ABSTRACT
It is a scene familiar to anyone living in an urban center. Imagine two friends agreeing to meet at a local coffee shop:
As he waits for Monica, Hanif sips his FirstMate coffee, leafing through The Economist he picked up from the next-door newsagent. On the cover is a photo of a hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner. Hanif is looking forward to discussing this with Monica. They’ve agreed to meet here this week to continue their online chat on the nature of religion and the public sphere. It is no accident that this chapter begins here. Coffee houses are among
the settings for Jürgen Habermas’s nascent public sphere (Habermas 1991). Basking in Enlightenment liberties, individuals could discuss issues of common purpose and good, free from church and state fetters.
