from The Great Debate:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s dangerous missteps
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is well organized and popular. Its Freedom and Justice Party easily won a plurality of seats in the first post-Hosni Mubarak parliamentary elections, and the party is set to remain a dominant force in Egyptian politics for the foreseeable future. Important party members are touring Western capitals, including London and Washington, on a charm offensive.
The Brotherhood’s Islamist origins and ideology have caused much hand-wringing in the U.S. about the group’s commitment to democracy and liberalism. But the short-term risk of the Brotherhood’s rule for the U.S. isn’t its religious beliefs, which are not out of step with those of most Egyptians and which their need to maintain international reputability is likely to moderate. Rather, it’s the group’s political incompetence.
Foreign media are no longer enamored with revolutionary Egypt, but this is the most critical period in its transition since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011, with the process of writing a new constitution and conducting a presidential campaign happening simultaneously. On both fronts the Muslim Brotherhood, already in a tense and fraying accord with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), has shown an alarming political tone-deafness.
Yet the main risk of increasing Brotherhood-SCAF tensions is not, as commonly portrayed in the U.S., sustained military rule. Rather, the tensions belie a much tougher challenge: an Egypt in which the only power centers are the Brotherhood and/or SCAF, with all other groups alienated or disempowered. This is a negative outcome for both U.S. foreign policy and Egyptian stability – but it looks increasingly probable.
Back when SCAF and the Brotherhood were playing nice, Egypt’s military leaders decided that parliament – which the Brotherhood dominates – would elect a 100-member constituent assembly to write the document. All political parties and most political forces in Egypt, the Brotherhood and liberal groups included, could agree on more or less the same thing: a semi-presidential system, a compromise on the role of the military and Sharia as a principal source of legislation.
The Brotherhood-led, Islamist-dominated parliament could easily have crafted an assembly with only 30 or so Islamists, ceding the remaining seats to Coptic Christians, women, liberals, civil society activists and legal experts, and still have gotten the constitution it wanted. And by including a broader array of forces in shaping Egypt’s post-revolutionary political bedrock, the Brotherhood would have garnered increased trust and credibility from its opponents.
from David Rohde:
The Islamist Spring
TUNIS – Like it or not, this is the year of the Islamist.
Fourteen months after popular uprisings toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, Islamist political parties – religiously conservative groups that oppose the use of violence – have swept interim elections, started rewriting constitutions and become the odds-on favorites to win general elections.
Western hopes that more liberal parties would fare well have been dashed. Secular Arab groups are divided, perceived as elitist or enjoy tepid popular support.
But instead of the political process moving forward, a toxic political dynamic is emerging. Aggressive tactics by hardline Muslims generally known as Salafists are sowing division. Moderate Islamists are moving cautiously, speaking vaguely and trying to hold their diverse political parties together. And some Arab liberals are painting dark conspiracy theories.
Ahmed Ounaies, a pro-Western Tunisian politician who briefly served as foreign minister in the country’s post-revolutionary government, said that he no long trusted Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party. Echoing other secular Tunisians, he said some purportedly moderate Muslim leaders are, in fact, aligned with hardliners.
“We believe that Mr. Ghannouchi is a Salafist,” Ouanies said in an interview. “He is a real supporter of those groups.”
Months after gaining power, moderate Islamists find themselves walking a political tightrope. They are trying to show their supporters that they are different from the corrupt, pro-Western regimes they replaced. They are trying to persuade Western investors and tourists to trust them, return and help revive flagging economies. And they are trying to counter hardline Salafists who threaten to steal some of their conservative support.
This column sounds like a whole bunch of denial and excuse making by a supporter of an Arab Spring which has gone bad.
Threats against Israel, the arrests of well-meaning Westerners advocating for democracy and human rights, the attacks on the Coptic Christians: we DO have a choice as to whether are not we fund and assist people who reject common decency and tolerance toward people who are different than they are.
U.S. shifts to closer contact with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
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.
The move, first reported by Reuters on Wednesday, is likely to upset Israel and its U.S. supporters who have deep misgivings about the Brotherhood, a group founded in 1928 that seeks to promote its conservative vision of Islam in society. Under president Hosni Mubarak, a key U.S. ally, the Brotherhood was formally banned, but since the ousting of the secular former general by a popular uprising in February, the Islamists are seen as a major force in forthcoming elections.
“We believe, given the changing political landscape in Egypt, that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful, and committed to non-violence, that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency,” Clinton told reporters at a news conference in Budapest.
“Now in any of those contacts, prior or future, we will continue to emphasize the importance of and support for democratic principles and especially a commitment to non-violence, respect for minority rights, and the full inclusion of women in any democracy,” she added.
Clinton would not say whether the Obama administration had already begun such contacts or at what level it planned to deal with the group.
In Cairo, a spokesman for the Islamist group said it would welcome any formal contacts with the United States as a way to clarify its vision, but no such contacts have yet been made.
U.S. to resume formal Muslim Brotherhood contacts, official says
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.
Where U.S. diplomats previously dealt only with group members in their role as parliamentarians, a policy the official said had been in place since 2006, they will now deal directly with low-level Brotherhood party officials.
There is no U.S. legal prohibition against dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, which long ago renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt and which is not regarded by Washington as a foreign terrorist organization. But other sympathetic groups, such as Hamas, which identifies the Brotherhood as its spiritual guide, have not disavowed violence against the state of Israel.
The result has been a dilemma for the Obama administration. Former officials and analysts said it has little choice but to engage the Brotherhood directly, given its political prominence after the February 11 downfall of former President Hosni Mubarak.
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Egypt’s Brotherhood faces sterner critics, internal rifts
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.
“You are not the guardians of the faith alone. No one gave you such a power,” writer Khaled Montasser told one Brotherhood member and former member of parliament, Sobhi Saleh.
The rebuke on a popular talk show in June followed a statement by Saleh, who was on the drafting committee of constitutional amendements, that it would do well in a September parliamentary election as its members were “God’s guardians.”
In spite of such criticism, the well-organised Brotherhood is still expected to do better than rivals in the vote. Although banned under Mubarak, it was left enough space to build up a grassroots networks through its medical and charity work.
But just how well it will do is less clear. It may have a head start on others in post-Mubarak Egypt but it now faces much deeper scrutiny about its plans and is struggling to control an internal debate about how to compete in upcoming polls.
“They have organisational and financial abilities. But there is a growing sentiment among a wide strata of Egypt’s society fearing the rise of the Brotherhood to power,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah of Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
The Brotherhood, long used to policy-making behind closed doors, has not always shown a united front since Mubarak was toppled on Feb. 11. It has sometimes been clumsy in explaining decisions and has alienated alliance partners, analysts say.
Egypt’s Islamists explore electoral deal with liberals
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.
The Brotherhood, Egypt’s most organised political force, is widely seen as best prepared for the September parliamentary election as many secular parties struggle to get ready for the first free vote since President Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow.
The Brotherhood, officially banned but semi-tolerated under Mubarak, has said it will contest half of parliament’s seats, seeking to capitalise on the grass roots networks it has nurtured during decades of medical, social and charity work.
Activists who put national pride before faith in the uprising against Mubarak fear the Brotherhood will dominate politics and seek to impose strict Islamic rules on Egypt.
A statement posted on the Brotherhood’s website said it had agreed with other parties “on ways that could lead to a joint election list to include representatives from all members of the alliance that would gain the trust of the Egyptian masses”.
Yassin Tageldin, deputy chairman of the liberal Wafd party, said such an electoral deal could be struck if talk of a law forcing candidates to form lists materialised.
Islam is intolerant to criticism and this has been demonstrated time and time again throughout history. It is most evident in the recent past as demonstrated by fatwa’s against the Danish cartoonist who drew your mighty prophet followed by attempts on his life by peace-loving Muslims. The “religion of peace” is responsible for virtually all terrorist attacks of today.
Even the most tolerant countries like Sweden and Denmark are realizing that Islamists will not treat them like in the same inviting and accepting manner that they have been accepted into western society.
Most immigrants are grateful for having the privilege of being accepted into such a society, but the Islamists turn back and join jihadists, donate money to their causes and further the destruction of the very countries that took them in. It is time to stop immigration of Islamists.
Their hypocrisy of peace has been evident for centuries but they still continue to insist that they are peace-loving.
Vague agenda fuels doubts over real aims of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
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.
None is likely to mobilise as much grassroots support as the Brotherhood, which has won the sympathy of millions of poor Egyptians by railing against venal politicians and campaigning for an Islamic state free of corruption. But with parliamentary elections looming, the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party has sketched only the broadest outline of a manifesto. A pledge to do nothing that might harm Egypt’s floundering economy has barely reassured nervous investors.
“The Brotherhood has always been unclear on all its policies … It makes people wonder what is its real goal, and what to believe,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a researcher in the al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
The Brotherhood’s secular liberal enemies say the policy vacuum is understandable because telling the truth would betray an extremism that would make it unelectable. They say it would quickly ban alcohol consumption, sending an already troubled tourism sector into a tailspin, reverse women’s rights and deepen tension with Egypt’s Christian minority by enforcing a strict Islamic code, the first step towards a Muslim theocracy.
Brotherhood leaders, mindful of a deep-rooted fear of social chaos, insist they would never force major change upon a country already struggling with the instability that followed Mubarak’s overthrow. “Investors should not worry. We want to participate with other groups to achieve the best outcome for our country,” said Osama Gado, a former parliamentarian and founding member of Freedom and Justice.
Gado refused to be drawn on whether the party, if elected, would try to ban the consumption of alcohol, which is illegal in Islam but a requirement for many foreign holidaymakers. “This is an example of the minor details that are not up to the Brotherhood alone to decide on. It is something that will be decided upon by the parliament that is elected by the people and if the people want it,” Gado said.
Mideast Christians struggle to hope in Arab Spring, some see no spring at all
Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks. Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo’s Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.
Since then, violent attacks on churches by Salafists — a radical Islamist movement once held in check by the region’s now weakened or toppled authoritarian regimes — have convinced Christians their lot has not really improved and could get worse.
“If things don’t change for the better, we’ll return to what was before, maybe even worse,” Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria Antonios Naguib said at a conference this week in Venice on the Arab Spring and Christian-Muslim relations. “But we hope that will not come about,” he told Reuters.
The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, feared the three-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spelled a bleak future for the 850,000 Christians there. “If there is a change of regime,” he said, “it’s the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq.”
In Egypt, where the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic minorities are under heavy pressure from Salafist Muslims, methods the state used to keep Christians in line before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled haven’t changed. When there is a conflict between a Muslim and a Christian, the police still have them hold a “reconciliation session” that usually ends in the Muslim’s favour, said participiants at the conference organised by the Oasis Foundation led by Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola.
Fr. Milad Sidky Zakhary, head of the Catholic Institute of Religious Sciences in Alexandria, said that laws proclaiming legal equality for all Egyptians are not enforced. “As a Christian, I must hope. But I must recognise that there has been no real progress,” he said. Referring to one of Venice’s best-known musicians, he added: “The great Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote the beautiful symphony The Four Seasons. For us Christians in Egypt, there are only three seasons. There is no spring.”
Egypt’s divided Muslim Brotherhood expels presidential hopeful
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.
The Brotherhood announced in April that its newly formed “Freedom and Justice” party would contest up to half the seats in a parliamentary election in September but would not field a candidate for the presidency to avoid dominating power. But Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh said in May he would run as an independent in a presidential vote expected to take place before the end of the year as an independent.
“The Shura Council (the group’s decision-making body) has decided to scrap the membership of Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh… because he announced he would run for the presidency,” the Brotherhood said in a statement posted on its website.
“This certainly shows the divisions among the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Mustapha al-Sayyid, a political science professor. “The young Muslim Brothers seem to favour Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh becoming a candidate for the presidency while others from the older generation do not want that,” he added.
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Will the Arab Spring bring U.S.-style “culture wars” to the Middle East?
Where is the Arab Spring leading the Middle East? What will be the longer-term outcome of the popular protests that have shaken the region since the beginning of this year? Of course, it’s still too early to say with any certainty, even in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt that succeeded in toppling their authoritarian regimes. Some trends have emerged, however, and they’re on the agenda at a conference in Venice I’m attending entitled “Medio Oriente verso dove?” (Where is the Middle East heading?). The host is the Oasis Foundation, a group chaired by Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Roman Catholic patriarch of this historic city, and guests include Christian and Muslim religious leaders and academics from the Middle East and Europe.
In one of the most interesting — and hotly debated — presentations, the French Islam specialist Olivier Roy described the Arab Spring as “a break with the culture and ideologies that dominated the Arab world from the 1950s until recently.” It marks a clear change in the demographic, political and religious paradigms operating there, he said. The old dichotomy of the authoritarian regime or the Islamist state has broken down, he argued, and Islam is taking on a new role in the political process. In the end, the region — or at least the states where the Arab Spring brings real change — could see democratic politics marked not by major efforts to establish an Islamic state but by Muslim “culture war” controversies not unlike the way hot-button issues such as abortion and gay marriage emerge in U.S. political debates.
The first trend Roy cited to back up this thesis is the sharp drop in fertility levels in the Arab world since the late 1980s and the 1990s. Several Arab countries, especially those in North Africa, now have birthrates of around two children per woman, close but still above the European average. Tunisia’s birthrate is actually lower than France’s. “The generation that is now on the job market is the last generation of big families,” said Roy, who is now director of the Mediterranean Programme at the European University Institute in Florence. “It’s a generation that has many fewer children and marries much later.”
There is also more equality between men and women because they’ve all been educated, he said, often to a university level. Even with the high unemployment in many countries, this generation of 20- and 30-somethings has less economic pressure to care for their ageing parents (because there are still many siblings) or for their own families (because they’re not having as many babies).
For these young Arabs, the older generation is no longer a model to follow. The system they set up has failed. So, Roy said, the younger generation “feels in a sense superior to its parents. It’s a generation that’s not fascinated by the patriarchalism that dominated political and social life until now. It doesn’t believe in charismatic personalities. We are no longer in a period of charismatic leaders like (Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini or (Egyptian nationalist leader Gamal) Nasser.” Added to that are factors such as the new mobility and access to information that young Arabs have, which means they are no longer subject to the information monopoly formerly enjoyed by the political and religious authorities.
“This will translate into a change in the political paradigm,” Roy said. “Today the protesters are asking for full rights as citizens, which is an individualist demand … There are no more sacred causes. Islamism was not mentioned in the protests. Pan-Arabism not mentioned. Support for the people of Palestine not mentioned. At the moment, they want liberty and democracy for themselves.” Because protesting youths want their individual rights, they’re not forming political parties. “That’s a problem because if one wants to institutionalise democracy, one needs political parties. But we see that these youths are not interested in creating a political party.”
The parties that are operating in Tunisia and Egypt are the ones that already existed, including the Islamist parties Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood. But they do not attract that many youths, said Roy (who foresaw this development in his 1992 book The Failure of Political Islam). Why not? “The Islamic revolutions aren’t working. They can take power but, as we can see in Iran every day, they have not succeeded in creating social justice, happiness and prosperity. Whatever the form of Islamic state — Islamic revolution in Iran, sharia in Pakistan, sharia in Saudi Arabia — it doesn’t work and the people know it.”
President Obama also raised the specter of short-changing recipients of federal benefits, telling CBS’s Scott Pelly in an interview that “there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”
More than 80 million Americans who receive benefits payments from the government each month could be at risk, the Treasury Department said. Most of those checks cover Social Security recipients, veterans and civil service retirees.
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The inability to use an appropriate preposition is itself an inability to function.