If you’ve never lived under Islamic law, then it’s easy to be blase about the oppression and brutality that is the fate of millions around the world.

It may even be tempting to bury your head in the sand when you hear about Islamist acts of terror in cities you’re familiar with: Paris, Brussels, Boston, Orlando, Istanbul, London and Nice.

Islamist apologists who rationalise this evil are akin to fools who feed a crocodile, hoping it will eat them last, if I may borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill.

Those apologists, and sadly we have many of them in public life in this country, refuse to acknowledge the terror threat, let alone dare question the extremist ideology motivating deadly attacks around the world.

This spineless timidity is galling for those of us who fled Islamist regimes and value the liberty, equality and opportunity that is synonymous with life in the West, particularly Australia.

Western civilisation and its core values should be a source of pride, and yet among the political and media class, the West is continuously trashed and blamed for the ills of the world.

Self-loathing Australians, Britons and Americans would rather blame the victims than acknowledge that perhaps extremists are killing us for the very reasons they have repeatedly explained: we are infidels from “nations of disbelief” and therefore considered enemy combatants.

But blaming the West remains the excuse du jour of the regressive Left, which thinks such vacuous obfuscation counts as a nuanced response.

Sadly, all it does is play into the hands of Islamic State and other extremist groups, who loathe the West with a murderous rage — it only justifies and feeds that hatred.

Australia’s isolation is a blessing but we cannot afford to be complacent.

Europe must serve as a warning of what can happen when countries lose control of their borders.

There are some parallels between the horrifying Nice attack during Bastille Day celebrations and the foiled Anzac Day terror plot in Melbourne.

At some point, the media and political elite will figure out the unending violence isn’t because of Western imperialism, the Iraq War, Israel, marginalised youth, Islamophobia, Donald Trump, gun laws, Brexit or whatever convenient excuse they can conjure up to avoid the elephant in the room.

Those who don’t like reality intruding on their fantasy world, where every culture is equal and murderous fanatics can be reasoned with, will continue to cry Islamophobia in an attempt to silence debate.

It’s not Islamophobic to point out that extremist ideology is utterly incompatible with Australian values.

We must value and protect our way of life, not be ashamed of it. The spurious argument that discussing Islamic extremism will lead to more extremism is insanity.

Did we shy away from exploring the issues within the Catholic Church for fear it would drive more priests to become paedophiles?

Do we now recoil from discussing the root causes of domestic violence because it could incite more men to bash their partners?

True progressives wouldn’t allow the Left’s bigotry of low expectations and eagerness to infantilise the Muslim population to silence debate.

The general public is growing ever more weary of the weasel words of politicians and media commentators who treat them with disdain. Brexit showed that screeching “racist” and “bigot” can no longer be employed as a strategy to silence the masses.