Many another professor has parroted that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Many have opined that we in the West know nothing of the desperation that pushes men to violence, and that in the circumstances of imperialist occupation such violence is as justified in Afghanistan or Iraq as it was in South Africa or Algeria in the 20th century.

I have had this argument many times, and I always ask the question: "Who is doing the killing and where?" There is no Western "imperialism" in Iran, Nigeria, Bangladesh or the Yemen, I say. This normally slows people down, unless of course my opponents believe that the puppet-masters of Western imperialism secretly rule the world, in which case they are beyond argument. Tax quotes a 2009 study of Arabic media sources by the Combating Terrorism Centre, which reinforces my point. It found that only 15 per cent of all of the casualties caused by al-Qaeda between 2004 and 2008 were Westerners. The main target of Muslim extremism is Muslims. The main financial support for Salafi-jihadi groups is Saudi Arabia, arguably the most reactionary country in the world and, we should not forget, a staunch ally of the same US imperialists the jihadis say they are fighting.

"When fundamentalists come to power", Tax says, "they silence the people; they physically eliminate dissidents, writers, journalists, poets, musicians, painters like fascists do. Like fascists, they physically eliminate the ‘untermensch' — the subhuman — among them ‘inferior races', gays, mentally or physically disabled people. And they lock women ‘in their place', which as we know from experience ends up being a straitjacket."

Turn on the news and you will see the fatuity of "anti-imperialist" alliances. In Mali, to take the latest example, the jihadist group Ansar Dine took control of the north of the country and sacked the libraries and mosques of Timbuktu — a truly "Islamophobic" crime, although you will never hear it described as such. "We are against independence," its spokesman declared. "We are against revolutions [that are] not in the name of Islam." Ansar Dine proceeded to show what an Islamic revolution looks like by banning television, alcohol and music, forcing women to veil, cutting off the hands of robbers and stoning couples to death for having children outside wedlock. The refugees who fled, and the survivors who cheered François Hollande after "imperialist" French forces intervened, were Muslims.