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Papers
- Is Democracy Empowering Islamists? (Christian Science Monitor)
"The Palestinian vote was a win for democracy - but also for a radical group the US rejects."
"The 'irony,' Mr. Gerges adds, is that the Bush administration's championing of the Middle East's democratization has allowed the radical Islamists to 'flex their political muscle' - from Egypt and Saudi Arabia to Lebanon and Iraq." 'We're seeing that, for now, the only alternative to secular regimes in the Middle East are the Islamists,' says [Haim] Malka [a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington]. 'They're the only ones who have legitimacy among the people.' " 01-06
- Islamists (Wikipedia.org)
"Islamism refers to a set of political ideologies derived from various religious views of Muslim fundamentalists, which hold that Islam is not only a religion, but also a political system that should govern the legal, economic and social imperatives of the state. Islamist movements seek to re-shape the state by implementing a conservative formulation of Sharia. [1] Islamists regard themselves as Muslims rather than Islamists, while moderate Muslims and liberal movements within Islam reject this notion." 01-06
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