Thinkers Forum USA January 2014 Lecture Meeting

Arab Spring and Liberal Democracy

In Continuation of the Article post on TF 4/13/2013

“THE ORIGIN OF DEMOCRACY AND ITS ROLE TODAY”

By Mirza Iqbal Ashraf

On Sunady, January 26, 2014 at 3;00 PM

At

48 New Main Street, Haverstraw, N.Y. 10927

 SYNOPSIS: Since the first waves of revolts launched as ‘Arab Spring’ swept the Arab world, it seems uncertain that western liberal democracy will take hold in that part of the world. So far there are no signs that the future of Democracy in the Arab world is bright. Without any doubt one of the key question is whether Islam is compatible with democracy? Whether the basic concept of divine sovereignty and man as a divine-viceroy adopted by the ruling elite or the military dictators, are willing to give up power in favor of the popular sovereignty? Is it the religion of Islam, or the tribal cultural and traditional ethos, or the astonishingly only poetically based literary and cultural heritage of the pre-Islamic Arabic language and literature, barricading the emergence of liberal democracy? Is the Spanish concept of “Twine Toleration” that may consolidated liberal democracy in Arab world intertwined with the belief of the religious-oriented masses and the political leaders can help indigenize a form of liberal democracy? Is there a possibility that the Arabs should not conclude that politics and religion have a common object, but that in the beginning stages of a nation “one serves as an instrument of the other.” Or the Middle Eastern should follow what the renowned America poet Walt Whitman reflected upon liberal democracy as: “. . . For I say at the core of democracy, finally, is the religious element. All the religions, old and new, are there.” And what President Barack Hussain Obama views, “. . . Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” And much more to express, know and discuss for all of us.

Mirza Ashraf