Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism.

The United Nations charter gives every nation the right to self defence, therefore when the American embassies were bombed it was a matter of time before the Americans responded by going for what they suspected were the causes of the attack.

Dictatorships by their nature are unrepresentative as they neglect the social needs of the people.

While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means.

Right now, they feel they have lost their voice, and their miseries have increased since my departure.

Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.

Like all children I had taken my father for granted. Now that I had lost him, I felt an emptiness that could never be filled. But I did not let myself cry, believing as a Muslim that tears pull a spirit earthward and won't let it be free.