New York 9/11, London 7/7, the Madrid train explosion, and Paris 7/1. The roll-call continues.

The attacks in Paris have demonstrated clearly that the free and democratic nations of the West are engaged in a long war with Islamist extremists. After the atrocities that took place in France, no rational person can dispute that the free world faces a profound threat from Islamic-inspired terrorist acts that is likely to be with us for a long time.

Terrorism, ranging from Irish sectarian violence to Red Brigade, has been a persistent threat for decades. However, throughout the past 30 months, a particular pattern has emerged of terrorist violence in western countries that draws its inspiration from radical Islamist ideology.

From March 2012, which saw seven soldiers and civilians killed in three separate shootings in south-west France, to May 2013 when a British soldier was brutally hacked to death on the streets of south-east London, to the killing of a soldier at Canada’s war memorial in Ottowa and, finally, a fortnight ago, when 12 people were slaughtered at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the anatomy of killings has been set. This list only touches the surface.

The West will have to pay a price for years in dealing with returned foreign fighters, mainly from Syria, who have become battle-hardened zealots. Although the total number of potential jihadists in Europe is small when compared to its population – Europol estimates the number at about 5,000 – their numbers are large enough to swamp police and intelligence capabilities.

This is not to underplay the threats of terrorism being made by hundreds of jihadist fighters from Islamic State and any number of other Islamist terrorist groups. Nor to minimise the brutal and mind-numbing beheadings appearing on our screens and the blood-curdling threats that these terror groups are uttering.

The jihadists have learnt the shock value of horrifying acts of violence. This is the nature of terror and it is part of the psychological warfare to which we are being subjected.

However, to deduce from what is happening that all Muslims are to blame – and that they are to be feared, despised and removed from Europe, including Malta – is irrational and wrong. It is to fall into the trap which Islamic extremists are setting of provoking “a Holy War” with the West.

Recent attacks suggest there is one overriding driving force at play in the way people become motivated to perform terrorist acts. This is the path of radicalisation towards Islamic jihad and the willingness to kill in support of a set of ideological views. It is a cultural struggle between western democracies and extreme Islam – part of an ongoing conflict between the values of the Enlightenment, which overthrew medievalism and barbarism.

It seems undeniable that Islam’s distinctive features make it especially vulnerable to being used to incite religiously motivated violence

The threat of Islamist terrorism is one that ultimately forces the West to confront some uncomfortable political truths. Its persistence requires a more open discussion than what politicians in the western world have dared confront about the role of Islam in countering this violence.

While many Islamic groups (including those in Malta) have been quick to express genuine outrage at the savagery committed in Paris, there is surely a need for Muslim leaders to go beyond the assertion that Islam is a peaceful religion, since a disturbing number of radicalised ideologues do not see it that way.

At its core, the issue we are dealing with is the widening cultural divide between the Islamic world and Western secular culture. In combating Islamist extremism, the West must also focus on the responsibilities, vulnerabilities and disparate and divergent nature of Muslim communities in our midst.

Islam is a complex religion with competing interpretations. We must engage in open and robust discussion without compromising the freedom and liberty that define our democracy.

To ensure radical Muslims don’t taint all Muslims it is incumbent upon politically moderate Muslims to help tackle the extremists. The question all Muslims of good intent must address is: what is it that gives rise to such disturbing and distorted views within Islam? They may have to acknowledge that today’s Islamist extremists are driven by political ideology, an ideology that may be embedded in the foundational texts of Islam.

Some dramatic self-healing may be needed.

One cannot avoid the thought that there may be a problem with Islam. To say this is not to deny Islam’s immense diversity, nor to impugn the millions of Muslims who abhor the horrors being perpetrated in their name, nor to dispute the enduring value of religious faith in a secular age. But it seems undeniable that Islam’s distinctive features make it especially vulnerable to being used to incite religiously motivated violence.

For the deaths in Paris not to have been in vain, we must lose our fear of asking the tough questions of our Muslim friends.

I accept unreservedly that to associate all Muslims with terrorism is akin to blaming the Pope for the terrorism that used to afflict Northern Ireland. But this does not mean that questions do not remain. Nor does it mean that as a belief system Islam should not face scrutiny. In a truly tolerant society we would hope for a day when Islam is so integrated that it can be criticised in the way that Catholicism is criticised.

Muslim leaders need to fight back against violent fanatics. Many across the world have consistently expressed outrage against extremist acts.

They have been outspoken in denouncing the Paris outrage, declaring it a criminal act and warning that violence has no place in Islam. Moderate Islam does have champions, among them the Malaysian prime minister and Indonesian president, leaders of millions of Muslims.

The President of Egypt has openly called for the rescue of Islam from “ideology”. The remedy, he said, was for Islam to recognise its mutant strain; there was an urgent need for the Muslim world to denounce Islamism as the imposter and explain the real meaning of the Koran.

But all too often significant Islamic and political leaders have been found wanting when it comes to the leadership needed to overcome the runaway extremist band-wagon. There is a grave threat to Islam from the atrocities that invoke the name of the religion.

Islamic leaders must respond to, rather than compromise with these evil forces. The world is waiting for imams in mosques and others to provide the lead that’s needed to fight back against extremism. Only Muslims can stop terror attacks.

Jihadists have long exploited our security weaknesses to inflict carnage on innocent civilians whether in planes, buildings, trains or market places.

In Paris, the Islamist extremists killed some of the staff of Charlie Hebdo and robbed the lives of innocent hostages. But they have provoked a world-wide response that has rekindled the spirit of free speech and the clarion call to reason and the Enlightenment.

The real purpose of the Paris massacre was to instil fear, undermine the established order and weaken the resolve of the West. Whether deliberate or not, one of the most damaging aspects of this barbaric act was that it hit at our civilisation in a place already shaping as our Achilles Heel: a growing inclination for political correctness and the undermining of our hard-won freedom of expression. It is a subject to which I shall return next week.