[Mb-civic] Gandhi, King and the Elastic Sheik

[michael at intrafi.com]

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Gandhi, King and the Elastic Sheik 
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Who can reach the angry youth?

By Mark LeVine
Mark LeVine, who teaches Middle Eastern history at UC Irvine, is the author of the forthcoming "Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil" and co-editor of "Twilight of Empire: Resp

January 9 2005

In Iraq, a nonviolent cleric with the potential to reach the country's angry youth is a rarity. Early last spring, I traveled between Baghdad, Fallouja and Najaf in search of a Generation-X incarnation of Mohandas Gandhi or the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — someone who could blend the sacred and secular, Western and Islamic, in the necessary proportions to build a pluralistic and powerful grass-roots political movement — something that eludes Iraq three weeks before the country's first post-Saddam Hussein election. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-elastic9jan09,1,225707.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions 

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