Rashid Al-Ghannushi Quotes

#1. I hope that with the success of the transition to democracy in Tunisia that we will export to Egypt a working democratic model.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#2. I dream of a free, democratic, peaceful Tunisia, a country that can protect its developing identity.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#3. Tunisia will continue to be a source of influence, not through its size but through the ideas and the models that it represents.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#4. I believe democracy will succeed in Tunisia, but I also believe that it will succeed in the other Arab Spring countries.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#5. Al-Nahda is a movement; it is not just a small party.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#6. What Tunisia urgently needs, is freedom and the building of a real democracy.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#7. No one in al-Nahda believes that jihad is a way to impose Islam on the world. But we believe that jihad is self-control, is social and political struggle, and even military jihad is only a way to defend oneself in the case of aggression.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#8. There is no one in al-Nahda that is 'violence is a means of change or to keep power.' Everyone in al-Nahda believes that democracy is the only way to reach power and to stay in power.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#9. Under Tunisian law, a woman can divorce her husband. Total equality.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#10. There are common denominators that unite all members of al-Nahda: There is no one in al-Nahda who doubts about Islam There is no one in al-Nahda that believes in extremist views of Islam.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#11. French laicite is probably aggressive and antagonistic to the religion, but there are other models of secularism in the world where there could be reconciliation between religion and secularism.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#12. I believe that women should have equal rights to education, to work and to civic and political engagement.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#13. The dictatorship needs to be entirely dismantled. All the rest of the old guard must go.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#14. In our modern age - in the age of free information - I don't think there is any place for dictatorships.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#15. We in Tunisia have no problem with respecting other people's religion, and we have a long tradition of that.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#16. Just like in medicine, when the normal medicine no longer works, one resorts to surgery. And the revolutions is like the surgery: It's painful, and it's the last resort for nations.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi

#17. I will not be standing for office. I'm nearing 70; there are younger people within our movement. I just wish to contribute intellectually to the historic process of taking Tunisia from the era of repression to one of democracy.

Rashid Al-Ghannushi