Marieme Helie Lucas

In the past few weeks, in several countries, groups of citizens have openly taken a stand against Muslim fundamentalists, including armed ones.

I read with great pleasure David Porter’s article, ‘The long shadow of Algeria on the Arab Autumn’, on the web site of Pambazuka News.

On the eve of the elections in Tunisia that will shape the future of the country and even that of the Arab world as well, Western do-gooders and Islamic fundamentalists hand in hand rejoice in ‘Tunisia’s first free elections’ and its access to ‘ democracy’.

It is beyond doubt that many people around the world, of various political opinions and creeds, will feel relieved after the discourse the president of the USA delivered in Cairo today. It is apparently a new voice, a voice of peace, quite far from Bush's clash of civilisations. But is it so?