Creating Islamic Democracies

Some sound advice:

Growing strong pluralist democracies in Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot be achieved by talking democracy up while giving tacit support to military backed autocrats. If you were to start a wish list you would ask for the building of institutional competencies framed by a rock-solid secular constitution. The role of the military in politics would have to be checked and it would have to be conditionally bound not to enter politics. Finally, Islamist parties would need to accept the role of sharia to cover only certain aspects of law, ethics and morality that are congruent with civil law. Divine law would be divested of its paramount position in regard to legislature. The last point is already in place; it is the pervasive role of the military that has been the greatest impediment to deal with. Made trickier since they get so much support from other powerful democracies in the west.

Democracies are inclusive by definition. In muslim-majority countries, this means it is not correct to deny the validity of Islamist parties which should be welcomed to operate as long as they demonstrate their willingness to play by the rules of the democratic process. Many of the mainstream Islamist parties already do: the AK in Turkey and Jamaati Islam in Bangladesh are adept political manouverers, playing the game as well the next secular party.