Editorial: Muslim World "Making Progress" in Suppression of Terrorism

March 24, 2004

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0324/p08s03-comv.html

On March 24, 2004 The Christian Science Monitor published an editorial on "progress in the Muslim world" in the fight against terrorism. The editorial board wrote, "Malaysia's national elections [are] a reminder that since the US launched the war on terrorism, the Islamic world has made significant progress against terrorists and religious, political fundamentalism...On Sunday, voters resoundingly rejected the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, which sought to establish a strict Islamist state and which had gained in the previous election...In the meantime, reform movements advocating greater political freedom are ever so slowly emerging in Saudi Arabia, across north Africa and in Gulf states...For a world impatient to end this fight, such progress seems too slow. One longs for a Turkey empowered as a European Union member, for a Saudi government that doesn't arrest reformers. A wish come true would be mass demonstrations across the Muslim world renouncing terrorism in favor of religious and political freedom. But like the war on terrorism, the march toward religious tolerance and democracy in Muslim nations is a step-by-step process."

See also: Islam, International