i keep meaning to write about the hamas victory in the palestinian elections. but real life keeps intruding and, any time i get the chance to take a moment and look around things keep happening.
meanwhile, my arabic homework assignment is to read and answer questions about an op-ed piece written by egyptian journalists fahmy huwaydi on january 20, 1992. the big story back in those days was the cancellation of the algerian elections--the first truly democratic elections in that nation's history. when the fundamentalist islamic salvation front swept the elections, surprising the western-oriented leaders, the government canceled the second round of elections and dissolved the parliament to prevent the fundamentalists from coming to power. this effectively ended that particular experiment with democracy and sparked a civil war. the west, who had been pushing democracy in algeria, backed the coup. this story has a lot of relevance today because it's often cited by arabs as proof that the bush administration's current rhetoric about bringing democracy to the middle east is little more than just that. because of what happened in algeria, many believe that bush will drop their commitment to democracy if a government they don't like is elected. as abu ardvaark said, the hamas electoral victory could be the test case for the bush administration's democracy project.
which is why reading the huwaydi piece from 14 years ago seems to timely. it was written just 10 days after the algerian election was canceled, and is addresses the debate about how democracy should deal with religious fundamentalist parties.
yet another thing that will percolate in my head for a couple more days before i finally get around to writing that super-duper hamas election post.
