In my book Radical Reform I made it clear that we cannot talk about the environment or ecology if we don't also deal with the economy. There is a direct link between how we deal with the economy and how we deal with nature.

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.

If Barack Obama was to say Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood, is an ally, he's going to be destroyed here by, you know, the opposition saying, "How come you can say that the Islamists are your ally when these people are the same who are Hamas, and Hamas is against Israel?" It's the end of it. So he's saying, "We are just wait and see; we are trying to deal."

We should not fool ourselves. When the Quran says wa la qad karamna Bani Adam ["we have honored the Children of Adam"] so yes we should all be free but this should not mean that we must act against the dignity of human beings.

We have to be very cautious not to accept the scam of polarization we see in the media. It is not in fact between secularists and Islamists, it is a battle within the Islamic reference.

To be courageous is to be a voice for the voiceless

Greek philosophy departs from the assumption that we can understand the world autonomously using our rational faculties. Islam is not saying this.