Here’s an interesting video. It exposes the myth of ‘radical Islam’ which populates the Western imagination. The subjugation of women and execution of gays is actually mainstream religious belief in the Islamic world.

The larger point is that the present conflict between the West and Islam is the consequence of a clash of ideas, not economic inequality.

As a religious believer myself, I have no problem recognising that sacred texts and spiritual leaders can shape hearts and minds and direct a person’s entire life. Perhaps people who do not attend to the spiritual life, people who are more or less materialist, are blind to this.

I mean that respectfully. It’s the only way I can account for the strange zeitgeist of denialism which informs public debate.