Terror will crash down on us if we fail to understand that a pluralistic society requires the personal and daily commitment of every citizen.

While criticism of Israel is legitimate and justifiable, it cannot be an excuse - in any way, shape or form - for anti-Semitism.

In my book, the Arab Awakening, I talk about the fact that we have to move from this. All the contemporary ideologies of political Islam have been based on the nation state. The nation state is very problematic but I'm not sure if we have an alternative political model.

We are in a world that is connected, but is not communicating.

No civilisation can claim to have a monopoly on universal values and no one can claim to be always faithful to his own values.

The perception in the Arab world now is that we are having secularists against Islamists, and that's it. So the secularists are progressive; the Islamists are reactionary, conservative. This perception is wrong.

I wouldn't call it naive but silly. History does not work like this. If you look at the dynamics of Eastern Europe or even Germany post reunification, you realize that change takes time. No one can deny the fact that we are still not there - I am advocating something which has to go from uprisings to revolutions. It is not coming straight away that it is not going to come but what we have to advocate is that the democratization process is always better than state dictatorship.