Worse is the unabashed totalitarianism our nations practice outside our borders. It’s convenient, isn’t it, that the economic interests of the G8 extend worldwide, while voting is limited to those who benefit most. Is it an accident that the borders are easy to cross from Europe to Morocco, while people drown in the ocean coming the other way?

Global democracy is an issue I hope to come back to, because we are living in an era where it is no longer a utopian luxury, but the only way forward for human survival. I believe that many Americans would want this, but they are distracted by their political class, which is what I am trying to get to in this post. I think the same is true for other wealthy nations who have the luxury of addressing the world’s complications from a position of privilege.

A few days ago, a friend wrote to me about a man named Mohamed Talbi who wrote a book in French that states, in my friend’s words, “that democracy, that came from Greece, was the liberty between the high-level-people, while there were slaves which did not take part of that, and the author questions if that’s the democracy the modern world is seeking, and if not, it should then be renamed, and that Islam or arabs already had the Choura concept to manage their affairs.”

In other words, Choura, which translates as consensus, might serve as a better model than the one we are using. Imagine if the Islamic model, properly understood, has the potential to be more democratic and inclusive than the Western one! Maybe that’s why our elites want to scare us away from it? This adds a whole new level to the spell-casting they are busy with, with their “clash of civilizations.”