Granted binary parameters, let alone one-word panaceas, will not do, it may be safe to deploy those trustworthy indices which have served their purpose well to guide humanity's march through the twentieth century. Whether for the Middle East or for the larger Muslim world, deployment of seasoned criteria and objectives can follow the three different political, economic, and cultural rhythms which societies and their analysts have well refined. Thus three objects, three speeds for change and three different angles for reform in a region where reform is badly needed. Again, there is no need, whatever the talk about the dangers of religious extremisms, which are real, to lose sight of the seasoned criteria which are as good for one citizen of the planet as they are for any other. The first concerns representation for the people and alternation at the top.
Representation means elections, and alternation supposes non-violent change of government.
None of the 20 or so Arab countries knows peaceful change at the top. Leaders and kings die, are exiled or overthrown, but they do not alternate. But some states have experienced, with mitigated success, middle-level representation. Two points can be made by way of the electoral agenda, granted that, after the Algerian disaster of the 1992 foiled elections, one must be circumspect about starry-eyed beliefs in pure democratic schemes. First the request for free and fair elections must be encouraged inside and outside at all possible levels, with the hope that it will one day reach the top.