The relationship between Muslim-majority countries and the West is crucial and involves a number of major issues. The complexity of ideological and political relations and, above all, the phenomenon of attraction/repulsion can be observed both among politicians and intellectuals and among ordinary citizens. We certainly need some renewal of this relationship. Historically and ideologically, the ‘West vs Islam’ dichotomy has been constructed through a process both fraught and complex. To this day, it shapes perceptions of East and West at both extremes of the binary equation. There can be no substitute for frankness: A constant and implicit (and often explicit)…