Guestview: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is dead – long live the Freedom & Justice Party
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. H.A. Hellyer (@hahellyer) is a geo-strategic expert on the MENA region and Europe, with experience at Gallup, the Brookings Institution and Warwick University.
By H.A. Hellyer
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), until after the Egyptian revolution began in 2011, was a civil society movement. It wasn’t founded as a militant movement for martial resistance, nor was it founded as a political movement in order to take power. It was founded out of a civil impulse to reform society, in an age when colonialisation had radically altered society in Egypt. As the decades ensued, the MB went through various phases, and produced many offshoots – but in the main, the MB remained a civic-based organisation in Egypt.
After the 25th of January, the MB leadership had a choice: transform the movement into a political party – or remain as a movement. The choice had not been possible before due to political repression – but the consequences of that decision has repercussions not only for the MB. That movement’s influence has spread far beyond its members, and even Egypt.
Its unthinkable that MB members, as Egyptians, would not enter into electoral politics post January 25. But the way in which the MB leadership would try to shepherd that entrance has ensured a slew of tensions. The MB could have simply stayed out of electoral politics as the MB, and allowed MB members to form parties on their own, as they saw fit. If they had, there could have been at least 4 political parties that emanated from the movement, based on the different trends that exist within the MB at present.
Instead, the MB leadership went for control – and demanded that if any MB member wanted to be involved in the electoral process, they could do so only as a member of the official MB party: the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). Otherwise, they could expect expulsion.
(Khairat al-Shater gestures during an interview with Reuters at his office in Cairo April 8, 2012. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh )
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.
Guestview: How Catholic should a Catholic charity be?
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Abigail Frymann is Online Editor of the British Catholic weekly The Tablet, where this first appeared.
By Abigail Frymann
How Catholic should a Catholic charity be? The confederation of Catholic charities Caritas Internationalis elected a new secretary general, Michel Roy, last week after the re-appointment of the previous incumbent, Lesley-Anne Knight, was blocked, apparently because the Vatican wanted a stronger Catholic identity.
When I wrote for one Protestant charity we would have to check we had spelled out some reference to the spiritual dimension of its work so that supporters knew they weren’t reading about a secular agency. Someone at another charity I have worked with, this time Catholic, admitted that they highlighted their Catholic roots for one audience and played them down for another.
At HIV/Aids conferences, Christian charities are thrown in together with no end of charities that are pro-condom, pro-choice, pro-all sorts of methods they wouldn’t choose to adopt. They have to defend their beliefs in, for example, advocating abstinence or working to reduce the stigma of the disease and convince others that these are intelligent, viable and compassionate responses. And as Christians who carry the hope of the Gospel, there is on the face of it a perversity in not sharing something of that treasure with people who are in need and ask about it.
But in 21st century secular Europe, many people are deeply suspicious of any action they consider remotely redolent of proselytising. Elsewhere in the world, there are very serious risks to being more Catholic, or Christian in one’s identity as a charity worker. In Afghanistan for example – despite its vast needs – religious aid workers have to promise that they will not breathe a word of their faith to be allowed to operate in the country. The dangers of being too open about faith need to be acknowledged miles away in Rome.
Maybe it’s not the Taleban that the Roman officials want their foot-soldiers to stand up to, but the Western liberals. Those, powerful as they may be, do not wield swords. And here Archbishop Vincent Nichols’ phrase comes to mind that religion is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be discovered afresh.
I feel like this article was poorly written and difficult to understand. I had to read this sentence: “When I wrote for one Protestant charity we would have to check we had spelled out some reference to the spiritual dimension of its work so that supporters knew they weren’t reading about a secular agency.” three times before I understood what the first half of it meant. A reader should not have to work that hard to understand a story.
“In Afghanistan for example – despite its vast needs – religious aid workers have to promise that they will not breathe a word of their faith to be allowed to operate in the country.”
Eek.
Guestview: “Trifecta” of bad news launched Catholics4Change blog
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Elizabeth E. Evans is a freelance writer, columnist and priest-in-charge at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Honey Brook, Pennsylvania.
By Elizabeth E. Evans
Three seemingly unrelated events – and Susan Matthews found herself at a crossroads.
Reading a letter to the editor assailing the “apathy” of local Catholics… Recollecting an essay she had written when the first grand jury report dealt her family a personal blow… Overhearing a conversation between two older women critical of the victims of an accused priest.
It was, as Matthews wryly recalls now, this ‘trifecta” that impelled her to act. Outraged at the predator priest scandal that has overtaken the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Huntingdon Valley resident and mother of two started a blog, Catholics4Change.com.
In February, a grand jury report alleged that as many as 37 local Catholic priests were left in parishes in spite of “credible” abuse allegations. Since then 26 priests have been suspended for allegations or abuse or other boundary violations, two as recently as last week.
In the little more than a month, Catholics4Change (which has close to 25,000 hits within the past two weeks) has become a rallying point for local believers. And Matthews (a former editor of the archdiocesan paper currently a freelance writer and QVC guest host) and another aspiring reformer, Kathy Kane, have become the center of a lively and impassioned debate that goes beyond protecting children but to holding church hierarchs accountable.
i would like to comment just briefly as there is really much too much to say about this that will eventually come out. the movement that you mention has very few followers. the number of hits is not indicative of support. myself, have looked at least 100 times to just check what people are posting-most of the time it is too specious to comment on. even if there are 25 people like me, that sure isn’t a lot of people if you compare with the number of catholics in philadelphia. there are not many who comment-and it is the same people anyway. a lot of the commenters do not make sense. people are upset, but susan mathews and company are NOT the face of philadelphia catholics. that is a fact.
Guestview: Why “militant Islam” is a dangerous myth
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Dalia Mogahed is Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
By Dalia Mogahed
Right-wing pundits in the U.S. and Europe sometimes argue that it is misguided to avoid religious language when describing terrorists. They point out that members of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates call themselves “jihadists”, a derivative of the Arabic noun “jihad” meaning a struggle for God. They explain that it is therefore accurate and fair to refer to Al-Qaeda and its affiliates by the same term.
These same commentators also assert that political correctness in labelling the enemy is the last thing Western societies should be worried about. In fact, they say, focusing too much on not offending others may even weaken Americans’ and Europeans’ will to defeat those who wish them harm.
Yet Gallup research paints a very different picture; an ambitious new study suggests that casting tensions between Muslims and the West in religious terms may actually weaken the ability of America and Europe to fight religiously-branded extremists. This report, which inaugurates Gallup’s Abu Dhabi Center, is entitled “Measuring Muslim-West Relations: Assessing the “New Beginning,” and presents the results of more than 100,000 interviews with citizens in 55 countries. A key finding is that those who see the conflict as primarily due to religious differences are more likely to see a clash as inevitable.
To better understand this finding it is useful to examine the message of Al Qaeda affiliated violent extremists. The religious authenticity of the terrorists group, as well as the inevitability of conflict between Muslims and the West, are cornerstones of Al Qaeda’s narrative. Violent extremists who wave a religious banner do so to legitimise their movement and bolster its claims to moral superiority. Therefore, when pundits cast these violent activists as religiously motivated, they only reinforce the terrorist appeal to religion.
Moreover, if these tensions are indeed unavoidable, the extremists’ narrative continues, then dialogue is useless and force is necessary. Once a clash is the only option, the extremists claim that for their own survival people must support those fighting on their behalf Western thought-leaders would therefore do well to refute, not reinforce, the idea of inevitable religious war.
i’ve been told that islam is a political system in and of it’s self. you speak of mutual respect, yet muslims do not respect freedom of speach or religion. your own survey said that 90% of egyptians were in favor of freedom of religion yet 84% thought that a muslim converting should be put to death. how is that freedom of religion? also you say terror is politically motivated. i agree but there is also islamicly motivated terror. did you see some ahmadis were beaten to death in indonesia? a 14 year girl was lashed to death in pakistan due to local interpretation of sharia. how is it’s politically motivated to kill theo van gogh? why did the ayatollah put a bounty on rusdie’s head when he was already in charge in iran. i think your focus on 9/11 is misplaced, the scary thing about islam is islam its self, [8.12] When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
[8.13] This is because they acted adversely to Allah and His Apostle; and whoever acts adversely to Allah and His Apostle– then surely Allah is severe in requiting (evil). as an agnostic, you all are more scary then the christians, i agree with ghandi when he said, “i like your christ, i don’t like your christians they are so unchrist like”. but i don’t see christian going around killing people for blasphamy. i don’t understand why i can’t see my comments. could someone email me if they see this… mmalzahn@ymail.com
Guestview: Unrest in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Jonathan Wright is a longtime Reuters correspondent in the Middle East who is now a translator and blogger based in Cairo.
By Jonathan Wright As in the case of Tunisia, a succession of commentators have remarked on the small role the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have played in the unrest in Egypt. One of the latest I have seen came from Michael Collins Dunn, the editor of the Middle East Institute. “Do you see any beards? Well, maybe a few beard-and-mustache looks of some young hipsters, but not the beard-without-mustache ‘uniform’ we associate with the Muslim Brothers,” he writes.
I think Dunn is mistaken here on several counts. For a start, Muslim Brothers come in many guises, and the ‘beard-without-mustache’ look is hardly a Brotherhood uniform. He may be confusing Muslim Brothers with salafis, while the two groups are quite distinct, though with some overlap. From my own experience on the streets (see my earlier reports on my blog), I believe people are underestimating the level of participation by members of the Brotherhood, though I will readily concede that they have not taken part at full strength and at a level which reflects their demographic weight.
There are several possible and obvious reasons for this. Let me offer a few of them: – The Brotherhood, from long experience of confrontation with the Egyptian authorities, is always wary of commitment to street protests. It will calibrate its level of participation to its assessment of the chances of success. If it overreaches, it runs the risk of a massive crackdown. For the moment, probably rightly, it is not convinced that the protests will overthrow the regime.
– The Brotherhood knows that the world (especially the United States and Europe) are watching events in Egypt closely. If the protests appear to be Brotherhood-led, the government will feel free to use much more brutal methods to disperse protesters. For the moment it suits the Brotherhood’s interests to give the impression that there is a broad coalition united against Hosni Mubarak, including liberals and leftists. This explains why Brotherhood members who have taken part in the protests have refrained from chanting slogans with religious connotations. The impression of a broad coalition also helps domestically — if the Brotherhood take the lead, it would frighten off some of the other groups.
– The Brotherhood, like Islamist groups in many Arab countries, has cold feet about governing. It does not feel it is ready. This is reflected in its official strategy of concentrating on a political reform agenda which it shares with many other groups — free and fair elections, rule of law, a new constitution with checks and balances and so on. What the Brotherhood wants most in the short term is the freedom to organize and promote its ideas in a democratic environment, regardless of who is in government. The Brotherhood believes that, given freedom and time, it can win over Egyptians to its long-term agenda.
– The current state of sectarian (Muslim-Copt) tensions in Egypt, especially after the bombing of the church in Alexandria at the New Year, is not conducive to a protest movement in which Islamist slogans and objectives are prominent. Such slogans would be a distraction and could backfire against the Brotherhood.
Guestview: Editorial independence and an ecumenical news agency
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Peter Kenny is the former editor-in-chief of ENInews. By Peter Kenny
Maintaining editorial integrity at ENInews, a Geneva-based world-wide news agency run by Ecumenical News International that covers global Christianity and other religions, is hard work. Although church groupings and their partner organizations founded ENInews, editorial independence is often linked to that which is the root of all evil — money.
And that was one of the root causes of ENInews being forced to suspend production for a time at the beginning of the year. It has resumed services and now has an interim editor and is looking for an editor/manager for a one-year term, who will have no office. In 2011 it will also likely face another big cut from its biggest sponsor.
When in May 2010 the biggest founding member of ENInews, the World Council of Churches, suddenly said it would drastically cut funding due to a budget deficit of millions of dollars it was trying to fend off, the news agency was already running with little room to manoeuver.
The new management and editorial team is operating with vastly reduced resources and there is talk that the WCC’s financial predicament will force it to deliver another big cut next year, or even to cease support totally.
In every part of the planet, news subscribers have in recent years bought in a new media trading philosophy — news should be provided free. This may be good for consumers, in the very short term, but makes forging business models for news providers’ challenging. Dwindling paid-for subscriptions can’t pay all the bills, so the modern smaller agency that covers specialised news needs benefactors or sponsors. Yet, if a sponsor is hit with its own financial big hole, as happened to ENInews, it can destabilise the news flow.
Over the Christmas and New Year period, ENInews took the unprecedented step of suspending its news service for longer than the normal holiday break. After a struggle in its governing body, a new management and a temporary editor began operating a reduced service that relies less on news and more on straight press releases. Insiders say the WCC’s financial predicament and a new policy on programmes will force it to deliver another big cut next year, or even to cease support totally. A part time new editor is being sought, who will have no office or agency HQ.
Guestview: “Almost Christian” teens challenge U.S. parents and churches
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Elizabeth E. Evans is a freelance writer, columnist and priest-in-charge at St. Marks Episcopal Church, Honey Brook, Pennsylvania.
By Elizabeth E. Evans
A large-scale study charting the religious habits of American teenagers has quietly been underway for almost a decade but has received relatively little media attention until now. As the data from the longitudinal analysis performed by the National Study of Youth & Religion is released, (NSYR) it could and should stimulate unsettling questions for Christian parents and churches alike.
Featuring phone interviews with 3,300 teens and their parents and three-hour interviews with close to 300 of them, the NSYR research random sampled feedback by kids from any tradition – or none.
Impassioned and articulate, NSYR research team member Kenda Creasy Dean has distilled her reflections on the findings into a volume that is both a critique of “status quo” Christian practice and encouragement to take faith more seriously.
In Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church, the Princeton Theological Seminary professor mines the NSYR information to examine a virus she believes is currently wreaking havoc with American denominations — “moral therapeutic deism.” Coined by NYSR chief investigator Christian Smith, a Notre Dame professor, the term symbolizes the view that “religion is about being nice, feeling good about themselves, and that otherwise God pretty much stays out of the way — unless you need to call upon God to serve your needs,” says Dean.
The slow death of multiculturalism in Europe
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Ibrahim Kalin is senior advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. This article first appeared in Today’s Zaman in Istanbul and is reprinted with its permission.
By Ibrahim Kalin
Has multiculturalism run its course in Europe? If one takes a picture of certain European countries today and freezes it, that would be the logical conclusion.
The European right is thriving on anti-immigrant attitudes and is likely to continue to reap the benefits in the short term. But there are forces that are sure to keep multiculturalism alive whether we like it or not.
Take Germany as an example. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said bluntly that Germany has failed to integrate large immigrant communities. The complaint is that most Turks and Muslims who came to Germany in the 1960s to jumpstart the German economy after World War II have not integrated into German society. They kept their language, religion and most of their cultural habits. Instead of blending in, they created their own parallel societies.
But is it logical to conclude that multiculturalism is dead because certain European countries have failed to integrate their minority communities? First of all, what some European countries present as multicultural policies have very little to do with multiculturalism. Again Germany is a case in point. German governments welcomed Greek, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish workers in the 1950s and 1960s and treated them as “guest workers.” But it never occurred to them that these so-called guest workers were also human beings with social and familial needs just like any other people. As a result, the German governments made very little or no effort in creating a social and political environment for them to integrate.
Guestview: Catholics, Jews and petri dishes
The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Rabbi Elliot Dorff is rector of the American Jewish University in California and chairs the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.This article first appeared in the Forward, a Jewish weekly published in New York, and is reprinted with their permission.
By Rabbi Elliot Dorff
This month, Robert Edwards, a professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing (along with Dr. Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988), in vitro fertilization. The technique whereby eggs are removed from a woman, fertilized in a petri dish (hence the name “in vitro,” or “in a glass”), and then implanted into the womb, has enabled people to procreate who would otherwise not be able to have children.
Indeed, since Louise Brown, the first baby conceived through IVF, was born in 1978, some four million children have been conceived using this technique. Today between 1% and 2% of all babies born in the United States and other developed countries each year are conceived through IVF.
In vitro fertilization has had two ancillary benefits. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a technique developed about 10 years ago, enables couples to use IVF to avoid serious genetic diseases by extracting and testing one cell from each of a group of IVF embryos and then implanting only the ones without the disease. This avoids requiring the woman to carry a baby who might have a lethal or debilitating genetic disease for several months before testing and then possibly aborting the fetus.
Embryonic stem cell research is another boon produced by IVF. Using frozen embryos left over by couples who have used IVF to have children, scientists have justified hope of producing cures for some of our worst diseases — cancer, heart attacks, strokes, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injuries — and may even ultimately produce tissues and full organs for transplant.
Jews have been overwhelmingly — actually, almost universally — in favor of all of these developments, and Catholics have been opposed to them all. Catholics have therefore opposed the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Professor Edwards, and Jews have applauded it. Why?
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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The pivotal point of the article may be correct, especially if Abou El-Fotouh wins and systematically dismantles MB from within. No one else knows as well as he does, its intricacies; cobweb structure and intrinsic corruption. The movement has forced religion upon politics in a global sense, which is not good for either to prosper. He is like Gorbachev to the ex-CCCP. A strong medicine.