Identity crisis?

In Fundamentalism begins at home, Josie Appleton discusses Olivier Roy's Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (ummah = community):

Most of the 9/11 ringleaders were 'born again' Muslims, who went to secular schools, had spent time in the West, and had cut themselves off from their families and communities. Judging by the documents they left behind, they had invented a bizarre set of religious prescriptions for themselves - instructions for the attacks included to 'wear tight socks' and 'blow your breath on yourself and on your belongings' (1). Such nihilistic violence cannot be understood in conventional religious or political terms - instead, it seems to be an individual's demonstration of the strength of their faith...

At the other pole we've seen the rise of Islam as a consumerist lifestyle choice...

While the French press sees headscarves as the symbol of a foreign and patriarchal culture, the girls themselves put it in terms of personal choice: 'this is my right', or 'nobody can tell me what to wear'. If young Western Muslims use traditional greetings, wear traditional clothes or eat Halal food this is more the result of identity politics than a pristine cultural survival.

...'To say assalamu alaikum in Afghan Persian is vernacular', [Roy] writes, 'but to use it when speaking French [or English] is to display an ostentatious, quite exotic and even provocative religious belonging'. This is about the projection of a confrontational identity against mainstream society, little different from gay/black/anti-globalisationist identities chosen by other young people.

Changes in Islam parallel changes in other religions. 'We are in an age of fundamentalism', Roy tells me. 'In Christian religious revival we find the same basic tenants as in Islam - individualisation, the generational gap, "born again", bypassing religious authority.' Evangelicals also emphasise personal religious experience rather than community ties, and promise to mitigate people's dissatisfaction with modern life.

...it seems that rather than representing a social group or interest, religion expresses the breakdown of social ties. It is prompted by individuals' experience of dislocation - their search for a community and rules by which to live their life - which is something that seems to exist across society.

But I'm not so sure about this:

So why is modern Islam viewed as an exotic, historical throwback? 'It is a way to defend an imaginary Western identity', Roy tells me. 'We are using Islam as the Other to avoid discussing the present crisis of identity in the West. Specifically in Europe, there is a crisis of the nation state, because of globalisation and European integration. What does it mean now to be Dutch, French or British? We are confronted with the crisis of national identity, and we tend to blame Islam.'