Among the many consequences of Hamas' stunning victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in late January is the final shattering of any illusions that the neo-conservative clique inWashington may have had about the benefits of democracy in the Muslim world.
President Bush and Condoleezza Rice, his Black secretary of state, are so desperate to defend their now-discredited campaign to establish democratic rule in the Middle East, and in Central Asia, that they are evoking the history of the civil rights movement in the US.
Flaunting the banner of democracy in the Middle East is the latest fad in Washington. Since the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, so-called ‘democracy promotion' has become one of the leading notions ostensibly guiding US policy in the Middle East.
The "essentially disputed" concept of democracy now dominates much of Muslim political discourse. IQBAL SIDDIQUI questions its utility, suggesting that it is virtually meaningless and creates more problems than it solves.
The relationship between Islam and ‘democracy’ dominates much of contemporary Islamic political thought, particularly among western-educated and ‘modernist’ Muslim intellectuals.
A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt by Eberhard Kienle. Pub: I B Taurus, London & New York, 2001. Pp: 274. Hbk: $24.50.
Two major elections took place earlier this month. On June 7 general elections took place in Britain, the supposed birthplace of Parliamentary democracy. Tony Blair’s Labour party was returned to power for a second term by a ‘landslide’.
In the wave of democracy that has recently broken across the Arab world, long-standing autocrats apparently vaccinated against political death have been returned in fool-proof referendums or rigged elections...
