UnHerd: The mother of all protests

The Arab Spring challenged the stability of long-standing dictatorships that many scholars and pundits saw as unassailable — either because the dictators had apparently mastered the political techniques of authoritarianism, or because they simply enjoyed the luxury of living in a region that did not value democratic principles. When Francis Fukuyama asked in 1989 whether humanity had reached “the end of history” with the universal acceptance of liberal democracy, cultural relativists offered the so-called incompatibility between Islam and democratic values as a rebuttal to his argument. But even though dictatorship mostly endured in the region (although specific rulers like Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak fell), the tens of millions of people who came out into the streets showed that authoritarianism was contrary to the will of the people. [...]

The Arab Spring’s demonstration of widespread support for democracy also highlighted the role of youth in the movement. The Middle East is experiencing a youth bulge, and these young people are technologically savvy and significantly more educated than their parents. But they are also frustrated by mass unemployment and the lack of the political freedoms they are able to observe in other parts of the world. Using both old-fashioned mobilisation techniques and social media, these young people drove the push for democracy and freedom in their countries. More recent protests in countries like Lebanon and Iraq show that this desire for change has not abated. [...]

Beyond their effects on mainstream politics, both the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement shaped the nature of protests that have proliferated across the world in the last decade. The Arab Spring successfully merged 21st century, youth-led social media activism with old-fashioned, ‘to the streets’ protests. Whereas ‘hashtag activism’ threatened to undermine more substantive forms of mass political action — why carry a sign and perhaps risk arrest when you could simply forward a tweet? — the Arab Spring used various media, social and otherwise, as tools to complement and magnify the crowds that gathered in the streets and public squares to demand change. [...]

As we enter 2020, the legacy of 2011 has morphed into seemingly countless movements around the world. But as in any uprising, counter-revolutions have also materialised. The backlash has taken the form of governments and powerful conservative forces responding to the outpouring of often young, often leftist or radical protestors. The outpouring of progressive anger has created a conservative backlash — not just with fringe Right-wing populist groups, but within mainstream politics as well. Although Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ascended to the top of their respective opposition parties, they remain far from number 10 or the Oval Office.

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The New York Review of Books: Is Tunisia Ready for Gender Equality?

And yet to many Tunisians that accomplishment feels scant. Since 2011, Tunisia has held several free elections. It has weathered terrorist attacks, deep polarization between Islamists and secularists, and the evident desire of elements of the old regime to turn back the clock. But its leaders have been unable or unwilling to enact economic reforms that would deliver the greater growth and equality that were among the people’s fundamental demands. “In the last four years, we achieved stability, we protected the state,” Abdelhamid Jelassi, a senior member of the Islamist Ennahda party, which is part of the governing coalition, told me. “But we didn’t turn stability into wealth. People don’t eat stability.” [...]

Inheritance inequality is the “bedrock” of discrimination against women, Bochra Bel Haj Hmida, the head of COLIBE, told me: “It’s at the center of all discrimination: cultural, economic, social—it’s about power.” Hmida is a lawyer, the cofounder of a major feminist association, and a parliamentarian. When the law was proposed, most of Tunisia’s imams preached against it in their Friday sermons. Bel Haj Hmida was targeted personally—the law was often referred to as “Bochra’s law,” and she received insults and death threats on social media. The debate spread beyond the borders of Tunisia. Scholars at the Islamic institute of Al Azhar in Egypt—one of the Arab world’s oldest universities—denounced the idea.

The COLIBE report made a number of other far-reaching recommendations intended to harmonize the country’s laws with the principles of its constitution. It suggested ending capital punishment, decriminalizing homosexuality, and ensuring greater protections for detainees during the garde à vue, the initial period they are held by police before being charged. But President Essebsi has focused almost exclusively on inheritance. On August 13, National Women’s Day in Tunisia, he announced he would be proposing a law to make inheritance equal. The law has now been approved by the cabinet and submitted to the country’s fractious parliament, where it could be discussed and voted on in the following months. Or it could go nowhere, used as a bargaining chip in a much larger political game or stalled and buried, as so many laws and reforms have been in recent years.[...]

Ennahda has decided to vote against the inheritance reform, Labidi told me. “We represent conservative people,” she said. “And when this project was made public a majority of Tunisians rejected it.” The party is willing to introduce an amendment that would allow people to stipulate that they want to divide their inheritance equally, but it insists that the traditional sharia-based division should be the default. The proposed law does the opposite, making equal separation of property automatic unless someone opts out. Both sides know that the default option will be the prevalent one.

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Haaretz: In Tunisia, the Revolution Succeeded - but Where Is the Dignity?

However, the deep unemployment, standing at over 15 percent (and much higher among young people), the lack of jobs for college graduates and the meager salaries stoke frustration and rage, and people are already talking about the need for another revolution.[...]

Video clips posted on YouTube by the Tunisian website “Without a Mask” show that public rage is not restricted to young educated Tunisians who can express their protest on social networks. Older citizens, owners of small businesses, government workers and students are all united in feeling that the revolution did not attain its minimal demands. The price of meat is spiking, vegetables and fruit are becoming luxury items, the standard of education is low, clinics are poorly equipped – these are the issues that are on the minds of Tunisians. [...]

The civil insurrection in 2011 did bring about a coup, but this did not turn into a revolution that changed the standard of living, or gave people a life of dignity. However, it created an active and kicking public opinion that obliges the government to take it into account. Critical video clips could not be published during the era of the deposed president, who was perceived by the West as an ally. Internet users in cafés were under strict surveillance, at risk of being arrested.

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The New Yorker: Is Revolutionary Fervor Afire—Again—in Tunisia?

On Christmas Eve, Abderrazak Zorgui, a thirty-two-year-old television reporter, posted a chilling cell-phone video shot in Kasserine, a city in western Tunisia that dates back to ancient Roman times. “I have decided today to put a revolution in motion,” he said, looking intently into the camera. “In Kasserine, there are people dying of hunger. Why? Are we not humans? We’re people just like you. The unemployed people of Kasserine, the jobless, the ones who have no means of subsistence, the ones who have nothing to eat.” Zorgui, who had short brown hair and wispy hair on his chin, then held up a clear bottle of gasoline. “Here’s the petrol,” he said. “I’m going to set myself on fire in twenty minutes.” His video was live-streamed onto YouTube. In his poignant farewell, Zorgui added, “Whoever wishes to support me will be welcom­e. I am going to protest alone. I am going to set myself on fire, and, if at least one person gets a job thanks to me, I will be satisfied.” [...]

Tunisia emerged from the Arab uprisings as the most credible democracy among the twenty-two Arab countries. It now has the most enlightened constitution. It has held the fairest Presidential, legislative, and municipal elections, judged by monitors from around the world (including me). In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian Quartet—four groups of human-rights activists, lawyers, a national union, and a trade confederation—for their work negotiating among parties and sustaining the fragile democracy. The Quartet “established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war,” the Nobel Committee said. “It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction, or religious belief.”

But, over the past eight years, successive Tunisian governments have failed to create enough jobs for the educated, to address pressing needs ranging from housing to health services, and to provide for society’s rising expectations. More than a third of young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are unemployed. Zorgui’s death has resonated. It sparked days of protests and clashes with police in several cities, including Tunis, the capital, in the east. A tentative calm settled in over the weekend, but activists have called for further demonstrations to mark the Arab Spring anniversary. More worrisome, the existential challenges that threaten Tunisia’s government show no sign of improving anytime soon.

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Scientific American: Abortion Is a Problem to Be Solved, Not a Moral Issue (September 1, 2018)

Abstinence would obviate abortions just as starvation would forestall obesity. There is a reason no one has proposed chastity as a solution to overpopulation. Sexual asceticism doesn't work, because physical desire is nearly as fundamental as food to our survival and flourishing. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health entitled “Abstinence-Only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy” found that among American adolescents ages 15 to 19, “abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse” and that “adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education.” A 2011 PLOS ONE paper analyzing “Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates” in 48 U.S. states concluded that “increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates,” controlling for socioeconomic status, educational attainment and ethnicity.

Most telling, a 2013 paper entitled “Like a Virgin (Mother): Analysis of Data from a Longitudinal, US Population Representative Sample Survey,” published in BMJ reported that 45 of the 7,870 American women studied between 1995 and 2009 said they become pregnant without sex. Who were these immaculately conceiving parthenogenetic Marys? They were twice as likely as other pregnant women to have signed a chastity pledge, and they were significantly more likely to report that their parents had difficulties discussing sex or birth control with them.

When women are educated and have access to birth-control technologies, pregnancies and, eventually, abortions decrease. A 2003 study on the “Relationships between Contraception and Abortion,” published in International Family Planning Perspectives, concluded that abortion rates declined as contraceptive use increased in seven countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Turkey, Tunisia and Switzerland). In six other nations (Cuba, Denmark, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S.), contraceptive use and abortion rates rose simultaneously, but overall levels of fertility were falling during the period studied. After fertility levels stabilized, contraceptive use continued to increase, and abortion rates fell.

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Haaretz: Tunis Elects Its First Female Mayor - From the Islamist Party

Elected Tuesday, Souad Abderrahim, is the manager of a pharmaceutical firm and a militant women’s rights activist. Despite being a member of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, she does not wear a veil. [...]

She is the only female winner of half a dozen other female Ennahda candidates who ran in the mayoral elections in, and around the Tunis region. [...]

Abderrahim stated in an interview with the Associated Press that her first priority was to clean the city and plant trees. The city of Tunis has been suffering from the degradation of the waste disposable services since the 2011 Arab Spring.

She dedicated her victory to all Tunisian women, and asserted that the Ennahda party would not compromise the advancements made in women’s rights, something which they had safeguarded by promoting female candidates in municipal elections.

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The Atlantic: Arab Democracy Depends on Normalizing Islamist Parties

The perennial question of whether democracy can work in the Middle East isn’t always easy to answer. Generally, it hasn’t worked. But amid civil war in Yemen, Libya, and Syria, authoritarian resurgence in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and economic instability in Jordan, there are at least three cases that challenge the notion that it can’t happen here. Tunisia, which held its first post-revolution municipal elections in May, continues to be a (relative) bright spot. Then there are the more unlikely cases of Iraq as well as Lebanon—probably the world’s most successful failed state. All three share two related features: Largely without controversy, they include Islamist parties in their democratic processes; and, second, they feature some degree of power-sharing. [...]

The very presence of Islamist parties can be inherently polarizing, particularly when they represent large, powerful, and conservative constituencies. Through successive administrations, the United States has regarded too much Islamist representation—or any Islamist representation—as a risky prospect. Yet it was the George W. Bush administration that, despite its discomfort with Islamism, ironically paved the way for Islamists to take power through democratic elections in Lebanon—a first in the Arab world. After its January 2005 elections, Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Shia Islamist Dawa party assumed the prime ministership. Interestingly, Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood members served in various cabinet positions, including as ministers of higher education and planning. In Lebanon, Hezbollah—however much the United States and Saudi Arabia oppose it—has become a fixture of coalition governments. The point here isn’t that these groups are good (Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organization as well as an active participant in the Syrian regime’s mass killing of civilians), but rather that Arab democracy, in practice, often coincides with the normalization of Islamist parties. [...]

In the case of Tunisia, the irony is that Islamists’ willingness to play nice—something that would generally seem quite positive—has contributed to a troubling trend of democratic backsliding on things like police reform, an overly securitized counterterrorism strategy, and the lack of accountability for the crimes and corruption of old regime figures. As the largest party in parliament, Ennahda potentially has considerable power to challenge Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and President Beji Caid Essebsi Essebsi’s priorities. Instead, they have emphasized caution, consensus, and stability, fearing that doing otherwise might summon the old days of polarization and repression. Embracing their role as junior partner in the government, they have, in effect, gained protected status. But this also means that Tunisia is deprived of a cohesive bloc that could serve as an effective lobby for strengthening the democratic transition. The desire for compromise, unchecked, can come at a cost.

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Al Jazeera: The myth of Tunisia's exceptionalism

What is central to these narratives is a rather superficial comparison between the relative peacefulness of Tunisia's transition and the state disintegration in Libya, Syria and Yemen. After all, having an example of a "successful revolution" can always provide a glimpse of hope and optimism especially in these dystopian times. But this framing of the democratic transition in Tunisia since 2011 dismisses a dismal reality.    

The construction and consolidation of the idea of "Tunisian exceptionalism" support the fetishisation of Tunisia's democracy as a political commodity. In turn, this process of fetishisation enables neoliberal political campaigns and interventions to be implemented while it denies the possibility of establishing radical democratic frameworks and policies. 

During Ben Ali's era, exceptional improvements in women's rights and the implementation of dogmatic secularism were used to promote the "impressive accomplishments" of the regime and hide its widespread and systematic human rights violations such the persecution of political opponents and abuse of government critics. France and the EU were complicit in promoting the "successes" of Ben Ali's regime and establishing Tunisia as "a pillar of stability and peace" despite a deteriorating social and political reality. [...]

The ongoing protests, for example, erupted after the Tunisian government implemented austerity measures that caused commodity prices to go up dramatically. These policies, pushed onto the government by neoliberal institutions like the International Monetary Fund, fall in line with the ones Ben Ali's regime implemented. It was these very policies that led to the mass impoverishment of the Tunisian population and ultimately a pervasive popular malaise.  [...]

"Tunisian exceptionalism", this logic goes, must be maintained through peace and stability; any demands for radical change are seen as dangerous and disruptive. Hence, when the latest wave of protests erupted, the Tunisian political elite called for unity and peaceful demonstrations and reminded Tunisians how we are being perceived abroad. The angry protestors were portrayed as a threat to the "success story". 

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Al Jazeera: The Death of Fear

In an exclusive documentary Rageh Omaar traces the roots and repercussions of the uprising in Tunisia - a revolution which ended half a century of autocratic rule and inspired a wave of public protest that swept across the Arab world. [...]

Mohammed Bouazizi's self-immolation and the demonstrations which followed might have caught the public imagination, but protest in Tunis remained unthinkable for most. Ben Ali's interior ministry, the headquarters of a police state of more than 200,000 agents, was still in control.

Further demonstrations in the south led to the shooting dead of several protesters and ultimately to people coming out on to the streets of the capital. It was at this point that Ben Ali decided it was time to apply his personal touch.  [...]

Ben Ali recognised that the population were losing their fear and decided to deliver a lesson in terror. He deployed sniper units in the southern town of Kasserine, it seems with orders to shoot to kill. There are still no accurate casualty figures but at least 20 people were shot dead and the injuries caused by the use of military weaponry were horrific.

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Quartz: As Robert Mugabe finds a new home, here’s where other African dictators went to retire

In Saudi Arabia, Amin received a monthly stipend and the respect of still being called “Mr President.” Until his death in 2003, Amin was often spotted wandering through grocery stores, going to the health club, and praying at his local mosque. It was a life far removed from one the world’s most brutal dictatorships, during which about 300,000 were killed under Amin’s regime.

Saudi Arabia continues to offer a comfortable retirement to Africa’s strongmen. Ousted Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Jeddah after the 2011 revolution that ended his 23-year rule. Ben Ali’s retirement has not been as tranquil as he may have imagined, with Tunisia’s new government continuously calling for his extradition.

Until now, Mugabe himself has provided a safe haven for fallen autocrats. In 1991, Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the capital Addis Ababa and into safety in Zimbabwe. His departure brought an end to his Marxist-leaning government, which for 14 years was bedeviled by war, famine, failed economic policies, and a mass crackdown on enemies known as the Red Terror. [...]

Until now, Mugabe himself has provided a safe haven for fallen autocrats. In 1991, Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the capital Addis Ababa and into safety in Zimbabwe. His departure brought an end to his Marxist-leaning government, which for 14 years was bedeviled by war, famine, failed economic policies, and a mass crackdown on enemies known as the Red Terror.

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Political Critique: Nostalgia for the present in Tunis’s belle-époque downtown

The people and buildings in these photos no longer exist. One postcard features an Arcadian-looking Benghazi in what is today Libya, all pergola-lined walkways and skillfully-carved Italianate stone arcades – a far cry from the mounds of rubble that years of post-revolutionary fighting have reduced the city to. [...]

Once the French project got under way, the colonial power expanded the city by dredging the marshland, lapping up against the Medina walls and laying down Haussmannian boulevards. First among them was the Boulevard Marine known today as Bourguiba after the country’s first post-independence leader, which formed the background to media coverage of the 2011 Tunisian revolution. Apartments with elaborate façades fronted such boulevards and electric trams coursed along them. To the pre-modern locals, it must have looked like a spell had been cast on their city. [...]

Like Istanbul, Thesssaloniki, Cairo and many other once-upon-a-time metropolises whose cosmopolitanisms were pulverized by geopolitics and the reductionist founding myths of the nation-state, Tunis is a city of absences. These are most felt in La Goulette, the pleasant seaside neighborhood now deserted by its Jewish and Catholic residents; the suqs in the Medina abandoned by Jewish traders and Muslim aristocrats alike; the decaying, high-ceilinged apartments, bars and synagogues of Lafayette, once rowdy with the sound of Italian and French; the soaring bell-towers of the Cathedral and St Croix, or the onion domes of the Greek Orthodox church close to Bab al-Bahr, the Gate to the Sea.

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Al Jazeera: Tunisia lifts ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslims

The announcement came a month after President Beji Caid Essebsi called for the government to lift the ban dating back to 1973, arguing that existing practice violates Tunisia's constitution, adopted in 2014 in the wake of the Arab Spring revolution. [...]

Until now a non-Muslim man who wished to marry a Tunisian woman had to convert to Islam and submit a certificate of his conversion as proof while a Tunisian man is allowed to marry a non-Muslim woman. [...]

Daughters are entitled to only half the inheritance given to sons.

Mainstream Muslim clerics almost universally see the inheritance rules as enshrined in the Quran, Islam's holy book, and consider the rules on marriage to be equally unquestionable in Islamic law.

The country's leading imams and theologians have issued a statement denouncing the president's proposals as a "flagrant violation of the precepts" of Islam. [...]

The first president of independent Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, championed a landmark social code in 1956 that set a standard for the region by banning polygamy and granting new rights to women unheard of in the Arab world at the time. But even he didn't dare push for equal inheritance.

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Independent: Laws that allow rapists to marry their victims come from colonialism, not Islam

In Jordan, it’s easy for a convicted rapist to simply walk free from court; all he has to do is to subject his victim to yet another terrible ordeal.

Article 308 of the Jordanian penal code means that a rapist can escape punishment if he agrees to marry his victim. Only if the marriage lasts for less than three years does he have to serve his time. Between 2010 and 2013, a total of 159 rapists walked free in this way. [...]

Similar legislation has been abolished in Egypt, Morocco and just last week in Tunisia, while activists in Lebanon have seen their demands for abolition endorsed by the government and are now awaiting parliamentary approval. [...]

Article 308 is a remnant of the Ottoman rule, but its origin is even more distant – historically and geographically – as the Ottomans had imported it from the French penal code. In countries that were under French colonial rule, such as Lebanon and Tunisia, laws like Article 308 are a direct hangover.

The roots of these laws lie in the cultural impact of centuries under colonial rule, where subjugation was ultimately secured by a true “gentlemen’s agreement”. While foreign powers took control of the state, in exchange they offered local men complete control of their homes.

The colonialists fed and legitimised the misogynist voices within the colonised, and so many of the barriers that women face in the region stem directly from this strategy of using patriarchy as a tool of oppression.

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Vox: The Middle East's cold war, explained

Al Jazeera: Analysis: Qatar-Gulf crisis: Who are the 'terrorists'?

Most of the current accusations against Qatar date back to the years leading up to and during the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010. Unlike its neighbours, Qatar lent its support for the removal of authoritarian regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and generally endorsed the possibilities offered by a new era of political openness for repressed populations around the region.

That support was quite often channelled through Islamist parties poised to take power in democratic elections such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia. Even amid questions surrounding Qatar's actual motives for pursuing such a policy, or the fact that it stopped short of supporting the uprising in neighbouring Bahrain, Qatar was placed in the anti-establishment camp.  [...]

Along with punishing Qatar for past offences, this battle appears to be more about crushing the last vestiges of hope for any independent political thought in the Middle East.

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Al Jazeera: The cemetery of unknown refugees from the Mediterranean

There is nothing to indicate that this is a cemetery, where hundreds of people have been buried after drowning while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy. One of the latest victims, an African woman in her 30s, was found on the beach in Zarzis without any documents after floating in the sea for about a month.

More than 4,400 people have died or gone missing this year while trying to make the deadly crossing, according to the International Organization for Migration's Missing Migrants Project. Most bodies are never found, but the largest number wash ashore in Libya or Italy and are buried there. [...]

Nobody knows how many people have been buried here exactly, although Marzoug estimates that there have been at least 200 in the past six years. In the late 1990s, as more people started to cross the sea, those who drowned were initially buried in a separate corner of the main cemeteries of Zarzis and Ben Guerdane - but as their numbers grew, some locals started protesting. [...]

Over the past few years, a number of Syrians have come to Zarzis to ask about their loved ones, says Marzoug's Red Crescent colleague, Dr Mongi Slim. But under current circumstances, none of the bodies can be identified. Last month, Slim recalled receiving a phone call from a Syrian man who had been rescued in Italy and was looking for his wife and daughter.

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Al Jazeera: The evolution of Islamists

With the opening up of political space during the interwar period, the Muslim Brotherhood positioned itself as a movement that preached social reforms supporting the country's continued modernisation while adhering to Islamic principles.

At a time when there appeared an increasing divide between the country's political and religious elites and the latter seemed incapable of challenging their effective marginalisation, Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, believed that ordinary people could advocate on behalf of their religious ideals. 

As such, the Muslim Brotherhood was not a traditional movement from a bygone era. Far from it. It maintained an intricate structure with elected representatives at various levels of the organisational hierarchy. [...]

What is truly ironic is that, as Islamist parties gradually acquire a more "secular" outlook to their interpretation of the needs of contemporary democratic politics, several authoritarian rulers have increasingly begun to employ traditional Islamic arguments to justify their hold on power.

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The Atlantic: What Do Women Leaders Have in Common?

But despite the vastly different cultural and political contexts that these women arose in—and the roughly 20 other female heads-of-state around the world—is there something deeper that they share?  Answering that question could reveal not the fundamental, essential nature of female leadership, but how women in leadership are perceived around the world, and perhaps more importantly, the obstacles women continue to face in their quest for equal representation. [...]

“Every single one of them talked about finding their voices and their confidence at dinner-table conversations with their families. Their parents talked about politics, about what was happening in the community, and when the women had something to say, their parents didn’t hush them,” Madsen said. In the UAE, where men and women were often separated, women that Madsen interviewed pointed to the role of their fathers in encouraging them to speak up. “Every woman I spoke to said her father would bring home books for her to read when he traveled, which most other people didn’t have.” [...]

Another conclusion from Madsen’s work is that women’s leadership development doesn’t look like men’s. “Men are more strategic and [tend to follow] a more linear path to becoming a leader. Women’s paths are much more emergent. They tend to not necessarily look ahead and think, ‘I want to be on top.’ Women would point to a number of experiences—motherhood, or working with a non-profit, or sitting on a board, as shaping their path to becoming leaders,” she said. Madsen likens this to a “patchwork quilt” of experiences—an aggregate that is more clear and cohesive together than as distinct parts. [...]

Another reason that women leaders may have some similarities is that they tend to be held to higher standards than their male counterparts, perhaps even more so in countries where there is dramatic gender inequality. Jalalzai has found this in her research. “We have to acknowledge that men are not faced with the suspicion that they can’t be good leaders simply because they are men,” she explained. “Tomorrow someone might say President Barack Obama was a complete failure, but no one is going to conclude from that that all men are bad leaders. So there’s a certain type of privilege that your success or failure is not going to reflect on your entire sex.”

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Slate: Can Islam and Liberalism Coexist?

No, no. I’m not saying Islam is incompatible with democratic politics; I’m saying that Islam is in tension with liberalism, and this is why I think it’s important for us to distinguish between liberalism and democracy. Let’s say an Islamist party comes to power through a democratic election. Islamism is by definition illiberal, and they would promote things that are contrary to classical liberalism, in the sense of non-negotiable personal rights and freedoms, gender equality, protection of minorities.

Fareed Zakaria was the first one to really popularize the idea of illiberal democracy. I feel like the Americans I’ve talked to have struggled to really grasp the idea because we don’t really have much experience with that directly. With the rise of Trump it makes things easier because we can see quite clearly that, Hey, this is a guy who might be democratically elected but his commitment to classical liberalism is quite questionable, even antagonistic. [...]

I think Islam is more capable of contributing to social order and the cohesion of a society in a place where the vast majority of citizens share that basic Islamic identity. Maybe Islam is also useful for people who want to get into heaven. That might sound like a weird thing to say, but also the way we think about rationality is problematic. I mean we’re always looking for nonreligious reasons to explain why people do what they do: So, there are economic and material factors, and people are poor and angry, whatever. Sometimes the goal of an individual can be pretty straightforward; they just want to mind their own business and get into heaven. I think Islam can be useful for people who believe that. [...]

I do think that social peace is possible, and Malaysia and Indonesia—which rarely get talked about in Washington—are really interesting cases because Indonesia is certainly more democratic but has also more implementation of Sharia ordinances on the local level than Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, you name it. In some sense democratization does not necessarily go hand in hand with secularism; it might actually go hand in hand with more Islam in politics, if that’s what voters want. How would you answer that question by the way: Why do you think liberalism is necessarily better for X society in the Middle East or Southeast Asia?

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