.... Isis regularly mocks the West for our “analysis paralysis”. We cannot decide what is right and wrong because we have lost our moral compass – they, meanwhile, retain an extreme clarity.
Guilty from days of empire, we no longer feel we have the right to tell others how to behave. Islamist fanatics have no such compunctions and exploit our reticence. This is a culture war, a battle of ideas.
When a German judge allows a Muslim husband to beat his wife because the “Koran permits it”, and “it is their culture”, then we are letting the hardliners win. When our teachers, in all good intent, grant girls as young as four and five the right to wear the hijab to schools across Europe we are sending a message that these young children are different, and we accept their markers of separation. [The Independent] Read more
