Enough is enough.

"Don't you hate the USA?"  My Saudi protégé leered across the table with uncharacteristic menace. Puzzled but conscious of time - I was coaching him for entry to a US college, and his interview was imminent - I ignored his question and completed the lesson. 

Driving home on Prince Sultan Street, North Jeddah, I soon forgot the exchange and my thoughts turned to dinner.  As I parked in the school staff housing compound that September afternoon (UTC+3) my friend Pete hurried across. "Turn BBC World on now," he urged. "It's unbelievable."

Standing frozen and unblinking, rooted to the spot before the TV, my disbelief as the twin towers belched smoke gave way to a grittily certain conviction. Surely, now, enough was enough. The world could no longer tolerate a belief system that facilitates such perverse, obscene slaughter and destruction in its name. Up to then we had tolerated archaic myths and rituals that please their adherents, but the cost had become vastly too high. In the 1950s you could drink three or four beers and enjoy the convenience of driving your car home without fear of legal repercussion.  The zeitgeist has shifted, and drink-driving has metamorphosed from inalienable right, through Jack-the-lad daredevilry, to downright socially unacceptable selfish lunacy. The potential risks - death or maiming of innocent bystanders - are too great to permit self-indulgence. 

And the same is true of outward religious practice. If belief in almighty Allah were a harmless, private occupation with no impact on anyone else, then let it continue unfettered. But it is not harmless. It is potentially and demonstrably murderous. Please don't argue that most Muslims are peace-loving, penta-daily praying, Qur'an-revering paragons of morality. If one in a million is an indiscriminate murderer who believes his barbaric act guarantees him eternal unbridled debauchery, that is too high a price. One point six billion moderate Muslims can damned well give up their pretentious foppery for the sake of a secure society for them and for the rest of us. 

But did it happen?  Did non-Islamic humanity - a majority on our planet - unite in condemnation of a medieval anachronism that has outlived its utility and now poses an urgent threat to civilisation?  Did rationality prevail, in pursuit of a secure future for all our children?  No, it did not. Islam was defended, and allowed to distance itself from its glaringly obvious direct involvement in the tragedy. 

There was more. In 2004, Islamic terrorists took more than 1200 hostages, many of them children, at School Number One in Beslan, North Ossetia. After an explosion, the school was stormed and 355 people lost their lives.  

And now we continue to reap the benefits. Two-year-old Jack Rigby will grow up with only a distant memory of his father. He will ask, "Where's Daddy?" and no-one will be able to answer in a way that he can understand. One day, inevitably, he will see the video of Michael Adebolajo wielding a meat cleaver, hands dripping with his father's fresh blood. I wonder if he will thank us for protecting Muslims from 'hurt' and 'offence' so that a few of them can continue to undermine the very fabric of our being. 

Posterity will shake its head in disbelief.