I broke the law. While appearing on a local public radio show, I compared Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald J. Trump to Hitler and fascism. Thereby I violated Godwin’s Law (an internet adage), which states that thou shall not invoke Hitler or fascism in a civil conversation. I am loath to invoke such loaded terms. But Trump makes it both easy and...

Huffington Post Is South Asia becoming a beacon for democracy? On the heels of an inspiring voter turnout in Afghanistan, voters in India are mobilizing in one of the most impressive exercises in universal adult franchise. Just a few months earlier, Pakistan had its first peaceful democratic transition in power. Bangladesh, surprisingly, was an outlier when the...

The military coup against the duly elected government of Egypt was without doubt a blow to democracy. However, the latest poll from Zogby Research shows an almost evenly divided Egyptian public. Fifty-one percent of Egyptians believe it was wrong to depose Mohammed Morsi, their legitimately elected president. While 46 percent believe that the military intervention...

This article first appeared in Today’s Zaman. In 2011, along with millions of people around the world, I was mesmerized by the peaceful popular uprisings in Tahrir Square that eventually led to the end of three decades of dictatorial rule in Egypt. As the youth cheered, I felt solidarity in declaring “we are all Egyptians now.” I cannot say the...

HUFFINGTON POST, Feb 14, 2012. Even though private equity funds have been around since the early twentieth century and today manage over one trillion dollars’ worth of capital worldwide, most people may not have paid attention to them until Mitt Romney chose to make his experience at Bain Capital an issue for his bid to be the next President of the United...

ALTMUSLIM and HUFFINGTON POST Guess where in the world candidates for political office are pandering to religious conservatives, using religious imagery in political advertisement and participating in political forums in houses of worship? Where some voters are unwilling to support candidates because they do not belong to the majority faith, dismissing a candidate...