This has a certain cheek that perhaps didn't come across to the general public, in that if I arrived early enough in the morning I would meet those queuing politicians in the waiting room outside the studio. Give them credit, come election time they start their days early and finish late.

This morning, politicians can be seen queuing up outside radio and TV studios all over the country, so it must be near election time again - time for us to choose who we want to hold the reins of state power on our behalf. We use the ballot box to say who controls the bullets, and despite a certain local cynicism, most of us still consider some form of democracy to be the best defense against tyranny.

It is fear that allows the few to tyrannise the many, fear of imprisonment, fear of death or torture administered by the army of a dictator, fear of a few teenage boys on a train, allowed to commit a violent assault while a crowd of passengers stand and look on, or turn and look the other way.

The Prophet said "whoever of you sees an evil action let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if not that then with his heart, but that is the weakest of faith". Of course there are dangers in standing up against evil and injustice, in war or peace. Malcolm Albrighton tried to stop a burglary and paid for it with his life, but perhaps he felt that life without justice wouldn't be worth living.

In Islam, that struggle for justice is known as Jihad, and that struggle doesn't only take place on a battlefield. In fact, warfare is known as the lesser struggle, and the Prophet recognised the struggles of daily life as being greater.

Clearly, living your life to the full can be nearly as dangerous as war, and some people even increase the risk just to heighten the experience, whether they be rock climbers or racing drivers the challenge is to look death in the face and yet live to see another day. The Prophet said to face each night as if we wouldn't see the day, and to live our lives each day as though we wouldn't see the night.

For death comes to us all, but death is not the end. Belief in the justice of the afterlife takes away the fear of the finality of death, that fear which is the only real threat available to the tyrant. It takes fearlessness as well as democracy to fight against the forces of tyranny.