the difficulty with islam is the size of the minority which is sympathetic with the extremist/jihadist view (said to be 15% in some polls but even 1% is too large) and the much larger group which thinks imposing sharia and its strictures on any society is a great idea.
in the final analysis, any society requires loyalty to something in order to survive. allah is kinda a zero sum game. you get to choose between a god-made system or a secular one. islam isn't merely a religion. it's a social, political and economic system with the koran at its heart.
i am less concerned by the victimisation of moslem immigrants than i am by the peace, coherence and freedom of western societies. of course i wish i did not have to choose but a choice is foisted upon me. i want to be able to identify the people who believe similar things to non-moslems about life in a multicultural society so i can distinguish them from those who don't.
the solution begins with islamic identity, in my view. western islam is going to have to sever its ties with the eastern umma, its preachers and their teachings. we cannot afford continuity with the islam of saudi arabia in our societies. we cannot expect saudi arabia to change. nor should they have to if that is what they want to believe, even if i find it repellant. but western moslems are in a different position. if they want to cut the hands off thieves or behead apostates or kill cartoonists, then go somewhere where that is okay. in western societies, it ain't.
for myself, i think we can get a respite from nasty islam by crushing isis militarily, but the long run solution is an islamic reformation, if only in the west. there cannot be a sunni umma in surrey. you are either english or you are not. you either believe in we the people or you are not an american. you can't adopt a political religion which has no respect for the culture it inhabits.
what we have now, which relies on us pretending these problems have nothing whatsoever to do with islam, doesn't work. i am not going to live someone's lie.
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