The author of "On the Arab Question: Foreword to a Manifesto for Arab Democracy" sets before us an open Arab "question" and a possible democratic choice, or a "national democratic question" in the words of Yassin al-Hafez, and not a call for democracy or simply a theoretical recommendation of Arab nationalism or democracy. This is because the issue requires a reasoned investigation of its origins and ramifications, the interrogation of its premises and assumptions, and of the conditions creating it in time and space, and the forms of its expression.