Everywhere, well-educated folk of (usually) liberal views explain that, while they have every respect for others’ beliefs, Islam is something else... Islamic State who gleefully broadcast the beheading of quivering captives, the systematic oppression of women, the penchant for dictatorship, the seemingly all-encompassing intolerance.

None of this is true. Or at least, no truer of Islam than of other religions.
Any need to list the atrocities of Christianity? The virtual extermination of the indigenous people of Africa, north and south America, Australia? Scalping and skinning their way around the world?
I used to work in London in a job where I was the only non-Cockney. Terrific bunch of people. Witty, intelligent, welcoming. A few used to disappear for a while, doing time for rascality. Nicking stuff from building sites, that sort of thing.
We used to go drinking on Saturday nights, down the Old Kent Road to the Thomas Beckett. I once called to pick up – let’s call him Les. His wife wasn’t ready. As we waited, he went looking for something in a drawer, chanced on a number of photographs, held them out: “What do you think of these?” 
Les in army uniform looking directly into the camera, a chopped-off head held by the hair in each hand. “Malaya,” he explained. He had done his national service there.
I gasped something along the lines, “Holy fuck, Les…Why have you still got them?”
“I can’t believe it’s me. I sometimes take them out and look at them.”
These were the heads of Chinese guerrillas, involved in what was called “the Malayan Emergency”. I remained friends with Les for the rest of my time in London. If I were to meet him today, I think we’d hug. He was, and I imagine still is, a lovely fellow. Who, at one point in his life, chopped quivering captives’ heads off.
It’s the price of empire. You cannot be involved in the invasion of another country and subjugation of its people and think of them as fully human. This is the root of racism. In many cases, naturally, the racism is reflected back.
What difference is there between British soldiers in Malaya, Islamic State in Syria/Iraq, Israel in Palestine, and so on and on and on?
Buddhism is a gentle religion? Not. Muslims are currently being massacred in droves by Buddhist monks in Burma. Hindus are decimating Sikhs in the Punjab.
Everywhere and always, religion provides context and justification for slaughtering fellow human beings. If you are doing it for God, it has to be good.
Contrarywise, religion can provide solace for suffering, (illusory) hope amid despair, benevolence amidst the meanness. It can even bestow validation on both oppressed and oppressor.  
Historically, insofar as there’s anything in it, Islam is a kinder and more tolerant religion than most. Constantinople was for centuries the most cosmopolitan and inclusive city on earth, Christian, Jews, Muslims and all manner of even more exotic creeds lived at ease with one another.
The chief adviser to Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled for 46 years, until 1566 was a Jew. The reason Jews converged on Constantinople was that they were being driven like dogs out of Europe. Suleiman’s wife, Roxelana, was an ex-slave and a devout adherent of Russian Orthodoxy.
Scores of other instances could be cited. But one is enough to make the point: the notion that there is something unusually bigoted, cruel and intolerant inherent in Islam doesn’t stand up.
So how come IS in Iraq and Syria today? Or to put it another way: How come no IS in Iraq or Syria before 2003?  
It was empire, the US/British invasion and indiscriminate torture and killing of people of the region which generated first Al-Qa’ida and then IS.
At the moment, the US and its allies are bombing seven Muslim countries – Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. How are young Muslims anywhere expected to respond?
There’s wind and blather across the western world about Muslim youngsters being “radicalised”. Like it’s something that’s done to them. Like being tasered. When a 17-year-old from London dodged school and high-tailed it to Syria to join in the fight, every British news programme had reporters on the street where she’d lived speculating whether she had been “radicalised” in a local mosque, or via the internet, or by recruiters for jihadism skulking at the school gates.
Not one report that I saw even vaguely hinted at a remote possibility that she had considered news coming in from around the Muslim world and thought, “Fuck it, I’m going to do something about those bastards.”
The BBC’s well-informed Defence Correspondent, Mark Urban, recently spelt out the five reasons for the rise of IS. Sectarian Shia government in Iraq, sectarian Alawite regime in Syria, ancient Sunni-Shia split etc. Not a syllable abut the invasion and occupation. Not a mention of Palestine. All the Muslims’ own doing.
And then there’s the obligatory question: what are “we” going to do about it? Should we not have done more? Implicitly granting ourselves a clean bill of health, the only slight stain being that we haven’t so far – not at the time of writing anyway – sent in the armoured cars and tanks and guns.
Nothing can excuse the brutality of IS. But we don’t have to look far for explanations.