The Western press has had a love affair with the Arab Spring. The name itself was coined here, but the Arab Spring is not all that it seems. The real test of democracy is not taking power through the ballot box but the willingness to give up power through the ballot box, and there, as far as many Islamist movements are concerned, the jury is still out. Bishop Kenneth Cragg, who died very recently just short of 100 and writing up to the very end — a distinguished teacher of mine, a very, very sympathetic Christian student of Islam — was asked once, "Well, in the end, Bishop, what is the difference between Islam and Christianity?" He said something that is relevant today: "It's the difference in the attitude to power." Christianity teaches that it is by giving up power that you change the world. Islam teaches that it is by taking power that you change the world.

Democracy may be the darling of some in the media here, but it is not enough. In the Middle East certainly and in many other parts of the world, democracy is not enough because democracy can become a tyranny of the majority. It's no less tyranny because it's of the majority. In fact, in the recent referendum in Egypt it wasn't the majority that voted for the referendum, it was actually a very small minority. Nevertheless, we cannot just say that because so many people have voted for something, it is legitimate now for a country like Egypt to have a constitution that finds its source only in Sharia. It's not enough. We also need a Bill of Rights. Why was a Bill of Rights needed here in 1689? Or after Independence in the US? Why did we need at a global level the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and so on? I think in many countries in the world today we need a Bill of Rights, particularly where we are faced with a strong Islamist movement that demands the imposition or enforcement of Sharia in the way in which they interpret it. 

In Egypt, to take an example, we need a Bill of Rights, first of all to affirm the equality of all before the law. Because under Sharia it is not at all clear that the equality of all can be taken for granted, because Sharia is structured in such a way that, for example, Muslims and non-Muslims are not equal. By definition, women and men are not equal. So we need to ensure the equality of all before the law and one law for all. I was a great admirer of Pope Shenouda, Patriarch of the Coptic Church, who has recently died, for his courage in difficult circumstances throughout his period as Patriarch in Egypt. But towards the end, when it seemed that Islamists would actually come to power, he said something that made me quite anxious. He said, "Let them have their Sharia as long as we can have our own law." That is exactly the definition of the dhimma, of Christians being relegated to a second-class status, with certain disabilities, by definition, and exclusion from participation in public life. In a way, you are asking for it. So, in a Bill of Rights one law for all is very important. We may take the idea of common citizenship for granted but those who have lived under the dhimma certainly do not. That also is important. For hundreds of years, Christian and Jewish subjects in the Islamic empires suffered from very serious disabilities. They included lack of freedom of worship, of building churches or synagogues, of having to pay special taxes, of systemic discrimination and sporadic violence. All of these became characteristic of the dhimma.