Word: islamist
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Today's revolution is more vibrantly Islamic than ever. Yet it is also decidedly antijihadist and ambivalent about Islamist political parties. Culturally, it is deeply conservative, but its goal is to adapt to the 21st century. Politically, it rejects secularism and Westernization but craves changes compatible with modern global trends. The soft revolution is more about groping for identity and direction than expressing piety. The new revolutionaries are synthesizing Koranic values with the ways of life spawned by the Internet, satellite television and Facebook. For them, Islam, you might say, is the path to change rather than the goal itself...
...soft revolution's voices are widening the Islamic political spectrum. Mostafa Nagar, 28, an Egyptian dentist, runs a blog called Waves in the Sea of Change, which is part of an Internet-based call for a renaissance in Islamic thinking. Yet Nagar belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Islamist movement in the Middle East. His blog launched a wave of challenges from within the Brotherhood to its proposed manifesto, which limits the political rights of women and Christians. Nagar called for dividing the religious and political wings of the movement, a nod to the separation of mosque and state...
...against a backdrop of growing Islamist militancy and economic insecurity, fears are growing that the current clash between political rivals could push the country further toward the precipice. Senior U.S. and British envoys have attempted to pull the two sides back. In the most high-profile intervention yet, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made phone calls to both Zardari and Sharif on Saturday. According to a statement from the Pakistani President's office, Clinton "discussed the prevailing situation in Pakistan and said the U.S. was keen to see a stable and democratic system strengthened in the country." Earlier...
...country was far more vulnerable than all but a few (mostly ignored) experts had recognized. But its longest-lasting repercussions were political: just three days after the attacks, while the governing Popular Party still insisted - despite growing evidence to the contrary - that the Basque terrorist group ETA, and not Islamist terrorists, were to blame, the country held national elections. In a surprise upset, the Socialist party, headed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, beat the conservative PP, which had been in power since 1996. (See pictures of the Madrid bombing...
...requested that the government answer hundreds of questions about the alleged cover-up, while party leader Mariano Rajoy went so far as to suggest that a key piece of physical evidence - a backpack loaded with explosives - may have been planted in order to lend credence to the Islamist theory. These doubts were fanned by the center-right newspaper El Mundo, and Catholic radio station COPE into a full-fledged conspiracy campaign. Yet even after the country's national court found absolutely no connection between ETA and the Madrid attacks, Rajoy said that his party would "continue to support" any further...