For the Mideast, a code for rising democracies
These are days of momentous change in the Middle East. Courageous thousands have flooded the streets demanding their rights as citizens and as human beings. Calls for democracy - as a system of values that seeks to protect these rights - stem not from some foreign dictate but from an inner hunger for freedom.
Much has been said in recent years about the “clash of civilizations,” about the conflict between extremists and moderates, between coercion and freedom. And yet today, this battle is being waged at least as much within societies as between them.
In the best-case scenario, the wave sweeping across the region will enable democracy to take root in the Arab world - not merely as a government system but as a values system that embraces nonviolence, coexistence, freedom, opportunity and equality. It offers the unprecedented possibility in the Middle East for a peace between peoples.