I had made the point that the �war on terror� must be much broader than going after the terrorists.
It must also be about addressing problems and injustices in those countries where terrorism breeds. Part of that is encouraging the spread of democracy and human rights.
It is no accident that international terrorists do not generally hail from countries where people are free to express themselves and organise politically. Like Bin Laden, they tend to come from the well off educated section of oppressive regimes.
I was reminded of the question when reading reports of Afghanistan�s historic elections.
Here is a country that has never enjoyed proper democracy. It has been ravaged by wars and despotic rule for decades. If any country were �not capable of democracy� it would be Afghanistan.
Yet, despite the pessimism of some western critics, the elections must be judged extraordinarily successful. An estimated ten million people went to the polls. Women defied past oppression to do so. One man, aged 109, walked two hours through a dust storm to vote. The remnants of the Taleban, who had threatened to target polling stations, failed to mount a single major attack.
Afghanistan still has a long way to go but the holding of successful elections alone points to a better future.
The suggestion that only we in the West are interested in or capable of democracy is patronising, even racist. I have yet to meet anyone in any country who would rather live in a dictatorship than a democracy.
The freedoms democracies confer � of expression, movement and representation � are universal. The Afghans have reminded us that they are valued even among the poorest and most benighted of peoples and often among them the most.
