Democracy in Arabia.

Libya has long been closed to foreign media and Col. Qaddafi has now shut off the internet so the reports today, summarized below, may be erroneous.

Reuters is reporting that protesters have taken the streets of the second city Benghazi from Qaddafi’s security forces. If this is true it is far the most impressive example to date of the desire of the Arab people for change. For if this is true, it is true heroism.  Foremost, because Col. Qaddafi is far more ruthless than was Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, or Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.  Too, because the protesting Libyans do not have the crutch of blaming—to any degree—the United States or Israel for their government as Col. Qaddafi’s regime is, and has always been, implacably hostile to both countries. Thus, these protests are more purely homegrown protests against a homegrown dictator.

The courage of the protesting Libyans is also greater. “Despite,” as Reuters is reporting, “security forces killing dozens” the protesters have seized the streets of Benghazi and. Qaddafi’s police have retreated to a barracks. From there they have continued to fire as snipers. Mubarak’s and Ben Ali's forces let the protests continue.

Even if what is being reported today is true, the odds are decidedly with those with the guns and the bullets. China's democracy movement was stopped with the massacre in Tienanmen Square. And if, against the odds, the protesters win and force Qaddafi from power, democracy is not the foregone outcome. It says here democracy will not be the outcome, not in Libya, not in Egypt, not in Tunisia, not in Bahrain, at least any time soon.

“Islam is the Answer.”  That is the stock label of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, Islam has no answers to what ails the Muslim world. It is a totalitarian ideology wrapped in religious garb. Islam is the main problem, and Libya is, of course, Muslim.

The original “protesters” in the West were called “protestants;” They—Martin Luther and John Calvin—successfully challenged the grip of the Catholic Church over Europe. They forced “reform,” but the “Reformation” took 133 years. Until, and if, Islam undergoes a Reformation like the Catholic Church did in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, Islam will be the answer to only one question: why is there so little democracy in the Islamic world?