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from David Rohde:
Jon Stewart v. Muslim Brotherhood
For Americans, it was Jon Stewart as national treasure. In a virtuoso performance Monday, the American satirist ridiculed the Egyptian government’s crackdown on Cairo comedian – and Stewart protégé – Bassem Youssef. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch Stewart’s mock conversation with Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi here.
“What are you worried about, Mr. President – the power of satire to overthrow the status quo?” Stewart deadpanned. “Just so you know, there’s been a grand total of, uh, zero toppled governments we’ve brought about.”
In Egypt, members of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood saw Stewart’s bit differently. The comedian’s skewering of Mursi was the latest insult from a nation that backed Egypt’s pro-American dictators for decades. Told that cracking down on comedians was playing poorly in Washington, a usually moderate senior Brotherhood member argued that Western notions of free speech were being used, yet again, to denigrate Islam.
"Yes, the same West that supported the burning of the Koran!” the member told American journalist Lauren Bohn this week. “We need to draw red lines."
from Thinking Global:
The Reichstag fire: Lessons for today
This week marks the 80th anniversary of the German Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933. That arson blaze ignited one of history’s ugliest stories of a fragile democracy gone tragically bad -- and its generational consequences.
Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazis, elected Germany's dominant party six months earlier, had exploited the fire – which he claimed was set by a half-blind, disabled, Dutch communist bricklayer – to transform Germany into a militarized dictatorship. This set in motion the Third Reich, World War II, the Holocaust, the destruction of Europe and the deaths of 60 million people, 2.5 percent of the global population.
from David Rohde:
The trouble with democracy, from Cairo to Johannesburg
The return of protests, tanks and death to the streets of Cairo this week is harrowing. So is the power of the rampant conspiracy theories that cause Muslim Brotherhood members and their secular opponents to sincerely believe they are defending Egypt’s revolution. Both sides are behaving abominably.
Criticisms of President Mohamed Mursi’s foolish and unnecessary power grab and rushed constitutional process are legitimate. So are complaints that the country’s secular opposition is poorly organized, lacks majority support and refuses to compromise.
from FaithWorld:
U.S. shifts to closer contact with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
(U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a news conference in Budapest June 30, 2011/Bernadett Szabo)
The United States will resume limited contacts with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed on Thursday, saying it was in Washington's interests to deal with parties committed to non-violent politics. While Clinton portrayed the administration's decision as a continuation of an earlier policy, it reflects a subtle shift in that U.S. officials will be able to deal directly with officials of the Islamist movement who are not members of parliament.
from FaithWorld:
U.S. to resume formal Muslim Brotherhood contacts, official says
(The skyline of Washington DCl, May 22, 2009/Larry Downing)
The United States has decided to resume formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a senior U.S. official said, in a step that reflects the Islamist group's growing political weight but that is almost certain to upset Israel and its U.S. backers. "The political landscape in Egypt has changed, and is changing," said the senior official, who spokeon Wednesday on condition of anonymity. "It is in our interests to engage with all of the parties that are competing for parliament or the presidency."
The official sought to portray the shift as a subtle evolution rather than a dramatic change in Washington's stance toward the Brotherhood, a group founded in 1928 that seeks to promote its conservative vision of Islam in society. Under the previous policy, U.S. diplomats were allowed to deal with Brotherhood members of parliament who had won seats as independents -- a diplomatic fiction that allowed them to keep lines of communication open.
from FaithWorld:
Egypt’s Brotherhood faces sterner critics, internal rifts
(Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie in Cairo, April 30, 2011/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)
In the weeks after Hosni Mubarak was ousted, Egyptian television channels revelled in their new freedoms by giving airtime to the formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood, offering them an open platform to speak. Members of the Brotherhood, Egypt's best organised political group, are still regular guests. But the tone has changed. Soft-ball questioning has given way to rigorous interrogation about their plans and criticism of their public statements.
from FaithWorld:
Egypt’s Islamists explore electoral deal with liberals
(Mohamed Mursi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's newly formed Justice and Freedom Party, gestures during an interview with Reuters in Cairo, May 28, 2011/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany)
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is exploring an alliance with 17 liberal and other parties that could lead to electoral cooperation, in an apparent move to allay liberal concerns about the Islamist group's goals.
from FaithWorld:
Vague agenda fuels doubts over real aims of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
(The Sphinx at the great pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, February 25, 2011/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)
Few things better sum up Egypt's uncharted future than the vague policy platform of the Muslim Brotherhood, a long-repressed Islamist movement poised to become a decisive force in mainstream politics. With the country's military rulers reluctant to push through major reforms without a popular mandate, all eyes are on the emerging political class set free by the overthrow in February of veteran leader Hosni Mubarak.
from FaithWorld:
Egypt’s divided Muslim Brotherhood expels presidential hopeful
(Supporters at the new headquarter of the newly-formed Muslim Brotherhood Party during a news conference in Cairo, April 30, 2011/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has expelled a senior member for saying he would run for president in defiance of the group's decision not to seek the post vacant since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
from FaithWorld:
Egypt’s Sufis see post-Mubarak Islamist threat, consider launching own movement
(Egyptians dance to the music of a Sufi singer as they celebrate the birthday of Sayida Zeinab, the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad, near her shrine in Cairo July 7, 2010/Asmaa Waguih)
Down the narrow alleyways of Cairo's Sayidda Zeinab neighbourhood, 100 men sway their heads and clap in rhythm as they invoke God's name. "O how you have spread benevolence," chant the men, some dressed in ankle-length galabeya robes, to celebrate the birth of Fatima al-Zahraa, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed.
