Many observers regarded 1999 as a year of progress for democracy in the Arab world. There is reason to doubt, however, whether any meaningful change has really occurred.
About the Author
Emmanuel Sivan is professor of history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works, including Radical Islam (1990) and Mythes politiques arabes (1995), and the editor of War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (1999).
Liberal Islam remains marginal because it is politically suppressed; in truth, it represents the predominant political hopes of Muslims around the world.
Although many Iraqi parties continue to be organized along religious or ethnic lines, both the tone and the results of the 2010 parliamentary election campaign show that most Iraqi voters…
