We all need to understand better what’s happening and not happening in the Muslim world. The West and the rest of the non-Muslim world is in a dangerous cycle of self-fulfilling paranoia. That’s why I attended a conference of the Organisation of Islamic Countries in Malaysia recently.

Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi gave a electrifying speech. Arguing that the divide between the Muslim world and the West is the issue of the decade and has succeeded the Cold War as the strategic issue of global concern. Firm about the problems of Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, he was equally firm about the needs of the Muslim world to do better, talking of development not just being about lifting living standards. “It must also mean a literate and informed society, a representative political system that gives effective voice to the people, the absence of severe irregularities, efficient and honest administration, and a commitment to the rule of law. A country cannot be considered ‘developed’ until rights are respected, women are empowered, minorities protected, and corruption eradicated,” he said.

The Muslim world represents some of the poorest, most desperate places, and stretches from West Africa to the Philippines. Half the Arab world is under 25, 75% of Saudi Arabia is under the age of 30, 100 million new Muslims will come on the job market in the Middle East alone by 2020. Malaysia is a progressive model of how a mainly Muslim nation can navigate great ethnic differences and succeed. But its model can no more be parachuted into other countries in total than can the US Constitution be FedEx’d into others.

Forty years ago Malaysia was as poor as Haiti, now there is very little extreme poverty. Faced with new competition from China, and now a vibrant Vietnam, they have resisted turning inwards and are boldly positioning themselves as part of the global supply chain. Economic growth is the best answer, probably the only answer, to extreme poverty. A Pakistani, former central banker, pointed out that when, up to the 1990’s when Pakistan’s growth was 6% a year, extreme poverty dropped from 40% to 18%. When growth slowed in the 1990’s to 3.5%, extreme poverty increased from 18% to 33%. Over the past few years, Pakistan has enjoyed 7% growth and poverty has declined to 24%. The lessons of history, and how to get sustained growth, are clear, it’s the rule of law, property rights, education, widening the economic social and political franchise to include women and minorities. Open trade and investment works. There’s no shortage of money in the world but investment will go where it feels safe, where there are predictable laws, independent courts, and risk is minimised. Competition is the cleansing agent for business and can elbow out the crony, cosy relationships that exist when bureaucrats and politicians have too much power.

I explained to the Conference that when I first went into politics I held a simple view, that people were not greedy, they simply wanted someone to love, somewhere to work, somewhere to live, something to believe in, and something to hope for. I’ve changed my mind, I now believe people also need something to lose. A stake in society. People with nothing to lose can do desperate things. In their poverty they can fall prey to those who suggest that those who are unempowered need someone to blame, someone to hate. Ownership is about dignity and it’s the humiliation of marginalisation and lack of rights, the denial of hope that breeds extremism. These are big issues. What do you do with people born often from successful migrant parents who have done well in the West but despise the societies they are born into?

Why was the unsuccessful London and Glasgow bombings by medical doctors so chilling? It was a slap in the face of those of us who believe that education and success will drive out extremists. A rejection of all the values of the Age of Enlightenment. Chilling was the evidence that of 148 Palestinian suicide bombers, most were more likely to have finished high school, less likely to have come from families living in poverty. Biographies of Hezzbollah martyrs reveal a similar, depressing picture as do the backgrounds of the Israeli terrorist group, Gush Emanium from the 1980’s. Public opinion polls from Muslim nations find people with more education are more likely to say suicide bombers are justified than people with less education. The wrong message can be taken from this. Removing poverty doesn’t remove fanatics, the ‘crazies’ would have existed in Russia without the Czar and his cruel, exploitative policies. But had there been more social justice, democracy, progress and hope, the fanatics would not have been able to motivate the masses whom they always hold in contempt.

There is a way through and Malaysia, Turkey, and Indonesia are models of a more tolerant, sensitive response; the plucky, lucky small states in the Middle East are also laboratories of hope.