Ben, thank you for highlighting these passages. A great message overall, but one paragraph I found striking:
"A couple of days ago on the BBC Today programme, a man with links to the extremist organisation Al-Mujaharoun said that it was ‘clearly stipulated in Muslim law that any kind of attack on [the Prophet’s] honour carries the death penalty’. Not true. Unacceptable. We all – Muslims and non-Muslims – must actively face down extremists."
I've no idea if this claim about Muslim law is or isn't correct (can someone in the comments demonstrate it?). But why is it even relevant to the point? The point is surely that killing cartoonists and the like is wrong whether Muslim law calls for it or not?
I noticed this same attitude at a Conference fringe meeting the other day - someone asked about the practice of burqas, speaking very critically of it, and adding that nowhere does the Koran actually advocate them. It was as if she felt her own arguments would be undermined if someone could point to a relevant passage from the Koran supporting burqas. But why? Why should non-Muslims want to bow to Islamic interpretations of law and ethics?
By all means we emphatically should encourage Muslims to make the case to their fellow believers that their faith allows for peaceful coexistence and liberal democratic values. But for Western politicians to rest any of their opposition to the unacceptable on claims about what is and isn't in the Islamic faith's holy books is very much a double-edged sword. It makes it much harder to oppose those things - like sharia law - that are obviously a major part of the religion. Let's base our opposition to murdering cartoonists on objective ethical principles and on the traditions and culture of our society. Such killings would be just as wrong even if they were "clearly stipulated in Muslim law".
P.S. Regarding the title to your post, Ben: isn't Islamism, in liberal democratic societies, radical by definition? To put it another way, is there such a thing as mainstream Islamism or moderate Islamism?