Mishaal Al Gergawi Quotes

You would be wrong to assume democracy would be the only alternative if the old regimes [in the Middle East] fell. There is a much better-organized alternative already waiting, and that is ... fundamentalism.

The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is not as easy as it appears in position papers – it is a rambunctious affair.

We had a revolution 2 years ago, and we see a people moving from a completely authoritarian system into a democracy. They don’t know how democracy works. They don’t know the ingredients of a democracy.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Latin America moved decisively away from military rule and toward civilian democracy.

By the late 1970s, repression and economic chaos were causing increasing unrest throughout Latin America. Army strongmen were forced to cede power in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

Democratization is not necessarily the best way to fight Islamic extremism, because the transition to democracy has been found to be an especially vulnerable period for states across the board.

Establishing a stable democracy is a two stage process. First you get rid of the old regime, then you build a durable democratic replacement. Because the first stage is dramatic, many people think the game is over when the dictator is gone. But the second stage is more difficult. There are many examples of broad coalitions coming together to oust dictators but relatively few of them stayed together and agreed on what a new regime should look like.

If anything, what happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam set back prospects for democratic reform in the region, as many came to associate political change with chaos.

Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier.

The so-called Arab Spring has proved that the fall of a Mubarak-like presidency does not mean the immediate rise of democracy. In spite of this, I am confident that Egypt will not return to an authoritarian governing system again, and that, with some time, it will achieve its democratic goals.

It is true that Egypt's attempt at democracy after the 2011 revolution encountered many obstacles in governance and infrastructure.

Revolution may not be pro-Western or democratic.

You don't get the fox to be in charge of the chicken coop. You don't give the outgoing regime - which has been practicing dictatorship, is an authoritarian system, it's a bunch of military people - the task of changing Egypt into a second republic, a new Egypt with democracy, freedom, rights, etc.

Venezuela has changed forever.

It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

It is going to take a long time to switch Egypt into a democracy.

... even political opponents of evil governments show little gratitude for American invasion to modernize them..

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

Experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is usually just as its starting on reform.

You don’t go from tyranny to democracy overnight.

What the people of Zimbabwe did in almost impossible conditions was to show that you can defeat the dictator and you can defeat the dictator in peaceful, non violent peaceful change. That five minutes in the ballot box on the 29 th of March 2008 was freedom and our people used pens instead of bombs and they struck a blow at the dictator. So we have been vindicated. The people of Zimbabwe have been vindicated. Everything that we have been saying in the last 15 years that: We have a dictator; that this dictator is unpopular and that we want change - has been vindicated

It is overly optimistic to think that we can take a country that has emerged from under a totalitarian regime with its institutions of civil society and create a beacon of democracy within five years. If we try to transform Iraq into a democracy, we will need more and more troops over time because we will have to quell nationalistic revolts.

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

Advancing democracy does not always foster political stability.

The end of some of the harshest dictatorships has not necessarily spelled a more free world. The extinction of the thing we despise is not giving rise to the democracy we hoped for.