Guardian:True democrats uphold our liberties - not destroy them

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Since the events of 9/11, some former libertarians have advocated levels of repression that no civilised society wants or needs
It is five years since the Twin Towers fell, five years during which we have seen awful sequels to 9/11, some big mistakes made by the West, but also a few triumphs of detection, notably by the British police and intelligence services.

It has all gone past in a flash and perhaps the unusual anxiety of the period has prevented us from acknowledging an important fact. The West has been largely unchanged by the menace of Islamist terror and so the aim of the jihad launched from the caves of Afghanistan has, thus far, been largely thwarted.

This is not to ignore the people who lost their lives and limbs, or their families, nor is it to advocate complacency in what is going to be a long campaign. But it is to say that the great democratic project started by John Wilkes in England during the 1760s and a decade later by his admirers in the American colonies will not fall to the suicide bombers, nor even to the fear of the worst that they can do. The energy and resourcefulness of Western capitalism is far from exhausted and the convictions of the liberal democratic systems on which modern capitalism depend are too deep rooted for that. It is not 410AD. Alaric and the Visigoth hoards are not at the gates of Rome.

This, oddly, is a controversial view. Hot-heads still abound on both sides of the Atlantic declaring that the clash of civilisations is nigh. Not satisfied with the mayhem created in Iraq (where there were 80 people killed in 14 separate incidents in one day last week) and the destruction done in South Lebanon and to Israel's reputation, they feverishly pore over maps of Iran muttering about appeasement.

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