Look it up in any dictionary!! I did, in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. No precise definition, except for the generic terms: "by the people." So please stay away from imposing any definition, except "by the people" on that term. Your yardstick should not be one measuring various shapes, forms and practices which, by historic necessity, change from one environment to another.
The Arab Spring is giving birth to democracies; that is to say again "government by the people" at various stages of maturation. Take Egypt, for example, demographically at least, the center of the Arab world. Democracy is moving by baby steps. Messy steps, yes. Backward to the old bad days of dictatorship, the phenomenon of absolute rule, no.
Therefore, if you believe that absolute rule is oppressive due to its suppression of human rights, as in the days of the Nasser/Sadat/Mubarak, whom would you prefer: Mubarak, the secularist dictator, or Morsi, the so-called Islamist, the democratically-elected President of Egypt? Before you answer this question, use your "rule by the people" yardstick.
If you throw "stability" in the mix, you, as some commentators are prone to do, might say: "Mubarak was an age of stability." Really? What kind of stability, and for whom, and through whom? If you mean by stability, tranquility and predictability, so is the nearest cemetery. The people of Egypt voted for Morsi.
They have never voted in a fair and open election, not run by "the Ruling Party" since 1950. After 62 years, they, through the chaos of Tahrir Square, toppled Mubarak, put him judicially in jail for his abuse of power and elected Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. You may then argue that only 50% of the Egyptian electorate of 53 million men and women voted. And I would say: In any democratic practice, the result is decided by those who are "present and voting." There is no vote for the so-called silent 50%. They chose not to have a voice. And that was a run-off, preceded by 70% + participation which narrowed the field to two candidates: Shafik, the military man (a holdover from Mubarak days -rule by the Air Force pilots), and the Islamist, Morsi. Shafik lost; Morsi won.
Was that a victory for Islamism in Egypt? Yes it was. Is this good or bad? It was good for the principle of democracy. This is providing that: (a) secularity in Egypt is not smothered; (b) minority rights pertaining to the Copts, women, bedouins of Sinai, and Nubians of upper (southern) Egypt are respected; (c) all forms of freedoms of expression in dress, art, film, songs, dance and theater are protected; (d) international treaties are respected; (e) opposition parties, whose number exceed 30, exercise the freedom to organize and to voice their views of the conduct of their government (the heart of "by the people"); (f) rebuild the economy, through investment, indigenous and foreign, trade and tourism; (g) keep the Salafis away from trying to impose their nearly 1500 years of interpretation of Sharia, which has never stopped to evolve, towards accommodating "the public good" at any given time; (h) maintaining the principle of sovereignty by not being subservient to special interests, domestic or foreign; and last but not least (i) safeguarding the core of democratic rule through respecting the Constitution which is now being drafted by the Constituent Assembly, especially the peaceful rotation of power through the voice of the people, freely expressed in open and fair elections.
Have I exhausted all criteria? No. The list is open and can go on and on, without forgetting the principles of "judicial independence," of the dictum issued by Al-Azhar, namely that "Islam does not recognize a State based solely on religion." And this is where Sharia and the US Constitution converge (the First Amendment on the separation between State and religion). I had the opportunity of stating that convergence at a panel organized in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in 2006 by the American Bar Association which dealt with "Law and Religion."
The two values, the State, underpinned by democracy, and religion, are not mutually antagonistic. For each of them serves the people within its own domain. Mixing between the two is not only confusing. It is also combustible as it leads to a sinister form of racism, discrimination, hate, and unchannelled rage. Yet they both share one common characteristic: they issue from their own environment, and defy dictation and/or definition from the outside.
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