Tunisia's main Islamist party Ennahda was officially declared winner of the national vote on Thursday, the first election of the Arab Spring.
Prominent Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh lauded the democratic vote, and said Ennahda's victory demonstrated the "resilience and tenacity of Islam" in the nation where the moderate Islamist group was banned before its January revolution.
Amayreh, writing for Hamas-affiliated news site Palestinian Information Center, said Tunisia can be "a model to be followed and emulated throughout the Arab world."
Ma'an fails to mention that Amayreh is a virulent anti-semite, liar and nutcase .
Nevertheless, it is useful to read exactly what Amayreh wrote that Ma'an ignored, and read between the lines of what he desires to see in Tunisia:
We Muslims are not against true democracy, a significant, accumulative human experience which can't be dismissed lightly. None the less, we are convinced a million per cent that Islam is inherently superior to democracy.Meaning, Islamic law is far more important than the "simple majority" will of the people.
...With all due respect to the committed believers in western democracy, we Muslims don't believe in this way of thinking because peoples and nations ought to be answerable to values that are higher and more sublime than simple majorities.
Muslims in particular ought to seek Islamic democracy where human rights and civil liberties are guaranteed while general moral values of society are preserved and encouraged. Thus moral vices shouldn't be accorded the same freedoms as moral virtues.
Amayreh pointedly ignores the fact that while the Ennahda party won a plurality, it did not win the majority - nor can it put together a majority coalition with only Islamist groups. It will need to partner with some hated secularists. So his concept of "true democracy" seems to indicate that when Islamists win less than half the vote, they can impose their will on the "simple majority." I doubt that he would be as happy with coalition politics if somehow the secular parties of Tunisia could put together a larger coalition than the Islamists.
Amayreh's - and Hamas' - concept of "Islamic democracy" is one where democracy is only useful as long as it pushes an Islamic agenda. If not, then it is illegitimate.
Which means that "Islamic democracy" has nothing to do with democracy.