Democratic Reform and the Role of Women in the Muslim World

EDITOR'S NOTE Since the 1980s, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy's (NCAFP) Middle East project, under the directorship of the late Ambassador Fereydoun Hoveyda, advanced the thesis that no genuine peace was possible between the Arab Muslim world and the West for as long as the mind-set of Arab Muslims remained glued to the Middle Ages. The conclusion drawn was that a reformation of the mind-set must take place and be brought into the twentieth century. Bearing this in mind, the NCAFP convened a series of closed-door and not-for-attribution roundtables on what ails Arab Islam. The roundtable convened in 2004 was titled "Democratic Reform and the Role of Women in the Muslim World." Conclusions reached included the need to build civil society and democratic institutions in the Arab Muslim world with all that that implies, among other things the rule of law, free elections, participation in the decision-making process, and equal rights for women. Reforms, it was stressed, must not be brought to the region by bayonets but by soft power. Aid from the West should be used to support the democratization process in general and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) should focus on economic, cultural, and education programs. Insofar as women are concerned, there was agreement that they can and must play a critical role in the democratization process by, among other things, reopening "the doors to ijtihad (independent thinking)," "fighting for 'economic' empowerment," and waging "a media campaign in order to respond to 'Islamist' propaganda against [women] rights as well as human rights in general." The relevance of the 2004 roundtable discussion to the outcome of the so-called Arab Spring is obvious. This is a republication of an NCAFP meeting report. The original meeting was held on March 29, 2004.