The Man of the Hour: Anwar Ibrahim

My brain has been tightly wrapped around work for the last week. I have been thinking of Anwar Ibrahim's "Accountability and the Future of Freedom" piece in Islamica (check out the link). Ibrahim is the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia and candidate to take over Kofi Annan's gig. The article is based on an address he made to the World Bank. He discusses the necessity of accountability for developing countries to successfully progress. The simplest idea:

Power is a trust and with it comes a
responsibilty that must form the
bedrock of governance.

Interestingly, he goes on to discuss the role of multilateral organizations and accountability on the individual level:

By demonstrating that self-reflection and evaluation, or muhasabah as espoused by al-Ghizali, is a noble trait and not just something prescribed upon others, multilateral organizations can lead the way in convincing governments and NGOs of the need to revisit accountability. In the discourse of civilizing power, we must never lose sight of the power that we ourselves yield.

Booya!