The paradox of Muslim weakness

Islamists - although almost always a minority - tend to be better motivated and better organised than their opponents. Weak or sympathetic courts and police allow them to use violence or the threat of violence to control the public square - whether by driving the local edition of Playboy out of Jakarta or by capturing the road to the airport in Beirut.

Cultural norms - even in relatively open countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia - put any public criticism of Islam out of bounds. The Spaniard who supports contraception and gay rights can flatly declare that he doesn’t care what the Bible says or what the Pope thinks. An Indonesian or Pakistani who says the same about the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed invites charges of “Islamophobia” and threats of violence.

The influence Islamists exert on the streets and on public discourse has had consequences. Even where they have not claimed formal power - as in Egypt or Pakistan or Indonesia - Islamists have led their societies in an illiberal direction. In Egypt, female university students come under greater pressure to wear the headscarf today than they did a generation ago. In parts of Pakistan, Islamists have declared war on music and soap operas. In Indonesia Christians and heterodox Muslims such as the Ahmadiyya often find their churches and mosques under siege.

In each of these countries those who reject the Islamist message - who believe that gender equity, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are universal values and not merely Western ones - must do so with one hand tied behind their backs.

So while talk of Islam’s inroads in Washington, London and Paris may indeed be overblown, the special conditions in the Muslim world ensure that the threat to liberal democracy in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Islamabad is not about to disappear any time soon.