if you. are from france to. start on t.v. don't come. now half past the hour here in moscow you with our quick recap of the headlines now whistleblower winded by verdict the high court in london rules the wiki leaks founder julian assange should be tried in sweden over controversial sex crime allegations. results of the investigation into september's a plane crash that killed a russian hockey team name a pilot error as the cause and speak of traces of a strong sedative in the co-pilot's blood. a sense of disillusionment dominates the protests ahead of the g. twenty summit in cannes as world leaders gather to contain the global financial

mayhem and the greek announcement of a referendum on the euro zone's a rescue deal has only fueled the flames. so my colleague soledad is here in half an hour's time but for now with tunisia voting and islamic party into power and the same are likely to happen in egypt could lavelle ask his panel of guests should the world now get used to the idea of islamic democracy cross-talk is next. live. live live live live. live ok can i. still. listen to the link. below and while the across the computer a little as tunisia goes so does the rest of the arab world to be sure successfully

holds the first election of the arab spring but islamic party coming out on top the egyptians also will soon go to the polls and there's an exotic party they're expected to garner the most votes should we now get used to the idea of islamic democracy led to take you. live. to crossfire the future of islamic democracies i'm joined by you sort of got nucci in tunis she is a member of the in the after party in jerusalem we have david rosenberg he's a columnist for the jerusalem post and in denver we cross to major i see me he's a professor at the university of denver all right folks this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want my very much encourage it but first marcia should we get used to the idea of islamic democracy as well at least in so far as elections democracy and social change may have been there a spring slogans would be events unfolding in the margin regimes show that real changes might be slow in coming while democracy has so far only produced

a form of political islam tunisians election and the first vote in the arab spring for a parliament that will draft a new constitution and have more than sixty percent voter turnout and was hailed free and fair by international observers for the release of the results right away of a protest and more than a hundred appeals filed namely over these almost amount of party which came in first claiming ninety seats in the two hundred seventeen seat assembly. yeah there you go you know. this is a day of victory this is a day of pride. this is a day of humility this is the time when tears he spoke with one voice in order to realize the aims of the revolution. in the coming months and years tunisia will be testing to see if the new assembly can translate the struggle for democracy into real changes that serve the people this may be a long shot probably not a party which now has to juggle good governance secular skepticism and the shattered economy. hopeful also the. international porty

turns out to be a reasonable and moderate party that would be good battle for the rest of the region for that exact reason to just experiment with democracy and islam may play an important role when the other emerging arab spring countries shape their own political ideologies incidentally a modest success follows a call by levy as chief of parents who seem to uphold the islamicist law of sharia and in egypt which wields great cheer political clout the muslim brotherhood's freedom and equality party is expected to become a major force and the congress parliamentary elections so certainly a new and fascinating trial and let's discuss this here you should if i can go to sleep it's very interesting we had a sound bite in my shoes report there and you know it's the west you know trying to characterize your political party and your political victory and tunisia and we always hear these terms well we hope it's moderate and now if we don't want any kind of extreme form here do you think it's very judge mental coming from the west

about trying to claim what is moderate and what is not moderate considering the west supported what they called moderate secular regimes like mubarak. that's indeed the view of many many people around the region but i think what they're concerned about is not the view of the west or europe they're concerned about the societies that economies that democracies. need these revolutions and have gone forward to hold these historic elections the first real democratic elections after the revolution so are there moments very proud very positive there are immense challenges that you've mentioned regarding skepticism of certain sectors and most importantly economic challenges but there is a positive feeling that just as soon as you spot the fleeing of revolutions around

the arab world they were the first to hold these real democratic elections and despite the challenges there is now a real feeling of achievement and of the possibility of all working together getting these provoked and exaggerated ideological differences because the real challenges are really practical on the ground ok do it in jerusalem if i can go to you what do you think about the election outcome in tunisia because again there is this kind of we can feel it from the west because basically you know we don't we haven't seen too many elections like this from the in the arab world because of what i would call western new york colonialism now we have overthrown there there decatur's now they're starting down a new trend which the west has always said democracy democracy democracy and there's skepticism with tunisia isn't there was skepticism when hamas was elected seven years ago. well i think the us has a legitimate concerns as far as tunisia and the rest of the arab spring countries

the fact of the matter is that in the past and i want to emphasize very much in the past the experiment with democracy in islam has not been very successful we see what happened in iran we see what happened with hamas in the gaza strip and with hizbollah in lebanon having said that it really does seem that we're witnessing something of a revolution in the in the arab world the fact that tunisian voters went to the polls had a choice of electing going to. party or party reflecting islamic values that's prepared to go into a coalition with secular liberal parties is a very very encouraging but we should bear in mind that in the past there have been coalitions like they're going to exist more or less in lebanon now in the past and the palestinian areas so there was a coalition between fatah and hamas the question is not just if they're going to be elections and when the elections are free and fair but whether or not the political players going forward are prepared to play the democratic game and that's the test we have to wait for ok mate if i go to you again very the west seems to like

democracy in the islamic arab world but only if it suits their purposes so they can say this is a good democracy this is a bad democracy this is a good election this is a bad alexion isn't that being a bit hypocritical i mean isn't democracy is what determine on the ground i absolutely agree i think when it comes to this in vocation of the adjective moderate with respect to tunisia or egypt that what we're really talking about is moderation to the extent that it lies that lines up with western policy and to the extent that the regime is supporting working within the framework of u.s. geo strategic interest in the region it's considered to be moderate so we often hear these terms about these moderate arab regimes such as saudi arabia hosni mubarak's egypt king abdullah's jordan. yes these are moderate in the sense that they are working very closely with us foreign policy but they're certainly not

moderate with respect to any objective definition of what constitutes democracy and any objective definition of what constitutes you know universal standard of human rights so i think you know you're serious point is an important one what really matters is not. how some people in the west are characterizing events in the arab spring what really matters and i think what really needs to be celebrated is that for the first time in the modern history of the arab and islamic world you are having democratic revolutions and and perhaps the first opportunity you know for people in these regions to really exercise a meaningful self-determination and so that's what i think the focus of the discussion should be that's something to celebrate and once again we see tunisia sort of leading the way they led the way with the with the revolt last january and and now they're leading the way with the first you know free and fair election and all power to them if you go back to you in tunis and that was very interesting is

that your electoral appointments opponents claimed that you were going to ban alcohol in bikini's i mean i would hope that tunisian politics is more about alcohol than invent bikini's. exactly you know people's concerns are really far from the you know much discussed topics and can i also make a point. regarding islam and democracy and whether the experiments in the past have been positive or negative i think we need to move away from these reductions and simplifications islam and democracy can be compatible just as you can have a religious. inspired democracy you can have religious dictatorship and just as you can have a secular democracy you can have secular dictatorships in the past in the arab world that's more or less where we've had throughout the arab world we've had secular dictatorships there is new definite relationship between

secularism and democracy so let's let's make that clear the problem now is not that you know islam is coming into into politics the mood important change is that we have a change from dictatorship into a democratic transition who really to establish a real democratic system. you know let's move away from getting on peace exaggerated issues secondly. as you said you know the challenges are really first establishing a democratic system we've never had this in the past so that's going to be to me challenge establishing a real system where citizens are equal where they enjoyed public and individual liberties where the powers are distributed and separated and balanced where there is freedom of the media an independent judiciary all these will be guarantees for never having the return of dictatorship in the name of religion all over the name

of liberalism or secularism and the second challenge is economic development that really needs to move forward we have huge crisis new worse and often. the revolution and people are really expecting a lot from from these parties and the message has been clear from the election results that they didn't want their parties to as we'll see in unfortunately in the election campaign to have a focus on the provoked an orchestrated incident and discussions they want their parties to work together and we've seen this from there it's also yes another has come on the top. during these elections just as other parties all have been part of the struggle against dictatorship and they've also received a significant share of the votes i don't know that i should jump in here before we go to all the iraqi letter they are going to break and i go to david david i mean we shouldn't be surprised if these countries after suffering under these

dictatorships supported by the west i'd like to point out it actually want to turn to islam and to say look you get good to give these are small parties a chance at least give them a chance or think there is a risk of kind oversimplifying what is islam and there's a tendency you're you know even among people who specialize in the subject to look at islam where's your force revolution anti western ism indoor they dismiss it as simply a political for phenomenon and really distressing and no we don't have to tell you concerned about it if you your social and economic and political reforms or interests you can be addressed by anybody in the islamic parties all the operate once people are satisfied with their social economic well being i think it's very important and we see this phenomena certainly in tunisia i think as well in egypt turn probably in libya as well. on the whole despite the fact that the arab spring is a revolution these are very conservative societies and they don't want to kind of a let me generational shift let me show me here we're running out of time working

hard we'll come back you know short break ok after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the future of democracy can be arab world today with r.t. . in the subject to the slowest some up to the suburban. mothers mission and free credit station free comes clutch is free the maintenance free is free still free. the old free lunch against the enemy over for your media projects and free media and on to r.g.p. dot com.

the a. player like the slim. submit. lucky a lucky . if you can. still. welcome back to crossfire i'm carol about to remind you we're discussing the prospects of democracy in the arab world.

can say. ok let's go back to david in jerusalem here he's i think it's you know how do you look at tunisia as being a model because isn't it really for the with the rest of the arab awakening or is it a good president or isn't it an aberration it's very specific it's a smaller population there's not as much ethnic differences there i think much more homogeneous they were much more liberal before the been only dictatorship eccentrics center my point is how much is to nisha a model. a compass for the future. oh it probably isn't much of a model for many of the reasons you suggested and you know you economically tunisia has performed relatively well there seems to be a solid class of people we would probably define is. you know western audience and i think we saw that in the election results there wasn't any it was as everybody

has pointed out conducted freely fairly without any chaos or violence and even though he's not a party. that took forty percent of those should point out the other two thirds or sixty percent of the country voted for other parties i also think that. the tunisian voters were not expressing any support for revolutionary islam i think they're very much support the idea of a traditional society in the sense of having conservative moral values and things that come up in a fortune in a popular political parlance is no bikini's but the fact is they represent their real concerns and these alarmists in a very serious way i dress those concerns the real question will be going forward is not whether the tunisian people want to read islamic republic i think they've made quite clear they don't want one the question is whether or not. among these lamas themselves they represent a wide wide range of political opinions not all of them are very friendly to

democracy or liberalism or personal freedoms whether or not society can cope with that phenomenon and democracy in the end can we now. see that includes really going to get very again this kind of skepticism i mean are are are muslims mature enough to have democracy because i'm afraid that's one conclusion we continue to draw from what we just heard. i'm in broad agreement with what just david david has just articulated i think the point here is that you know tunisians going forward are going to have to you know. decide what type of society they want to construct and one of the great things about what's happening today is for the first time we're going to actually have that opportunity to engage in the important public debates intellectual exchange is democratic bargaining and negotiation and all emerging democracies have to go through in order to develop a broad consensus on the basic norms and values of what constitutes

a just society there's a lot of you know things that have to be reconciled there's a lot of different ideological currents but that will hopefully take place nonviolently it'll take place in a free and fair media will take place in a democratic parliament and and that's how you know every society that is democratic has gone through these phases tunisia's experiencing its first democratic moment i think we have to be a little bit patient here i think we have to be supportive of creating strong civil society supporting basic principles so that tunisians can have the right to exercise self-determination ok if it's go back to tunis i mean there's your political party and congratulations on your victory if you feel you have to placate western concerns about the nature of the islamic nature of your political party and what kind of society you want to make. as i said you know our program is mostly addressing chain is unions and we've made our program very clear we have an electoral program dealing with the political social economic and cultural fields

which is very detailed and was published in arabic english and french and is available online it has reassurances fall for fall for investors for primarily but also for others we will maintain we hope to maintain good relations with our mean traditional part of this europe and to advance the status further but also to diversify our relations with the rest of the world. as i said our proposal is to have a parliamentary system but this tribute and balances powers on the wide scale as i said in our party of concerned about. and regarding a model for for other countries would you not want to presume that each country has its circumstance circumstances and. conditions and history however we believe there are many similarities between the countries of the region and that's why the

revolution in tunisia did inspire similar lucian's around the region or obviously. different parts however we believe that we hope to mean point that will inspire others around the region is we need to move away from divisions that are in our societies are diverse and they will always be diverse however we need to rise above those differences accept them and focus on the immense challenges facing our country and that it is possible to work together you've mentioned the difficulties about working together and whether working together is possible between divergent ideological parties however we've had this in the past it into his year for instance we've seen for movements which brought together a not a movement with a communist party with an. this policy with liberal parties and not is to work together in its opposition to dictatorship but they've managed to elaborate a vision for the society they want and there is much common ground on which we can

build ok let me let me let me jump in here because there's a word that's used a lot in the west and sharia law ok and islamic law gave it if i can go to you i mean this is what's always brought up is that when you have the the national transition council in libya they said they will respect this type of religious law and then we also have it and tunisia where this is going to be in play here and there are different variations forms flavorings you know you can go from country to country but the country that has it the most severe version of it is saudi arabia but they don't get a whole lot of criticism today. that's correct. you know the fact is that islamic law is subject to a great deal of interpretation and a great deal if i can be very candid of fudging other words it's one thing to say we're imposing islamic laws and the thing to say will be inspired by islamic law will refer to islamic law when making our civil code use saudi arabia is not a particularly good role model not only to be observed. but an understatement

thanks to rid of it strict form of it that's an understatement that. absolutely. so i don't think you know i don't think i do you know we will certainly in tunisia and look for major you want to jump in in denver go ahead joel. yeah you know i agree with what david is saying that the question of shari'a law really is a red herring particularly in the united states of america today where you know there are these groups that are trying to get that believe that shari'a law is going to take over the united states i think the point here is is that when it comes to the construction of a legal system it's important for that legal system be subject to checks and balances and fundamentally to you know public accountability so you can call it what you will but as long as that law is subject to democratic checks and balances input and subject to change in reformation then i think you know that's what we need to focus on the the term shari'a law community things in the audience that the

head of the libyan transitional council was referring to it effectively means a a moral code rooted within traditional norms and values that respects life property and religion in the west it means chopping off hands and sort of you know killing killing minorities so i think the focus on shari'a law is really attempt to i think engage in scaremongering to sort of play up on unfortunately deep seated islamophobia stereotypes that have resurfaced in the west but fundamentally you know the you know the question of the legal code is going to be debated in all of these emerging democracies and as long as those debates are open free and fair and subject to public scrutiny then i think we need to sort of be confident that the peoples in these regions will get it right if i go back to tennessee can you comment on that how do you in your political party and how you see the future of your country how do you balance the two because you've talked a lot about you've talked the talk of democracy on this program ok and how do you

balance that with religious law law sharia. we believe that you know the issue of identity is is clear in the changes in constitution and new party has said that they want to change this. is an arab muslim state. a lot in our actual laws comes from islamic jurisprudence but the laws as they are we said we want to maintain laws. as they are and we do not want to. proceed on to his year or what we propose is a state where all citizens are equal and we're. getting to see from from the will of the people to see that you know there is a food on extreme interpretations of islam and there are extremist currents within these tight societies that me take over and me also you know exploring the

democratic process yes there are. extremist elements in all societies and we believe to expand and grow under repression and however we believe what's clear from from from these elections and from the results is that you know as your society is very moderate by any and they have voted for those that represent you know the middle ground to me jump in here we're almost out of nowhere i don't know just all the time i'd like to go to you a year from now do you think islamic democracy would be a term that the west and western audiences will be able to comprehend. one hundred thirty three pounds on your shoulders and you're going to be nearly there if indeed are going to be able to develop yeah it if a year from now we see a thriving democracy in tunisia where there's free debate where there's a free press we're all different political currents are able to articulate their point of view then i think you know the term islamic democracy is not going to

invoke the type of you know scary images that are already let me jump in here we'll check that proposition a year from now many thanks to my guest today and to mr islam and in denver and thanks to our viewers for watching as you are to see you next time and remember a scuffle. came. into the. world. bringing you the latest in science and technology from the ground. we've got the future covered.

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