As opposed to Western democracy, in an Islamic society, an individual is worth more than the flesh he consists of, and this is a fact which must be absolutely addressed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. In an Islamic society, freedom seeking movements are based on people participation, and the illegitimacy of Islamic governing bodies can be a direct consequence of ignorance towards this fact.

A few years ago, as the victory of the Islamists in Turkish and Algerian elections was inevitable, Western governments and their internal agents, resorted to much dirty tactics, influencing the media, and going as far as arranging semicoups in order to stop the transformation towards Islamic societies. This started a process of quashing all freedom seeking and especially Islamic movements, which continues till today.

The Western governments and the secularist leaders of these countries stopped all forms of democratic processes because in Algeria and Turkey, these movements threatened the mere existence of the corrupt secularists. What is of importance to the secularists and their Western peers, is not a "political process" but "a political direction". A few weeks ago we witnessed local elections in the two Muslim countries of Nigeria and Indonesia and also South Africa. The two Muslim countries' economies and politics are pretty much led by Muslims. The military leaders of these three countries who were toppled by freedom seeking movements, had Western support for many decades, with their natural resources controlled freely by the Western economic giants, according to Western wants and needs.

Ever since obtaining their independence from the Portuguese 42 years ago, the people of Indonesia had not got a taste of free elections. The Nigerians were ruled by the military for more than twenty years, and until a few years ago, South Africa was under the rule of racist European immigrants since more than two centuries ago. And with the initiation of freedom seeking movements, the Western powers, especially the U.S. are ever trying to picture the movements as Western style 'democratic' movements.

A large number of the instigators of these movements are returnee Western educated locals, who have returned from the West. These people have now a broader perspective towards "political and economic" development, and have actually seen this in action . We, however, have to stress that in quite a clever manner the West has detected this development in the educated Islamic youth and is trying its best to attract this group to its own camp.

This warning was more than obvious in Tuesday, June 7th edition of New York Times, covering the Indonesian local elections. In an article titled "Towards Democracy in Indonesia" the author writes "no matter what happens in Indonesia, the result of the elections will have its effects abroad. As the most populous Islamic country, Indonesia has played a major role in the region's stability.

Indonesia has been a Western ally for a long time." The article goes on to say "with its huge population, Indonesia will prove to Tehran and Cairo that democracy and Islam can co-exist ". In other words what the U.S. expects from the Indonesian elections is "towards a Western style " political hierarchy in tune with Western notion of political development.

That is the U.S. wants the new government to follow in the footsteps of dictators like Suharto, in order not to threaten Western political and economic interests in the region. The main question for the Muslims is whether there is a difference between the Western society and democracy and Islamic society and its values. The Muslim societies who actually care about their independence and integrity cannot be indifferent to this challenge.

In other words, we Muslims cannot afford to be apart, since to this date the battle ahead is the biggest challenge ever faced. In the 20th century, as the Eastern bloc, and the Islamic world accepted the industrialization notion, the West began to call this notion as civilization, a civilization which consisted of political economic and social values. Worst of all is that the Eastern and even some Islamic experts began to believe the notion that the Western civilization actually offers the ultimate solution and the Islamic states must follow these ideals in order to succeed.

For a whole century Western speech makers clinging to their old and traditional values stressed the idea that developing countries cannot import mechanized Western civilization. Due to recent political failures and scandals, a number of Western politicians, have actually resorted to the " tradition" line and have begun to use human values part of their arguments. For example, in a recent speech to the U.S.'s largest American charity organization "The Christian Liberation Army". Al Gore, the U.S. vice president and U.S. presidential candidate, requested the Americans to get involved in politics again.

Perhaps the U.S. vice president is familiar with Edward Gibon, who was of the opinion that the real reason as to the demise of the Roman Empire, was the indifferent opinion of the initial Christians towards politics. Or perhaps he has learnt a lesson from the recent White House debacles. Politics and the question of development is very much a controversial issue, and the obvious fact, as understood, is political development cannot be treated as a universal issue.

No doubt, any society which ignores development, is destined to destruction. The Islamic revolution of Iran can be considered as the rebirth of Islam, in the modern era and can be most definitely considered as an antidote to pre-conceived notion of Western development. In other words the Islamic movement of Iran can be used as a tool to free and defend ourselves in the world from the pre-conceived social , economic, and political notions of others.