gt8145a@prism.gatech.edu (FADEL,AYMAN HOSSAM) (11/04/90)
Salaam, I came across a very good newsletter. It's entitled North African News. It's published by the NOrth African Students for Freedom. Their address is P.O. Box 18025, Washington, D.C. 20036. It's free, but they need donations to keep publishing. The june 90 issue contains analyses of the elections in Algeria and Tunis, and the effects of the Islamic Salvation Front's good showing on the policies of the governments of Morocco, Tunis and Algeria. It appears that Ben Ali of Tunis will not liberalize the political process. Statements by members of the NLF, the ruling National Liberation Front, indicate they have all intentions of going forward with National elections which could remove them from office for the first time since the revolution. It quotes Rached Ghannouchi of Tunis as saying in a lecture at Georgetown: "The dichotomies between East and west make no sense. The fallacy of West is West and East is East, and never the two shall meet, is now proven false beyond any conceivable doubt. The terms of East and West are abstract concepts which do not rep- resent reality. The west cannot be all rationality, democracy, science, etc. and the East cannot be all superstition, despotism, and backwardness. All positive and negative factors exist in varying degrees in WEst and East." Salam, Ayman