood products from China, Stenebo claims. "I know that even in China you can't buy legal wood for the price that we paid there," Stenebo says.

However, large corporations are often accused of not checking their suppliers' practices thoroughly enough and of trying to influence environmental activists. Clothing manufacturers, in particular, are regularly the targets of criticism. Even if the allegations are true, Ikea would not be an exception in this respect.

Cheaper than a clean conscience

Stenebo gives further examples of commonly made allegations against Ikea, from the feathers allegedly plucked from live geese that go to fill the "Gosa" pillows and "Mysa" blankets (the products' names are both Swedish words for "cuddle") to the carpets in the "Barnslig" ("child-like") range apparently made by Pakistani children. Here, too, Ikea allegedly makes use of skillfully promoted sponsorships of children's aid organizations to effectively defend its image. "The fact of the matter is that a company like Ikea, with its enormous resources, is free to use whichever suppliers they want," Stenebo says. "But instead of using the best, they use the cheapest." Charitable gestures are cheaper than a clean conscience and have the added advantage of being tax-deductible, Stenebo notes.

But why did Stenebo decide to write the book now? Stenebo says that months ago he had a serious argument with Peter Kamprad, the Ikea heir apparent. It became clear to him, he says, that he had a conscience and that he could no longer ignore it. "Economic power means a responsibility towards people and the environment," Stenebo explains. "Peter does not understand that. Women and foreigners were excluded and the environment was consciously abused."

When approached for a statement regarding Stenebo's book, Ikea's press department described the publication as "the views of a private individual." They declined to comment on the details of the book.

What about Kamprad himself? Also no comment.

Stenebo, on the other hand, is confident that his book has long been on Kamprad's bedside table. "Ingvar will be reading the book with his chameleon eyes," he says. "He hates me and he loves me."

The pride in Stenebo's voice is hard to miss.