By Lucky Gold, CNN

Editor's Note: F.W. de Klerk, the last leader of white South Africa, who joined with Nelson Mandela to bring an end to apartheid and shared a Nobel Peace Prize for their achievement, was recently interviewed at a summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago and appeared on Thursday’s Amanpour.

So I’m a Convert

It was noted that Mandela had once called de Klerk “a man of integrity” but had taken it back, regretting that de Klerk had never renounced the principle of apartheid.

De Klerk responded:  “Well, let me first say I’m not aware that Mr. Mandela says I’ve never renounced apartheid.”  He then said, “I have made the most profound apology in front of the Truth Commission and on other occasions about the injustices which were wrought by apartheid.”

But then he added:  “What I haven’t apologized for is the original concept of seeking to bring justice to all South Africans through the concept of nation states (essentially creating two separate states, one black and one white).”

“But in South Africa it failed,” he said. “And by the end of the ‘70’s, we had to realize, and accept and admit to ourselves that it had failed.  And that is when fundamental reform started.”

He was then asked if apartheid failed because it was unworkable, or because it was simply morally repugnant.

“There are three reasons it (apartheid) failed,” he said.  “It failed because the whites wanted to keep too much land for themselves.  It failed because we (whites and blacks) became economically integrated, and it failed because the majority of blacks said that is not how we want our rights.”

FULL POST

by Lucky Gold, CNN

There is no such thing called an Islamic democracy

Mohamed Morsi, one of three leading candidates for the presidency of Egypt, appeared on Amanpour on Wednesday.  The American-educated engineer leads The Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As Egypt’s most powerful political movement, controlling half of parliament, winning the presidency would give the Muslim Brotherhood – and Mr. Morsi - sweeping power to control Egypt’s future.

But what would that future look like?   He was asked if a Morsi government would tilt toward a fundamentalist theocracy, reflecting the Muslim Brotherhood slogan - “Islam is the solution.”

Morsi answered in Arabic with an English translator:  “The Egyptian people are freely making their choice now… We want to transform from a president of the institution to an institution of the presidency.  To an executive branch that represents the people’s true will and implements their public interest.”

He was asked if Morsi’s (and the Muslim Brotherhood’s) Egypt be more like secular Turkey or fundamentalist Iran?

“There is no such thing called an Islamic democracy,” said Morsi.  “There is democracy only…The people are the source of authority...that’s democracy.  And that agrees with consultation called for in Islam.”

FULL POST