During the past 25 years, Islam has played an increasingly influential role in politics, and not only in the Islamic world, with political Islam frequently expressing itself in radicalism and terror. Muslims and non-Muslims have not always agreed on the extent to which this is compatible with genuine Islam.
How Islam is understood varies widely among devout, moderately religious, and non-observant Muslims, as well as among Islamic scholars, political parties and organizations. Even Western experts and critics of Islam hold different views. Overall, there are two conflicting images of Islam: a peaceful Islam, which is ready for dialogue and coexistence, and a fundamentalist Islam, which is militant and even terrorist.
There is a widespread misperception that Islam's holy texts are written in a way that can justify both interpretations. But, in my opinion, the reason for different--and frequently contradictory--interpretations is an incompetent and incomplete approach that detaches individual texts from their context and construes them without a thorough understanding of the true spirit of the Koran.
This approach to Islamic texts calls into question the Islam's compatibility with democracy, and also whether Islam is capable of peace and moderation. But based on more than a decade of study and debate, I am convinced of the compatibility between Islam and democracy. Indeed, in my view, democracy is not only permitted by Islam, it can be regarded as a religious rule.
Of course, the problem of Islam's compatibility with democracy may be analysed from different points of view. One possible approach is purely practical, comparing democracy with all other conceivable alternatives. In my opinion, there are only five conceivable alternatives in a Muslim country.
The first is secular dictatorship. This is unacceptable for two reasons. First, dictatorship itself is ugly and unacceptable; second, secular dictatorship excludes Islamic parties from participating normally in the political system. We have considerable experience of this in the Middle East.
Of course, an Islamic dictatorship is also possible. But this, too, is unacceptable. As with a secular dictatorship, Islamic dictatorship is ugly and destructive. Such a dictatorship would damage Islam by associating it with unjust rule and creating enemies for Islam.
A third alternative is democracy, but with secular restrictions on religious parties. In fact, this would be a pseudo-democracy, and would infringe on the rights of religious people to full participation. Likewise, an Islamic democracy with restrictions on nonreligious parties would be a mockery of democracy and harmful to Islam. This would also be unrealistic, because in the current age of globalisation, any claims to democracy would be exposed as obviously false.
So, in my view, true democracy is the only alternative, because it is realistic and promotes peace. Call this ideology-free democracy: a political system that tolerates restrictions imposed only from within, never from outside, the democratic process itself.
We must recognise that democracy has proved its worth around the world. It is the best way of organising a society based on reality and not ideals. Why shouldn't Iraqis benefit from the proven experience of other peoples?
Sheik Dia Al Shakarchi,
a Shiite theologian living in Baghdad
JORDANTIMES.COM

Participants of the World Social Forum take part in the opening march, Jan. 26, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. (AFP Photo)

Returning to its original venue of Porto Alegre, Brazil, this year's fifth World Social Forum (WSF) will attempt to incorporate some of the lessons learned from the 2004 edition, held in Mumbai, India. The higher degree of heterogeneity achieved at last year's meeting, where a significant number of the participants represented poor and marginalized sectors, has prompted major structural changes for the upcoming meeting in southern Brazil, taking place Jan. 26-31.
The WSF 2005, which is expected to attract some 120,000 participants, will include a number of organisational and methodological modifications aimed at generating concrete proposals for resolving the problems the world faces today.
While this has always been a goal of the WSF, it will be even more strongly emphasised this year, in the hopes of generating "many more proposals that are better prepared and geared to coordinated action," said Francisco Whitaker, a member of the Brazilian organising committee for the meeting.
The first two hours of every morning will be devoted to assemblies in each of the 11 "thematic spaces", where the participants will work towards reaching consensus on specific campaigns to be carried out after the Forum, Whitaker explained.
The proposals that emerge from these debates will be posted on notice boards set up in each of the meeting spaces, thus giving them greater visibility, he added.
Whitaker's organisation, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, will join with its sister organisation in Barcelona, Spain to develop anti-war initiatives, he said.
A major campaign set to be launched at the upcoming WSF--with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva scheduled to attend--is the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, promoted by an alliance of over 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from around the world.
The campaign aims to force world leaders to live up to their promises and adopt concrete policies to fight poverty.
During the upcoming WSF, the Global Call campaign participants--who will wear white headbands or armbands--plan to organise demonstrations for early July, when the next summit of the Group of 8 (or G8, comprising the world's most powerful nations) will be held in Scotland, and in early September, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly's adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The need to move from diagnosing and denouncing problems to finding solutions, and from theory to practice, has been echoed by a great many of the activists involved in the WSF.
The marked increase in the representation of the poor and socially excluded seen at the fourth Forum in Mumbai, India, highlighted the need to adopt changes in the way the giant meeting is organised.
Joao Felicio, general secretary of the Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), Brazil's largest trade union federation, advocates working towards "three or four joint efforts" to mobilise participants into action, instead of remaining "caught up in academic debate."
Some of the initiatives that could be promoted, if a consensus is reached, include fighting poverty and corruption, pushing for the taxation of speculative financial transactions, and working to more effectively mobilise the younger generations.
The programme of activities for the fifth WSF is the result of a concerted effort among hundreds of organisations to seek greater coordination and less "dispersion".
ZMAG.ORG

Palestinians wait in front of Israeli Army jeeps to cross the checkpoint after Israeli army sealed off all checkpoints in the Gaza Strip, Jan. 19. (Reuters File Photo)

Israel's announcement that it is closing the three checkpoints around the Gaza Strip in the wake of last Thursday's terror attack at the Karni crossing has created the impression that all the crossings have been open recently. This, however, is not the case.
The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt--the only link that some 1,300,000 Gaza residents have with a foreign country--has been closed for more than a month. It was closed on December 13, in reaction to the Palestinian attack on an Israel Defense Forces base in the area. Thousands of Palestinians who were abroad at the time are stuck either at the crossing itself, in poor sanitary conditions, or in hostels and hotels in Egypt, which these "involuntary tourists" are paying for with their own dwindling funds. At the same time, a similar number of Gazans are prevented from leaving the Strip.
Under Israeli directives, Gaza residents have been banned for years--starting before October 2000--from returning from abroad via the Allenby Bridge, Ben-Gurion International Airport or the Erez crossing. In the last month, Israel has allowed some Gazans to return via Erez, but only those who have appropriate connections in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority, as well as United Nations workers.
For those who aren't VIPs, crossing through Erez takes hours. Last Tuesday, P., a 64-year-old American citizen, came to Gaza to observe the PA elections. At 9:30 A.M. she reached the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing. Around noon, P. informed her friends in Gaza that she and about 30 others were stuck at the checkpoint and prohibited from crossing. Two hours later, half the people waiting were told they could pass through.
The same day, Z., a pregnant woman in her late 20s from Jabalya Refugee Camp, was waiting for three or four hours so she could go for a medical check-up in Israel due to complications with her pregnancy. She didn't feel well and was brought to the first aid station at the Palestinian police station, where she had a miscarriage. The IDF spokesman later said it had not received any complaint about a pregnant woman detained at a checkpoint.
At around 3 P.M., seven Westerners were waiting at the crossing: two Danes in their 70s, agricultural engineers who had visited Gaza as consultants, and a few doctors from the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland who had given a course in Gaza. They were unable to understand why they weren't allowed to pass the 200 meters separating the Palestinian side from the Israeli one.
According to the testimony of people who often pass through the Erez crossing, the first delay begins when the Palestinian policeman has problems reaching the Israeli liaison representative. Sometimes an hour or two pass between the moment people give the Palestinian officer their passport information and the moment someone on the Israeli side responds in order to list the names. Then it takes time until the Israeli official gives the okay.
The IDF said the delay was caused by the Palestinian officials, saying they hadn't transmitted all the necessary information immediately. But the Palestinian police, backed by eyewitnesses, deny the charge.
The army also said Tuesday's delays were out of the ordinary, and that delays generally don't last longer than half an hour. But several people who pass through the Erez crossing on a regular basis--at least when the checkpoint is open--say long delays are not the exception, but the norm.
HAARETZ.COM

South Asia comprises a population of over one and a half billion and a continuous, composite civilisation going back several thousand years. At present it comprises a number of territorial states whose ties with each other are rather poorly developed. In some cases there is a bitter legacy of conflicting claims to territory, water and other resources. The result has been border skirmishes, even wars.
A region gains strength if the states share common economic interests and foreign policy objectives. South Asia unfortunately does not represent such a region.
To any concerned observer there can be little doubt that South Asia needs to address the problems of abject poverty, unbridled population growth, illiteracy, gender and minority oppression, gross human rights violation and the rise of extremist religious and nationalist movements. There is no need to emphasise too much that such problems can be tackled more easily through joint initiatives, coordinated policy inputs and concrete programmes and projects. Peace and democracy are prerequisites for successfully tackling such challenges.
With regard to democracy, we need to keep in mind that its modern, liberal version consolidated in Western societies, which were largely homogeneous. Religious and ethnic minorities living in such societies were severely marginalised and denied full citizenship. Only much later did such democracies become pluralistic; in fact their origins can be dated from the post-World War II period. It is generally feared that in societies where religious and ethnic cleavages abound, democracy can degenerate into majoritarian tyranny rather easily.
Therefore proper policy needs to be adopted to neutralise the ethnic imbalance. In South Asia the danger of democracy becoming majoritarian tyranny is real. Ethnic and religious cleavages seem to be part of normal politics and some scholars believe that instead of individual rights South Asia should look for formulae in which communities, rather than individual citizens, are empowered.
Consociational models of democracy are believed to be more successful in such societies. Consociationalism stands for power being shared according to well-established constitutional procedures. But the breakdown of government in the Lebanon cautions us from investing too much faith in consociationalism. One can also argue that illiberal communities can prove to be repressive towards their own members and hostile to other communities and thus defeat the whole idea of democracy. In any case, if majoritarian tyranny is returned through formal democratic procedures of electing government peace within South Asian states can be in jeopardy. This can have adverse repercussions for peace in the region.
How can such varied sources help us promote both peace and democracy in South Asia? This is an important question that we need to ponder. We need also to keep in mind that regional initiatives are necessary but not sufficient to consolidate peace and democracy. Historically, South Asia has been the victim of conquest and imperialist plunder throughout the ages. Therefore the role of superpowers, great powers, trans-nationals and multinationals in this region also needs to be studied carefully.
Ideally defence cooperation rather than confrontation should be the prevailing doctrine in the region.
DAILYTIMES.COM.PK

Recent news of the Bush administration's interference to prevent the release of the third UN-sponsored Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) spawned a mix of commentaries across the Arab world. To a large extent, however, the reaction was typical. It primarily focused on the need to publish the report and not give in to outside pressure. One can hardly disagree.
But the mere publication of the report should not be an end in itself. Sooner or later the report will be published, and it will generate the familiar debate in regional media outlets and possibly beyond. Then, gradually but surely, the noise will fade away and the report, in all likelihood, will be shelved next to its predecessors.
The ultimate test of the usefulness of the report, or any related work, is not in its publication, but whether it will have any sustained tangible impact on the Arab discourse on domestic reform and, subsequently, on the grim reality pervading the region.
For the AHDRs to have practical value, a way should be found to translate their recommendations into articulate action plans, with well-defined goals and objectives, and strict timetables for implementation and follow-ups. Only then will the reports start to have an impact. The urgency of this task is further underscored by the other serious research work being done by scholars on the debilitating conditions in the Arab world.
Such research reminds us, over and over again, of the enormous challenges facing the Arab region; of the need to create more jobs for the young, the restless and the unemployed; of the need to achieve higher rates of economic growth to reduce destitution and poverty among the less privileged and increasingly impatient segments of the population; and of the need to modernize government institutions to provide better and efficient public services--especially in health, education and basic infrastructures.
To be fair, most Arab countries have embarked on reform efforts of various degrees to deal with these challenges. But to a large extent these efforts have remained limited, ineffective or cosmetic. The stark reality of today's Arab world has not yet hit the political leadership in the region; nor has the imperative to break with past policies in favor of more serious, sustained and across-the-board reform strategies been fully grasped yet.
The social, economic and political picture in the Arab world is alarming. Simply stated, stagnant growth over the past two decades in a region where the population is rapidly growing, resources are being inefficiently allocated and where the demand for basic social services is increasing, have all resulted in rising unemployment and poverty. Coupled with a gross lack of basic human rights, this has marginalized and frustrated populations, radicalized some, and tightened the grip on power of the governing elite.
This is, in a nutshell, the Arab reality today. It requires courage to address it, a willingness to act and a vision to move forward.
DAILYSTAR.COM.LB