Jul 6, 2009 4 min read

The ousting of the Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the country’s military at the weekend has been condemned by many members of the international community as an affront to democracy. But despite a natural distaste for any military coup, it is possible that the army might have actually done Honduran democracy a service. President Zelaya was planning a referendum to give him power to alter the constitution. But the proposed alterations were perilously vague, with opponents accusing Mr. Zelaya of wanting to scrap the four-year presidential term limit.

The country’s courts and congress had called the vote illegal.

This is an increasingly familiar turn of events in emerging democracies: an elected leader, facing the end of his time in office, decides that the country cannot do without him and resorts to dubious measures to retain power. …

Honduras underlines that free votes only count if accompanied by a confident parliament, an independent judiciary, an unfettered media and impartial electoral monitors.

The true test of a democracy’s health is not the holding of elections. It is the possibility of power peaceably changing hands.

On France and Burqas:

The specter of intolerance has raised its ugly head again in France, a republic obsessively secular to the point of trampling religious freedom.

Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that the burqa, a word used interchangeably with niqab there, was not welcome in his country.

French lawmakers have launched an inquiry to consider if the full-body cloak of Muslim women ought to be banned from public spaces. …

Liberal democrats across the world might agree with the president and his colleagues that the burqa, a body-length shroud with a small screen for vision, and the niqab, a cap and long veil that is slit open at the eyes, are degrading and confine women to an “ambulatory prison,” as the French have said.

But women from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where the garb is common, will argue that they freely choose to wear the veil as legitimate expression of their faith, and that a democratic society ought to permit such choice. …

All democratic societies wrestle with balancing competing, conflicting rights. Canada issued a clear sign of its preferences last year when a Quebec commission rejected proscribing religious and cultural expression in the form of a burqa ban. Such accommodation subtly forces people to get along.

It puts faith in the power of democratic influences to win over the repressive practices of fundamentalists. Such reforms take time, generations even. But promoting the power of ideas is a preferable option to the force of law, which leaves no room for debate where values collide.

On Wimbledon:

Perhaps, as she strode on to Center Court in a double-breasted white trenchcoat, Serena Williams simply felt a bit chilly.

Perhaps the weather forecast had told her there was a chance of rain. Or perhaps she was just having a Casablanca moment.

It seems unlikely, though.

It was warm and Williams has always been more Foxy Brown than Casablanca.

No, this particular Nike-sponsored fashion statement, like those more commonly found on the catwalks of Paris and Milan, was entirely impractical (William’s 120 mph serve would have ripped those sleeves right off) and wholly, crucially, cynically, all about the money.

Wimbledon has always been part tennis competition, part fashion parade – any Wimbledon fan worth their salt can reel off as many Vogue moments as victories. …

But when a player walks on wearing a get-up that was “unveiled” in a blaze of publicity, is ticked, laureled or crocodiled all over, and will soon appear in your local “sportswear” store, the magic is lost. …

The sportswear companies are milking that ten-meter walk from the changing rooms to courtside.

It is understandable: while the dress code on court is strict, the relative freedom outside the white lines provides an irresistible international stage.

But these companies should brace themselves for a backlash: we watch Wimbledon for the tennis. …