European politicians, Islam and Islamism

In one of my flying trips I have recently read an article, I believe it might have been in Newsweek, in which the authors defended that the Western world and its intellectuals should be somehow smarter than Al Qaeda.

They argue that the left in the western world is wrongly defending Islamism, which is an extremist and violent ideology, believing that in doing so it is actually defending Islam.

The Western Right on its side, attacks Islam, believing that in doing so it is attacking Islamism. 

Both are wrong in their assumptions. the left because once again it is uncapable of adapting its thoughts to reality instead of the other way around. The right, even though this case is fortunately until now limited only to the extreme right,  is once again generalizing and calling evil the actions of a minority in society, and blaming those actions on the whole Islamic society. 

The authors concluded that if Western intellectuals do not get rid of this confusion now, we are headed down a dangerous path. Common people in the West will start to bundle all Muslims with Islamists, picking a potentially losing battle with one quarter of humanity. This clash of civilizations is what Al Qaeda wanted to trigger with the attacks on September 11 and the London and Madrid bombings.

All this in a time when more and more moderate European politicians are making it very clear that Muslims from certain areas are no longer welcome in their countries as they were in the past. German politicians of both sides of the spectrum have been rather outspoken lately on this issue. The election results in the Netherlands and Austria also have influenced other political parties.

The real problem is that Europe is no longer capable of defending its culture and traditions against the Muslims flocking into the old continent and wanting to bring their morals and traditions with them. As I have written before, multiculturalism has never worked in Europe and the different models have, so far, failed miserably. Should the US start looking further away for allies who will still be beside them in two or three generations? I think that in that time frame, Europe will no longer be trustworthy as an ally against the enemies of our values and culture.