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ok. welcome to cross talk about this tunisia goes so does the rest of the arab world tunisia successfully holds the first election of the arab spring but islamic party coming out on top gyptian is also will soon go to the polls and there is an exam that party they're expected to garner the most votes should we now get used to be idea of islamic democracy. ok.

to cross but the future of islamic democracies i'm joined by you sort of got nucci into this 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 democracies well at least in so far as elections go democracy and social change may have been their spring slogans would be events unfolding and 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 had more than sixty percent voter turnout and was hailed free and fair by international observers for the release of the results right away with

protests 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 seats assembly. this is a day of victory this is a day of pride. this is a day if you militate this is the day when she knew she spoke with one voice in order to realize the aims. 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 for the not a party which now has to juggle good governance secular skepticism and a shattered economy. hope for the. internet should be and not reporting it turns out to be a reasonable and moderate party that would be a good bottle 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 shaped their own political ideologies and sometimes only a modest success follows a call by levy as chief want to say to uphold the islamic 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 in the parliamentary elections so certainly a new and fascinating trial and let's discuss this here and should if i can go to you and i think it's very interesting we had a soundbite in there and i just report there and you know it's the west you know trying to characterize your political party in your political victory in 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 ben ali in the body. 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 democracies. need these revolutions and going forward to hold these historic elections the first real democratic elections after the revolution so are the moments very proud very positive there are immense challenge is 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 your head starts the you know the 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 provoke an 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 direction outcome in tunisia because again there is this kind of we can feel attitude from the west because well it fits basically you know we don't we haven't seen too many elections like this in the in the arab world because of what i would call western new york colonialism now we have overthrown there there dictators now they're starting down a new trend which the west has always said democracy democracy democracy and there's skepticism or tunisia's when there was skepticism when hamas was elected seven years ago. i think the us is 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 and islam has not been very successful we've seen what happened to 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 a new you know an islamic party or a party reflecting islamic values that's prepared to go into a coalition with secular liberal parties is a very very encouraging we should bear in mind that in the past there have been coalitions like there one exists more or less in lebanon now in the past and in the palestinian areas there was a coalition between fatah and hamas the question is not just if they're going to be elections and the elections are free and fair or not political players going forward are prepared to play the democratic a game and that's the test we have to wait for ok mate if i go to you in denver the west seems to like them ocracy 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 bad being

a bit hypocritical i mean i think democracy is what determine on the ground and 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 a 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. 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 your stress 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 where 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 to lead 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 we're going to go back to you in tunis and that was very interesting is that your electoral opponents of poland saw a claim that you were going to ban alcohol in bikini's i mean i would hope that tunisian politics is more about alcohol than in then 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 peter ships there is new definite relationship between secularism and democracy so let's let's make that clear so 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 food to sing on these 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 the main 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 the name of religion all over the name of liberalism or secularism and the second child inch is the economic development that really needs to move forward we have a huge crisis that 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 she was seen unfortunately in the election campaign to have a focus on the provoked and orchestrated incidents and discussions they want their parties to work together and we've seen this from there it's also yes i'm not there has come on the top. during elections just as other parties are have been part of the struggle against dictatorship and they've also received a significant. right you know that i jump in here before we go to the end i could go to the break and i go to david david i mean we shouldn't be surprised that these countries after suffering under these dictatorships supported by the west i'd like to point out they actually want to turn to islam and to say work and get give give these are slummy parties a chance at least give them a chance well i think there is a risk of kind of oversimplifying what is one when there's a tendency you're you know even among people who specialize in the subject you to

look at islam where's your force revolution anti western ism in door you dismiss it as simply a political. phenomenon and really distressing and though we don't have to take concerned about it if your social and economic and political reforms or address you can be addressed by anybody in the islamic parties will evaporate once people are satisfied with their social economic well being what i think is very important and we see this phenomena certainly in tunisia i think as well in. probably in libya as well used on the whole despite the fact that the arab spring this revolution these are very conservative societies they don't want the kind of let me just so she let me go here we run out of time we're going to come we'll come back to people who are going to short break ok after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the future of democracy can the arab world stay the party. can.

a very warm welcome to you this is your news today protesters on the wall street since they have. decent chance of a good chance a chance to get the status of the human experiments good. businessman who supported the military trial local economy and its arcane claims about financial templates the responsibility to maintain our confidence in markets and.

wants to be seen trade imbalances recession look even the missions close to collapsing of some close. to something else with the labor think in a field level because the west crashed. killing. innocent and sweet spots me i'm just programmed to increase the total economy.

ok. welcome back to crossfire i'm carol about to remind you we're discussing the prospects of democracy in the arab world the. story. ok let's go back to david in jerusalem here even i think that you know how do you look at tunisia as being

a model because isn't it really a for the with the rest of the arab awakening or is it a good precedent or isn't a an aberration if it's very specific that the smaller population there's not as much ethnic differences there and it's much more homogeneous they were much more liberal before they've been. dictatorship eccentrics matter my point is how much is to nisha a model. a compass for the future. probably isn't much of a model for retirement 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 to find is. you know a western audience and i think we saw it in the election results it wasn't any it was as everybody has pointed out conducted freely fairly without any chaos or violence and even though the islamic parties knocked it took forty percent of those you point out the other two thirds or sixty percent of the country voted for other

parties i also think that. 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 the popular political parlance is no bikini's but the fact is they represent there are real concerns and these alarmists in a very serious way address those concerns and real question will be going forward is not whether the people want to read islamic republic i think we've made quite clear they don't want one the question is whether or not. these limits 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

in a great and very again this kind of skepticism i mean our our our our muslims mature enough to have democracy because i'm afraid that's one conclusion we could 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's for the first time they can actually have that opportunity to engage in the important public debates intellectual exchange is a democratic bargaining and negotiation that 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 will 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 is experiencing its first democratic moment and 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 soon as i mean if you're a political party and congratulations on your victory do 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 is mostly addressing china's years and we've made our program very clear we had 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 partner vis europe and to advance that status further but also to diversify our relations with the rest of the world. as i said. is to have a parliamentary system that distributes and balances powers on on a wide scale as i said in our party of concerned about. and regarding a model for for other countries which are not to want to presume that each country has its circumstance circumstances and. peculiar conditions and history however we believe that there are many similarities between the countries of the region and that's why the revolution intern is here did inspire similar revolutions around the region or obviously. different parts however we believe that we hope to mean a point that will inspire others around the region is that we need to move away

from divisions. in our societies are diverse and there will always be diverse however we need to rise above those differences accept them and focus on the immense challenges facing our country and it is possible to work together you've mentioned the difficulties about working together and work and working together is possible between urgent ideological parties however we've had this in the past in is your for instance we've had a team from movement which brought together another movement with a communist party within. policy with liberal policies and motives to work together in its opposition to the ship but they've managed to elaborate a vision for the society they want and there is much common ground on which we can let me let me jump in here because there's a word that's used a lot in the west and it sharia law ok islamic law david if i can go to you i mean this is why it's always brought up is that when you have 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 do they but that's correct. you know the fact is that islamic law is subtextual interpretation and a great deal i'm going to be very candid with fudging another words it's one thing to say we're imposing islamic laws on 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 donnelly do they observe. additional sanctions and understatement thanks to rid of a strict form of it that's an understatement there. absolutely. so i don't think you know i don't think i mean you know we will certainly in tunisia and look for

major you want to jump in in denver go ahead. yeah you know i'm i agree with what david is saying that the question of sharia 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 do that believe the 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 that 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 reformation then i think you know that's what we need to focus on the the term shari'a law can mean many things in the audience that the head of the libyan transitional council was referring to effectively means a a moral code rooted within traditional norms and values that respects life property and religion in the west that 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 be seeded 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 that peoples in these regions will get it right if i go back to tennessee can you comment on that how do you how 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 in his in constitution and new party has said they want to change this. is an arab muslim state.

not in our actual laws comes from from islamic jurisprudence but the laws as they are he said we want to maintain rules. as they are we do not want to. be in his year or what we. are all citizens are equal and you can. get its legitimacy from from the will of the people to see that you know there is a focus on you know extreme interpretations of islam and that there are extremists currents within these societies that me tick over and me also you know explored 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. society is

very moderate by nature and they have voted for those that represent. the middle ground here we're almost out of nowhere i'm going to just. 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. well i hope real soon as he comes on your heels that you're going to need to either if you indeed are going to be able to develop yet 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 it already let me jump in here will change that proposition a year from now many thanks to my guest today and to mr newsome and in denver and thanks to our viewers for watching us here in r.g.p. the next time i remember stuff.

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