The relative failure of the Islamists in Libya demonstrates that votes for Islamists are not simply ideological. Factors such as tribal affiliations, organizational strength, and perceived foreign influence also come into the picture at the voting polls:
- Why the Islamists Are Not Winning in Libya (Time)
- Analysis: New Arab Spring Triumph Eluding Islamists in Libya (Reuters)
The highest court in Egypt has overturned a decree by President Mohammed Mursi to recall parliament:
“Islamic extremists don’t actually want to take over the West. That’s the conclusion of a study that flies in the face of the Clash of Civilizations thesis that has hung over world politics for the last decade. According to researchers in the United States who scoured 2,000 messages, al-Qaeda and other Islamists believe they are the victims”:
- Islamic Extremists Don’t Want World Domination – They Want to Be Left Alone: Study (The Globe and Mail)
Interesting statistics on people’s views on democracy, personal freedom, the economy, and Islam in Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Pakistan:
- Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life (Pew Research Center)
“There seemed to be a lot of people talking about what Islam is and what Muslims are like, but not many of them seemed to be Muslims themselves. We sought to fill what we saw as an obvious gap in the dialogue about Islam and Muslims,†says editor Zahra Suratwala:
- American Muslim Men, Up Close and Personal (The Daily Star)
“Nawaf Fares is the first senior Syrian diplomat to abandon the government of President Bashar al-Assad,”describing “the situation in Syria as a “horrific massacre by the criminals of a brutal regime’”:
“’The name Srebrenica will forever be associated with some of the darkest acts of the 20th century,’ Obama said, adding that the U.S. ‘rejects efforts to distort the scope of this atrocity, rationalize the motivations behind it, blame the victims, and deny the indisputable fact that it was genocide’â€:
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