Rashid al-Ghannushi Quotations

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

We in Tunisia have no problem with respecting other peoples religion, and we have a long tradition of that.

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.

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

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

Just like in medicine, when the normal medicine no longer works, one resorts to surgery. And the revolutions is like the surgery: Its painful, and its the last resort for nations.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.