The real issue: How do we put an end to the clash of civilisations?

There are certain well-meaning people who decry all talk of ‘a clash of civilisations’ where relations between Islam and the west are concerned.

This kind of talk, they feel, solves nothing and makes conflict inevitable.

But the torches lit by Muslim protesters against Western embassies and Western flags, in protest at the perceived blasphemies of some Danish cartoonists, must by now have illuminated their perspective.