Islamists Today

The FJP's Foreign Policy

2012-01-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Ahram Weekly 1 February 2012

The stance of the MB's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) on foreign policy is tricky. The most likely explanation for this phenomenon has to do with the relationship between the FJP and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is so close that their respective positions, signals and statements are frequently identical. As we know, the party is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and the latter is the social and organisational incubator of the party, which is not yet one year old. However, now that the parliamentary elections are over, yielding results that entitle the FJP to assume the leadership of the new People's Assembly, that relationship has to change. The party no longer represents the Muslim Brotherhood alone; it represents a large segment of the populace who are not members of that organisation yet and who voted for FJP candidates in the recent elections in sufficient numbers to enable the party to win a majority.

This presents the party with a historic opportunity -- if used well -- to loosen its ties with the mother organisation so as to gain a greater degree of flexibility and manoeuvrability. On the basis of its electoral victory it can replace the "pedigree" legitimacy it acquired by birth from the Muslim Brotherhood with a new type of legitimacy, one that is broader and more powerful because its source and foundations are the people. With this popular legitimacy it will be able to reposition itself as a true majority party, as opposed to a party belonging to a specific group or class.

"Disengagement" between the FJP and the Muslim Brotherhood, at the political level at the very least, is crucial in this phase. Moreover, it will benefit both sides. The Muslim Brotherhood will be free to voice whatever positions it wishes, on both domestic and foreign policy issues, and particularly on the matter of Israel, which to the Brotherhood is a subject of central importance, historically, religiously and ideologically, and one that has won it a considerable degree of legitimacy and popularity in the Arab street. No one will blame the Brotherhood for airing its views as long as these reflect the ideas and attitudes of its own members. At the same time, "disengagement" will give the party the freedom and flexibility it needs to establish stances and take decisions on foreign policy matters on the basis of risk/benefit analyses as opposed to religious or ideological obligations to the Muslim Brotherhood organisation. The importance of this can not be understated, for since obtaining a parliamentary majority that poises it to form a new government, it has stopped being a party of the Brotherhood "group" and has become a party of "the state", and representative of the interests of a vast segment of the Egyptian people. Thirdly, a clear distance between the group and the party will make life easier for both. Neither will be able to court trouble for the other, as has occurred on a number of occasions, the most recent being during the controversy over the future of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Nor is there a need for the two to continue to cling so closely together. If the Egyptian revolution lifted the "domestic" ban on the Muslim Brotherhood and enabled its re-assimilation into society after years of ostracism and vilification, the Egyptian ballot box lifted the "external" ban and won international recognition for them both. Moreover, Washington is currently working to reorder its relationship with them and seems ready to proceed with the development of a strategic partnership with the Muslim Brothers, marking a radical shift in US policy towards this movement.

I can understand why both the party and the Brotherhood would find it difficult to effect such a separation at this phase; however, they could overcome their reluctance if they approached the matter from the perspective that a "relative" parting of ways would be to the advantage of them both. There are four basic principles that would help them demarcate the boundaries between them and, simultaneously, ensure that the FJP has the flexibility and manoeuvrability it needs in foreign policy.

The first is to draw a line between the "universal" and the "national" so as to maintain the Egyptian national interest as the primary determinant and objective of the party's foreign policy thinking. The FJP would be mistaken to subscribe to the "universalism" that the Muslim Brotherhood espouses in its literature and political discourse. Not only would this be unrealistic, but it could also lead the party into any number of errors or futile squabbles that would only drain its energies and resources. It is important to stress that the pursuit of Egyptian interests by no means implies ignoring Arab and Islamic causes. Rather, the point is that these interests are the "measure" for the decisions the party takes on domestic and foreign policy issues. I am certain that most of the party's leaders have the awareness they need to operate on this premise. However, their organisational obligations to the Muslim Brotherhood (which may conflict with their political party commitments, in the narrow sense) could lead them to attempt to please the sheikhs and leaders of the mother organisation to the detriment of the party.

Secondly, a line should be drawn between allegiance to the organisation and allegiance to the state in foreign policy decision-making processes. This principle is clearly related to the first. As a proselytising religious movement, the Muslim Brotherhood's priorities are not at all identical to the priorities of its political party, which has different functions and duties. Whereas the former is concerned with the moral reform of society and raising religious awareness, the FJP, in cooperation with other political parties, must focus, above all, on the reconstruction of the Egyptian state, the higher allegiance and true source of legitimacy of all political players. Therefore, a line must be drawn between the "realm of proselytising" and the "realm of the state" so as to avert confusion between the hierarchical frameworks of the Muslim Brotherhood and those of the party when it comes to forming a new government or designing foreign policy. Individuals suited for proselytising work may not necessarily serve the foreign policy purposes of the state; people who are good at addressing domestic audiences may blunder when addressing audiences abroad. I should stress, here, that I am not suggesting that the Muslim Brotherhood and the FJP sever the organisational bond between them or even draw a line between proselytising and politics. As important as such steps are, they do not look realistic at present. Rather, my point is that the party should adopt a state/national interest mind- set, rather than a Muslim Brotherhood/proselytising mind-set, when it comes to foreign policy.

The third principle is for the party to make the transition from ideological partisanship to political pragmatism and realism. Foreign policy cannot be conducted on the basis of set maxims and rigid dictums, especially in this period of intensive flux and reconstitution through which the world is passing. The closer the party's outlooks and presumptions are to reality, the more it will be able to attain the goals and aspirations of the Egyptian nation. Countless historical experiences testify to the fact that strapping foreign policy into an ideological straightjacket can lead to irreparable disaster.

To be pragmatic is not to abandon values or principles or to compromise on identity and its significance. It simply means drawing a line between subjective and ideological considerations and objective and realistic assessments when it comes to taking decisions. It also means that when values and principles are called into play, they are applied with the greatest degree of rationalism and caution so as to avert the many nightmarish traps and pitfalls foreign policy designers and executors can fall into. Therefore, FJP leaders must consciously work to overcome the many rigid attitudes and stereotypical perceptions that have long been part of the Muslim Brotherhood indoctrination process for the purposes of sustaining its internal cohesion, for only then will they attain the clarity of vision and intellectual flexibility they need in order to interact effectively in the regional and international environments and to take the best possible decisions on the basis of constant reassessments of changing realities on the ground.

The fourth principle is to draw a distinction between the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and the interests of the FJP. This is not to imply that there is a necessary contradiction between the two. Rather, the purpose is to ensure that neither prevails over the other irrespective of the general welfare of the state. Given that their respective fields of activity, priorities and means of action are different, it is only natural that their interests would not overlap. This is not bad. In fact, it is the insistence that the party's interests must be identical to those of the organisation that could jeopardise them both. There is no reason that the party's positions should necessarily suit the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood group, just because that group was the main organisational and financial founder of the party. As mentioned above, with its electoral victory the basis of the party's legitimacy shifted from the Muslim Brotherhood to the street. This is now where its interests reside and these may or may not coincide with the "group". Therefore, when it comes to foreign policy, the FJP must transcend the "forbidden/permitted" mind-set of the Muslim Brotherhood and operate on the basis of what is possible and available. Both sides must realise that if the FJP succeeds this will count as a success for both the state and the Muslim Brotherhood, but that if it fails the failure will be the Muslim Brotherhood's alone.

With respect to their foreign policy in particular, FJP leaders should adopt the motto of their Turkish counterparts in the Justice and Development Party: "We have no enemies, we are independent and our country comes first!"

The Arab Spring: Voting Islamism

2011-12-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

Larbi Sadiki
AlJazeera International

Exeter, United Kingdom - Twenty years is a footnote in the big scheme of history. In the early 1990s, new prophets were being placed on a pedestal to reshape the region. The fad "New Middle East" was born. Many scholars fell under the spell of Shimon Peres, one of the earliest prophets of the "New Middle East". From Morocco (where Peres first outlined his vision) to the UAE, statesmen, journalists and policy formulators readjusted rhetoric to that vogue.

George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice, among others, tried after the sacking of Baghdad to resuscitate some life into the term, which was tattered by the disjunction of rhetoric and practice. Peres authored (with Arye Naor) the term into a book in 1993. Its prose was nicely laced with political correctness and its jargon: peace, democratisation and economic development for all.

That "New Middle East" cloned the old Middle East, remaining bereft of two vital elements: statehood for the Palestinians, and an Arab role commensurate with their size and importance as a power sub-system unified by religious and linguistic commonality, bonds of history, geographic propinquity, and unfulfilled aspirations for development and economic integration.

The "Arab Spring" - even if its detractors will keep dreaming of it being supervened into an "Arab Winter" - is the first time since Nasser that has reclaimed unity of purpose and direction in a single term, a term that is the Arabs' own in form and substance.

The Arab Spring and Islamism

Nothing like the "Arab Spring" spells danger for the superimposition of outside ideas on the Arab peoples. However, this "Arab Spring" is today in need of free inquiry and critical input to aid its fruition into a sustainable democratic becoming. Some of this input must be addressed to the Islamists who are looming as the major driving force of the current reshaping of the Arab region.

Their endorsement seems to be universal across the geography of the "Arab Spring". Note how some of the Islamist candidates in Egypt secured seats through formidable popular endorsement. Ramadan Omar, the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party candidate in the 9th district, contesting the single seat in the category of seats allocated to workers, received nearly 429,000 votes. That is more than the total votes of entire parties in Tunisia.

This perhaps explains why some liberal parties or figures wanted the elections to be cancelled; and a few in Egypt, including businessmen affiliated with Mubarak, are still working to sabotage the polls. They can think of the spectre of a strong Islamist showing in the elections happening at their expense, and not helping reap the dividends of the Arab Spring through institution-building for the whole of Egypt.

That said, it has become scarcely possible to conceive of a reshaped Middle East without being brought up against a basic fact: the rise and continuing rise of Islamist forces. Three questions must be faced.

By attempting to answer them, the objective is to produce a framework into which ways of thinking about the democratic potentiality of the Arab Spring can be fitted.

Question 1: Is Islam the solution?

Islamists proceed on the assumption that there are enough resources for developing a normative blueprint for developing a political order in line with the divine design revealed to the Prophet Mohamed and supplemented by the corpus of Prophetic Tradition.

To seek a good approximation of the divine design through the construction of a democratic socio-moral order for polity, society, economy, culture and epistemology, the Islamists need to avoid getting embroiled in the non-essentials of both Islam and the current period of transition.

For instance, if the aim is a community of citizens living in a republic of laws, then excluding compatriots holding two nationalities is out of line. Mubarak, Ben Ali, Assad, and the late Gaddafi all had a single nationality; but that did not make them upright citizens in the service of their nations.

The non-essentials of sect, youth, religion and gender should not impinge on equal rights to citizenship. The only factor should be merit and record of service. In this sense, collective punishment of all members of formerly ruling parties may not suit the moment of making freedom and fairness the name of the game.

Islamists can lead the way in stamping out corruption, injustice, and exclusion, but to do this they need to partner with the rest of society. As someone who, over 16 years, interviewed dozens of Egypt's Brotherhood leaders and activists - from the time of Mustafa Machhour up to present - and Jordanian, Sudanese, Tunisian, Hamas and Hezbollah Islamists, the Arab Spring has given Islamists an opportunity to demonstrate how "Islam can be beautiful" in practice.

This is not an easy challenge to measure up to, when not knowing what to achieve immediately or gradually, and what not to desperately - and perhaps unnecessarily - cling to, when the setting and the environment right now are prohibitive.

For instance, the likes of newly elected Ennahdha members Sadek Shorou or Habib Ellouz voice commitment to Islamic law as they enter the Constituent Assembly. Is Tunisia ready for Islamic law now? Thousands of Islamists, from Palestine to Morocco, share the same vision of a socio-moral order governed by shariah.

The key idea is to critically think about whether Islam is the solution now or in the future, and whether Islam is a solution for all matters or some matters. Islamists may find that in politics they may have to recalibrate rhetoric until the rethought component regarding "Islam is the solution" is subjected to the tests and rigours of the new reality as power-holders.

Question 2: Is democratisation the solution?

Islamists seem not to be driven by political domination in this stage of the Arab Spring. Even with 40 per cent of the vote, they end up being holders of parliamentary majority. This has been the case in Egypt (after the first round of the multi-stage elections) and Tunisia after the October elections.

They do not have the political capital and experience, nor does the timing permit for such a democratic preference. The current phase demands partnership, coalition-building, capacity-building and modesty. This applies to Tunisia's Ennahdha as well to Egypt's Freedom and Justice Party. In Tunisia, Ennahda obtaining a few more than one million votes - in a country where nearly three million did not register, and of the four million that did register, many fewer voted - does not constitute a majority. A reality-check is important to relativise electoral results and statistics.

The most important question, in my view, in summing up the challenge facing Islamists in power regards the following dilemma.

Pragmatically, Islamists have postponed the project of the Islamic state - and some even the implementation of Islamic law - until such a time when there is a properly functioning Muslim society. Brilliant; I concur! The reasoning behind this is that the perfect Islamic society is nowhere to be yet found in the geography of the global Islamic community. Just as illustrated by the standard example mentioned everywhere of Omar ibn Al-Khattab, who suspended alms-giving during the drought years of his caliphate.

Now, as nearly or quasi power-holders, Islamists should apply this to democratic transition. Democratic majoritarianism must equally be postponed until there is a properly functioning democratic public and society. Period.

The current democratic transition period is marked by coalition-building politics, mostly between Islamists and secularists and liberals.

In Tunisia, the Ennahdha Party was not keen on the idea of Abdelfattah Morou forming his own political party, making Islamism rigidly single-tracked. Unlike Tunisia, in Egypt, Islamism is diverse: Salafist and Sufi parties and the Wasat Party all share degrees of religious affinity.

In Tunisia, Ennahdha deftly knew how to engage in power-sharing, offering the presidency of the republic to Moncef Merzouki (Congress for the Republic) and that of the Constituent Assembly to Mustafa bin Jaafar (Ettakattol). It is still too early to tell how the Muslim Brotherhood will act, as the single agenda of the soon-to-be newly elected parliament in helping draft a constitution from January.

There are two fundamental issues here: firstly, there are already problems on the coalition-building model in Tunisia. Ennahdha wants a quasi-nominal presidency with much watered-down executive powers. Merzouki disagreed and this has thus far delayed the forming of the new government. He has, in the past week, acquired executive clout to go with the office, after Ennahdha relented. Now the final say rests with the Constituent Assembly to vote on his sole candidature.

In any case, the terms of coalition-building must be stated from the outset or the process risks producing political paralysis, not vigour in political praxis.

Coalition-building with liberals or other secular forces, including leftist forces, set Islamist-led transitions on less-ideologically charged democratisation as they have to take on board liberal or secularist policy preferences. This is a plus for transition. Note how Ennahdha President Rachid Ghannouchi no longer minds "bikinis" and his first statement after the elections was to allay the fears of investors, endorsing the "free market".

Secondly - and this is the drawback - by choosing to co-opt formidable forces into coalition, victorious Islamists more or less pre-empt the function of opposition. At least, this is the case in Tunisia. If the two parties with the most potential build themselves into the democratic rivals of Ennahdha and then end up joining the Islamists as governing partners, the Constituent Assembly will not be a place of vibrant opposition, deliberation, contests and counter-contests.

The Islamist turn?

Socialists, secularists and colonials have had their go at rebranding the Middle East. It is too early yet to speak of an "Islamist turn", even if all indications from initial electoral contests from Morocco to Egypt, and including Turkey, strongly hint the Arab Spring, in its first version, is marked by unprecedented openings for Islamist forces and socio-moral projects in polity and economy.

Some Salafis in Egypt used the electoral populist slogan that they "do not bite". It may be the case. What is challenging for all politicians riding the Arab Spring into power, including Islamists, is that the populace will need more than political barking. They will need tangible change for the better.

Dr Larbi Sadiki is a Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, and author of Arab Democratization: Elections without Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009) and The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (Columbia University Press, 2004).

The illusive rise of Islamists

2011-12-11T05:08:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Foreign Policy, December 8, 2011

The results of the first round of polling in Egypt have released an uproar, which has overwhelmed the media and startled the public sphere. But the victory of Islamist parties is overrated. Given Islamists' entrenched presence in the Arab societies, politically, economically, and socially, let alone the abundant religious propaganda, it is more striking that thus far none of the Islamists parties have obtained an absolute majority in recent elections.

Islamists in Tunis, Morocco, and Egypt cannot claim superiority over other political forces. The seeming triumph of Islamist forces will soon be revealed as an illusion. In Tunis, the Ennahda Party won only 37 percent of constituent assembly seats (89 out of 217), which placed them ahead of other political parties but did not grant Ennhada the final word in writing the new constitution or in forming a unilateral government. In Morocco, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) barely won 27 percent in the elections (107 out of 395 of seats) with less than 46 percent voter turnout. True, the PJD received more than double the votes it won in the last elections (the party got 47 seats in 2007 elections), and it is the first time for a party to get this number of seats since the first Moroccan elections in 1963. However, the peculiarity and complexity of the Moroccan electoral system (which creates a fractured parliament) does not guarantee a single party dominance over the legislature.

In Egypt, for sure, Islamists have so far fared well in the first round of elections and are expected to maintain their success. However, it is off base to assume that they will control an unshakable majority of the new parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the iconic and the most potent Islamist movement in the Arab world, received just 36.6 percent of votes in the first round despite its long-standing experience in running election campaigns. (Although the movement had officially been banned for decades, many Brothers ran in elections as "independent" candidates.) The greater surprise lies in the relative success of the ultraconservative salafists, the dark horse of the Egyptian elections, who garnered 24.3 percent of the votes. But it is highly unexpected that they will achieve the same proportion in the two upcoming phases of elections. Not only because of their unwise and naïve Islamic rhetoric which has overshadowed the media over the past few weeks, but also because they will confront their more moderate Islamist counterparts, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Wasat Party. In the run-off elections between individual candidates this week, the Brotherhood crushed their salafi rivals, winning nearly ten times as many seats.

One of the major fears associated with the rise of the Islamists is that they will use their power to reshape political institutions in their favor. But in fact, these elections will not change the rules of the game in favor of the newcomers and empower them. Not one of the "rising" Islamist parties will be able to take real power from the incumbent rulers - at least not from their performance at the ballot box.

In Tunis, as well as in Morocco and Egypt, Islamists parties that won the elections will not be able to significantly alter the status quo to their benefit. First, the embedded authoritarian structures are still functioning and the old elite is vibrant. The heavy legacy of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak will impede any attempt by new governments to dismantle these structures. For instance, the Ennahda Party, after forming a coalition government that is still under intensive negotiations, will grapple with two old and entrenched institutions: the army and the security establishment. Both will fight to preclude any fundamental changes that might affect their interests. The Tunisian army showed a remarkable degree of self-restraint from grabbing power after Ben Ali fled; however, its generals are not angels. They view the army as "the guardian of the republic" which might hint to an oversight if not a soft patronage role particularly if civilians could not tame their roles in the new constitution. They will attentively monitor the political scene from behind the curtain. It is much worse with the security forces, which will not bow to the new realities easily. Any attempt to rehabilitate them to fit into the new democratic settings might undermine the whole process of transition.

In Morocco, the monarch is sovereign, untouchable and operates above politics. The constitutional amendments that were approved last July in a celebrated referendum do not confer much power to the parliament. They reorganized the political domain to become more visible, yet ineffective. The PJD will form a weak government that will seek to appease the monarchy and the street at the same time. Not surprisingly, the PJD is not positioning itself as a contender to the palace (al-Makhzan), which retains the full power over the state and society.

In Egypt, it is even more blatant. The military is the only player in town and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) appears unlikely to cede power to the Muslim Brotherhood or any other political party. The new parliament, which will likely be led by Islamists, will therefore be ineffective and constrained. According to a constitutional declaration approved by a popular referendum last March, the SCAF has the exclusive power to assign and dismiss the government. In a recent message sent through SCAF General Mamdouh Shaeen, legal assistant to the defense minister, the leading parties in the elections will not be able to form the government, dissolve the SCAF's appointed government, or question its ministers. More ironically, the parliament will not have the authority to craft the new constitution without the SCAF's oversight. Therefore, the mere outcome of the on-going elections will merely add to the fragmented and divisive political scene.

None of the Islamist parties will form a unilateral government. They will have to bargain, build coalitions, and make concessions. By doing so, Islamists will have to rein in their political ambitions and show elasticity in sharing power. More significantly, as a part of transition dynamics, Islamists are more prone to abandon their original goals, such as building an Islamic state and applying the Islamic law (sharia). The recent statements of Islamists leaders in Tunis, Morocco, and Egypt show a tendency toward re-prioritizing their agenda to become more pragmatic and realistic. Instead of focusing on the sacred and identity issues, they have been inclined to address more mundane and practical problems including reforming education, fighting corruption, and rebuilding infrastructure.

With the ethos of the Arab Spring still thriving, the young Arabs will not tolerate any violation of personal freedoms and human rights. The new "Islamist" governments will be required not only to give assurances of respecting political pluralism, minorities' rights, freedom of speech, and so forth, but more importantly will need to provide genuine concessions pertaining to their Islamic pursuits. In other words, the pressure on Islamists will not be confined to their political positions, whereby they can shrewdly maneuver against their adversaries, but more importantly will affect their ideological convictions, which will subvert their "illusive" rise.
Khalil al-Anani is a Scholar at the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University, UK and a former visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute. He can be reached at:
k.m.ibrahim@durham.ac.uk

The end of military rule in Egypt is inevitable

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

OpenDemocracy, November 28, 2011
For almost six decades, the Egyptian army has operated above politics. No matter what they did, no one dared to hold the army generals accountable. The last time they faced intense scrutiny was after the humiliating defeat by Israel in 1967 (naksa), which led to the trial of Field Marshal Abdelhakim Amer and the Minister of Defence Shams Badran during the Nasser epoch.

However, since the ousting of Hosni Mubarak last February, the celebratory image of the Egyptian military as the guardian of the revolution has been crumbling. This is not only due to the catastrophic blunders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the de facto rulers of Egypt, but more importantly because the revolution itself aimed to end the military’s dominance in Egypt since 1952. Mubarak was not only a despot who stayed in power longer than any other Egyptian ruler since Mohamed Ali’s reign in the nineteenth century, but he was also a veteran who consolidated his power base while serving in the Egyptian army for almost four decades.

Mubarak was the heir of two autocratic presidents, Nasser and Sadat, who set about building the military into everyday politics. Contrary to his predecessors though, Mubarak, upon assuming power in 1981, shrewdly sought to neutralize the army’s influence in politics. He tended to co-opt high-ranking army generals to this plan through economic and social privileges and by excluding and marginalizing those who might threaten his authority. The result of this series of policies was the depoliticization of the military elite.

So it was that once Mubarak was removed, SCAF was faced with an immense quandary about how to deal with a volatile and highly fluid political environment. Egypt’s highest military institution was taken by surprise by last January’s revolution, and it did not have any plans on how to fill the vacuum left by the absence of Mubarak’s brutal apparatuses. While SCAF did not side with Mubarak in the face of Tahrir protesters; it still has no idea on what the next phase should be. Its out-dated and conservative mind-set, jumbled ideology, and extreme wariness, fails to convince Egyptians that SCAF can competently run the country. Neither has SCAF succeeded in containing the growing discontent among young activists who have astutely de-legitimized and exposed SCAF’s policy over the past ten months.

Moreover, the discourse of the Egyptian military reveals its limited political skills and poor management of civil affairs. When SCAF leaders stress that they do not seek to maintain power we should believe them. This is not because they lack political ambitions or the desire to maintain their current supremacy, but simply because they are politically incapable of consolidating their status. Unlike the Free Officers who took power after the coup d’état of the 1952, SCAF’s leaders do not have the mechanisms necessary to tighten their grip on power: a coherent ideology, a political organization, and a platform for modernization.

Ideology

As a result of Mubarak’s policy to de-politicize the army, the Egyptian military did not adopt or develop a unique political doctrine or ideology e.g. Nasser’s socialism or Sadat’s liberalism (Infitah). Apart from its traditional and more conservative character, the Egyptian military is not inclined to espouse particular political preferences. True, some SCAF leaders sought to elaborate such a preference, e.g. the attempt by Sami Anan, the Chief of Staff, to defend the civilian nature of the Egyptian state vs. the Islamists. However, for many Egyptians this seems totally untenable. Unlike Nasser who embraced socialism and pan-Arabism to galvanize the masses, SCAF leaders are struggling to comprehend how young Egyptians think and what they aspire to. In the words of one young activist, "They [SCAF leaders] lack the political imagination to articulate a position that avoids conflict on the street, but shows a presence in the square: they're portraying themselves as worse than they are”.

Political organization

A junta must have a potent and compelling political machine that can inspire people and win their loyalty. For instance, to consolidate his power Nasser dissolved all political parties and associations and created the single-party system. The role of the Arab Socialist Union (al-Ithad al-Arbi al-Ishtraki) was not to dominate the political arena but more importantly to disseminate Nasserism among Egyptians and beyond. Unlike his predecessor, Sadat moved from the one-party system towards a more restricted pluralism. He created weak and fragile political parties with one dominant party, the National Democratic Party (NDP). More blatantly, Mubarak further weakened the political parties and gave more power to the NDP.

Contrary to its predecessors, SCAF has put in place regulations to establish new political parties after the revolution. As a result, more than 25 parties have been established since last February in addition to the existing 24 parties, which brings the full count to 49 parties. Clearly, SCAF does not rely upon a political apparatus that can diffuse its doctrine and it has not invested in creating such a political mechanism. The sole institution that helps SCAF resolve the political complexities of the post-Mubarak era is the Public Intelligence Apparatus (Jihaz a-Mukhabrat al’ama). This outfit played a historically tremendous role in the construction of various Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes. It alone of Egypt’s institutions remains substantially untouched by the Egyptian revolution. Many Egyptians believe, that the Mukhabrat provides policy recommendations to SCAF on how to act and how to make decisions.

Modernization

It is has become apparent that SCAF does not have a programme for the future, nor does it have a vision for modernizing the country. Over the past ten months, SCAF has failed to deliver the bare necessities for Egyptians, e.g. preserving individuals’ security, managing food prices, increasing wages etc. More ironically, when protesters in Tahrir Square have called for forming a new salvation government after the deadly clashes with security forces, SCAF defied them and appointed Kamal El-Ganzouri, a 78-year old political veteran who served under Mubarak, as prime minister. Appointing El-Ganzouri, despite the criticism, reflects not only the enormous generational gap between SCAF leaders and Tahrir protesters but more significantly the mounting mistrust between both parties which can only lead to more clashes.

If we are going to treat the Egyptian revolution as a soft coup d’état, it must be characterized as a coup without a plan. SCAF’s leaders lack Nasser’s talented and charismatic leadership, Sadat’s savvy, and Mubarak’s vigilance. That is why military rule in Egypt will not ultimately prevail.

* Khalil al-Anani is a scholar at the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University in the UK and a former visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute. He can be reached at: k.m.ibrahim@durham.ac.uk

Through a dark glass

2011-11-28T02:42:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-Ahram Weekly, 17 - 23 November 2011

The "Arab Spring" has failed to change the way we look at and think about ourselves, our societies and our socio-political conditions. Many Arab commentators and intellectuals remain captive to explanatory models and narratives that arose during the authoritarian period and that one hoped might fall with the downfall of the repressive dictatorships. But these models seem to have acquired the nature of absolute and indisputable truths. They have become myths that inhibit any rational discussion or critique of their basic presumptions. But once stripped of their various ideological and, sometimes, personal character, we find they lose any cogency.

This applies, most recently, to commentaries on the success of Ennahda Party in the Tunisian elections. Commentators were divided into those that expressed glee, rejoicing in this "second rise of Islamists" -- the first being the so-called "Islamic awakening" of the late 1970s and early 1980s -- and others who could react with nothing but dismay.

While the subject of this piece extends beyond events in Tunisia to investigate how Arab political and intellectual elite view Islamists in general, it is nevertheless important to underscore two points regarding the Tunisian case. First, by any objective measure, Ennahda's victory is far from extraordinary. Conversely, it was considerably less than had been anticipated in the course of the huge pre-election media build-up. Ennahda emerged from the polls with 40 per cent of seats in the Constitute Assembly, barely giving it a free hand to draw up Tunisia's new constitution or form a government independently. Sixty per cent of the Tunisian electorate, ie the majority, did not vote for Ennahda.

To reduce the recent elections in Tunisia to the convenient sound-bite of "Ennahda victory", excluding other important facets of the poll, from the extraordinary turnout and the fairness of the electoral process to the peaceful and civilised competition between diverse political forces, does a grave injustice to Tunisia's nascent democratic experience. It overlooks many encouraging aspects when it comes to establishing solid democracies in the Arab region.

The Tunisian experience was not just a preliminary test of the ability of the Tunisian people to build a democratic system, it was also an important test of our, the Arab intelligentsia, perceptions and presumptions towards the Islamist question. Ultimately, it cast into relief a number of prevalent myths that prevent us from dealing objectively with such complex phenomenon and that are more than mere ideological instruments for expressing our differences with it.

The first myth has to do with the concepts on which we build our perceptions and modes of awareness, beginning with the concept of "Islamist". Before the Arab Spring, we customarily placed in this category anyone who espoused an ideological political project based on perceptions of Islam. Whether consciously or not, we all used the term sweepingly, ignoring differences between the groups that fall under this label, some so essential they reach the point of ideological - even theological - antithesis, as is the case between the jihadists and the Muslim Brothers, the Salafis and Sufis, and the Shia and the Salafis. To make matters worse, the function of the term and its consequent implications shifted it from the analytical to the ideological realm, generating a chronic conflict between Islamists and non-Islamists. Such over generalisation is no longer tenable in the age of the Arab Spring, whereby all phenomena are changing rapidly, neither from an analytical nor moral standpoint.

The political and ideological rhetoric of Ennahda Party, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development (PJD) cannot be squeezed into the same taxonomic box as the Salafist, Sufi or Shia parties. However much they stem from the same religious frame of reference there is an enormous gulf between them in terms of the exegetical instruments and visions that bring to bear in developing their understanding of this frame-of-reference. In addition, it would be objectively wrong to chalk these fundamental differences down to "tactics" or transient positions veiling political opportunism. Not only does this reflect the tendency to automatically imply double standards, it does an injustice to that portion of the Arab polity that is putting effort into understanding the nature of the considerable - and sometimes unimaginable -- differences between the term (Islamist) components

The second myth is that the Islamists have dominated, and still doing, the Arab public sphere. This is an ideological myth par excellence, the reflection of a conflict that is more socio-political than religious. The public space created by the now deposed regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya was originally secularist. It began to be occupied by an Islamist tide only when the regimes themselves began to play religious one-upmanship, against the Islamists in order to establish their own "Islamic" credentials and strengthen their legitimacy, and in an attempt to pit one set of Islamists against another, as the Mubarak regime did with the Salafis and Muslim Brothers.

Of course, neither the regime nor the Islamists would use religion so flagrantly in the public space had they not been convinced the public would accept it, a fact that begs the ultimately ontological question: Why is religion so important to the average Arab citizen? Even to sketch an answer would exceed the space available here. The crucial point in this context, in any case, and the one that puts paid to the second myth, is that the public sphere that created the Arab revolution was not by any stretch of the imagination Islamist. It was a liberal, civil sphere, free from the burden of ideological frames-of- reference, religious or otherwise. This, in turn, means that the opportunity to sustain a liberal, civil public sphere still exists, although it is contingent upon the determination of its affiliates not to surrender to their Islamist rivals.

The third myth has to do with the relationship between the West and the Islamists. The fact that the substance of this myth has shifted from one antithesis to another is singular proof of its absurdity. At one time Arab intellectuals could not imagine the Islamists and the West finding any common ground. Since the Arab Spring they have not only begun to speak of dialogue between the two sides but have raised the spectre of a Western-Islamist "pact", all in the absence of any documented evidence.

The tendency not to see Islamist groups as social movements that affect and are affected by political forces and by the wider society leads to a fourth myth, which is that Islamists are religiously and ideologically static. The danger of this myth is not only that it inhibits an objective and realistic analysis of these movements but also hampers any perception of their constant transformations, inhibiting the possibility of any accurate prognosis on the future of the Islamist phenomenon as a whole. Did anyone imagine before the revolution that Egyptian Salafis would throw themselves into the political fray after having not only refrained from political involvement but denouncing it as heretical? Who would have thought that the Jihadists would form political parties and engage in the pubic sphere so openly? Did anyone anticipate that the Muslim Brotherhood, with its reputation of hierarchical rigidity and internal cohesion, would spawn four political parties in less than six months?

The fifth myth concerns the "historical imperative" of an Islamist hegemony, as well as its obverse. Those who espouse the former base their views not so much on the Islamists' determination and zealotry but on the more concrete observation that they are more tightly regimented and have broader grassroots organisations than their weak and fragmented opponents. Those who would argue for the flipside, that the Islamists are ultimately doomed to fail even if they do mange to win an election here or there, cite the experiences of Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan and Hamas. The critical flaw of the myth of historical inevitability, regardless of on which side its proponents fall, resides in the fact that it deals with the public as a uniform and naïve lump lacking any critical powers. What they forget is that this lump succeeded in overthrowing long-established and powerful authoritarian regimes.

* The writer is a Scholar at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham university. He can be reached at: k.m.ibrahim@durham.ac.uk

Egypt’s souring transition

2011-10-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

OpenDemocracy, 19 October 2011

Recent bloody clashes between the Egyptian military and Christian protesters have left the country on a brink of a rapidly-souring transition. Not only has the military, the only coherent institutional survivor from Mubarak's epoch, lost its credibility after opening fire on civilian protesters, but it is also facing mounting accusations of partiality and lack of neutrality in managing the transition. The last thing Egypt needs now is a biased arbitrator.

Through its heavy-handed involvement in political conflict, which contradicts its role as caretaker power and facilitator to the transition, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) is pushing Egypt towards a political impasse.

The larger context surrounding Sunday’s unprecedented violence is the utter failure of SCAF in running the country in the post-Mubarak era. Democratization theorists tell us that the quality of a political transition is contingent upon the rationality of those who supervise it. The more they restrain their own political ambitions, the more smoothly the genuine transition can proceed, and the less mistakes they will commit. They also tell us that the military’s involvement in political conflict degrades the quality of democracy and hampers the potential for democratic consolidation. After eight months of ruling the country, it’s pretty clear that Egypt’s military is keen neither to transfer power to an elected civilian government nor to construct real progress towards a sustainable democracy.

“Black Sunday”,whereby 25 Egyptians have been killed and some 300 wounded, is a watershed in Egypt’s lengthy transition. It reveals how fragile Egypt has become after the revolution and casts doubt over the capacity or will of the incumbent elite to ensure a peaceful transition. Three major mistakes the SCAF has committed over the past few months have resulted in the current political crisis. First is this attitude towards the transition. For the junta, the transition is not, and maybe should never be, a complete rupture with the old system, inevitably at their expense and a threat to their entrenched economic and social privileges. Instead, they envisage a fresh round of military domination over the political space, one that is less coercive and more discreet. Ironically in this regard, SCAF is itself perpetuating a familiar aspect of Mubarak’s regime, and one which the revolution sought to eradicate.

Second is the significant shift in SCAF’s discourse since the downfall of Mubarak and their assumption of power. By insisting on prolonging the transition and postponing any power transfer to civilians until 2013, according to the shaky road map SCAF has outlined, the military is deeply suspicious of civilian competence in ruling the country. SCAF’s leaders have inherited the old narrative and mindset from Nasser’s era which celebrated military supremacy over the civilian elite. Nasser’s doctrine was: Nasser for the Army, the Army for Egyptian People, and the Egyptian People for Arabian People (Walker 2011). However, neither the field marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of SCAF, nor his deputy the Chief of Staff Sami Anan have Nasser’s gifted charisma that can allow them to manipulate the public. Not surprisingly, such lack of confidence in civilians’ ability to run the country underlies the restricted and limited powers of Essam Sharaf’s government which has become the scapegoat of SCAF’s blunders.

The third major mistake lies in SCAF’s tendency to manipulate political forces. Since last March’s referendum which set provisional constitutional amendments for the transitional period, the military sought to co-opt the old, as well as the new, political parties. Two weeks ago the military shrewdly persuaded some 15 parties to sign a document that granted SCAF another two years in power. Clearly, the military does not side with one party against the other, however, it manipulates all the actors involved in order to slow down the revolutionary momentum of change. SCAF replicates Mubarak’s constant recourse to the tactic of divide and rule in dealing with the oppisition. The junta believes that the more you keep the opposition fragmented and divided, the less the public will push for civilian rule. Political factions are all too complicit with this tactic, entering into bargains with SCAF at the expense of the longer term goals of the transition. They all know how to criticize SCAF: however, they are blatantly incapable of agreeing on how to enforce it to leave power.

Nevertheless, it would be quite wrong to presume, as many commentators and analysts have concluded, that what the recent clashes in Egypt tell us most about is a sectarian or religious conflict between the military and the Egyptian Copts. Rather it uncovers the sense of empowerment and self-inflation of the SCAF in the face of all Egyptians, regardless of their religion or political affiliation. While the religious dimension cannot be ignored in such a pious society, the main message is about the costly nature of Mubarak’s legacy. Those who protested on Sunday bear many of the same grievances as those who rally to Tahrir Square every Friday, calling for civilian rule. They are all victims of the chronic problems inherited from Mubarak’s reign. It would be unrealistic as well as unfair to portray the Egyptian army as a sectarian entity with respect to the Copts. This may be a subtle distinction, between the habit of divide and rule and sectarianism, but a crucial one to understand in the Egyptian context.

To conclude, for many Egyptians, public good will towards the military is at its vanishing point, and the only possible way out of this terrible situation is to transfer power to civilian rule before next June. But this is unlikely as long as the junta believes that Egypt cannot thrive without being led by a person in a military uniform.

Islamists and the Revolution

2011-09-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

By Khalil al-Anani

Al-Ahram Weekly, 15 - 21 September 2011

Those who described Arab revolutions as "post-Islamism" have spoken too soon. Although the revolutionaries were not into religious slogans and Islamists did not deploy in force at first, it was only a matter of time before the revolutions took on an Islamist turn.

Admittedly, those who sparked off the revolutions were mostly non-Islamists. In Egypt, the first wave of revolutionaries came from the upper crust of the middle class. But to pretend that this year's Arab revolutions are secular is to subscribe to the main wish and argument of the Arab elite.

The wish is for Arab societies to work a miracle and somehow achieve democratisation through peaceful (except in Libya) action.

The argument is for the Arabs to show the world that Islam and democracy are compatible, despite everything Orientalists have said.

It is time for a reality check. Let's admit that religion was present in the heart of the Arab revolutions. Religion was part of these revolutions both in the political and cultural sense. A few examples may be helpful here.

Many of the religious currents were present in the Arab revolutionary scene from the start, timidly at first and then in full force. Once the Islamists (who are the usual scapegoat of despotic regimes) realised that what was going on was more than a demonstration, they threw their lot into the battle.

The Islamists kept a low profile during the revolutions for tactical reasons. For one thing, they were aware that the West would react with alarm to their presence. In Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, the revolutionary youth has praised the Islamists for fighting to protect the Arab revolutions in difficult times, when the regimes were hanging on for dear life.

Participation in the Arab revolutions was not confined to one Islamist faction. In the Egyptian case, the Muslim Brotherhood took part in the revolution, so did the remnants of Jihad (Safwat Abdel-Ghani, several middle- ranking Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya officials), Jihadist Salafis (Fawzi El-Said, Hisham El-Oqdah), media-savvy Salafis (Safwat Hegazi, Mohamed Yosri, Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud), and independent Islamists (Selim El-Awwa, Amr Khaled, Muizz Masoud). In Tunisia, followers of the Nahdah Movement took part in the revolution. In Libya, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, a former jihadist and a co-founder of the Fighting Libyan Group, led the final assault on Tripoli. In Yemen and Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood still plays a clear role in protests against the regimes of Ali Abdullah Saleh and Bashar Al-Assad.

From a cultural point of view, religion was not far from the surface. Mosques were used as a mobilising ground for the masses. Political rallies, if you may recall, often started from mosques, such as Omar Makram in Cairo, Qaed Ibrahim in Alexandria, Al-Shohadaa in Suez, and Al-Omari in Deraa. In Libya and Yemen, the same is true. One of the most haunting images from Tahrir Square, right before Mubarak stepped down, was that of Muslims and Christians praying and chanting hymns together.

Religion was not absent from Arab revolutions, which is perfectly normal given the religious makeup of Arab societies. For years, the despotic nature of Arab regimes excluded the Islamists from the political scene. In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria, Islamist currents have been barred from political life. Yemen, in which the Islamists were allowed to participate into politics, seems to be the only exception.

It makes sense, therefore, for the Islamists to want to be part of the post-revolutionary scene. This is why we saw more than a dozen Islamist parties forming in Egypt since the revolution, including Salafi and Sufi ones.

One must also keep in mind that over the past 10 years or so, Arab societies have increasingly taken on an Islamic veneer. In a sense, we've replaced the Islamisation of movements with the Islamisation of society at large. In other words, the political ban on Islamic currents didn't prevent Arab societies from adopting the habits and customs one normally associates with Islamists.

Arab societies, especially the upper layers of the middle and lower classes have adopted the mannerisms of religiosity that French scholar Olivier Roy calls "the objectification of religion". One cannot help but notice the increased instance of women donning the niqab, or face veil; the mounting popularity of independent preachers; the rising demand on Islamic schools with a modern curriculum; and the growing influence of religious-leaning television stations. Among the youth, many seem to parade their religiosity with the enthusiasm usually reserved for fashion.

In the past decade, Islamisation, or a superficial interpretation thereof, has penetrated into various aspects of life in Arab societies more than Islamic movements had done in the preceding three decades.

The presence of Islamists the public sphere is beyond question. What is yet to be seen is how others will react to it.

My guess is that as the Islamists become more integrated into the new political frameworks, their doctrinal and ideological cohesion may suffer. Already the political discourse of the Salafis and Jihadists is undergoing a major change. Ultimately, the process of integration will alter not only their notions but also their methods.

To this day, the Islamists seem to lack the savvy and poise of more experienced politicians. This is true of all newcomers to the political scene, religious or not. And, considering the political barrenness of the past few decades, there is nothing surprising about that.

In my opinion, we need to start working on the normalisation of ties between Islamists and Arab societies. Otherwise, our whole quest for democracy could be stalled.

Challenges to the revolution

2011-08-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

al-Ahram Weekly, 17 August 2011

I was not all that interested in the trial of Hosni Mubarak. After he was deposed on 18 February, I decided to put him out of my mind now that he was a part of the past, in spite of the many crimes and catastrophes that had occurred during his rule, the effects of which will continue to weigh on us for quite some time to come. Were it not for the farcical nature of the trial and its ridiculous staging I would not have paid attention to all the attendant din and hyperbole.

Many might have hailed it as a "historic trial" and "the trial of the century," but I saw no "miracle" in the Mubarak trial, especially when compared to the drive to out him from power, which only took 18 days. Not for a moment did I think that this "bedridden" man in the defendants' dock merited the attendant ruckus. Even if he did rule for 30 years, ultimately he is a citizen being tried on charges of murder, corruption and embezzling public funds. If there is any benefit from this trial it is that it may help dismantle that "psychological" complex that has long governed the relationship between the ruler and the ruled in a country steeped in political Pharaonism and the deification of the ruler.

To me, current developments in Egypt are much more important than the trial and far more deserving of serious national attention and concern -- if not fear -- over Egypt's future. The anxiety stems from the disequilibrium and deficiencies that are growing increasingly grave with every passing day in this transitional period. Political science literature speaks of three factors that can jeopardise democratic transformation in any country, regardless of the degree of its social cohesion and its political centrality: the security factor, the economic factor, and sharp political divisions.

The security factor involves more than just the individual's sense of personal safety, that psychological state of stability and peace-of-mind that strengthens the individual's confidence in the possibility of embarking on an experience of democratisation. It also entails dimensions related to restructuring civilian-military relationships in the post-revolutionary phase. The greater the security challenges in the transitional period, the weaker is the hand of the civilian elites in their negotiations with military elites whose legitimacy is strengthened by virtue of their greater capacity to maintain security. As a result, the average citizen will become more and more convinced of the need for the military, not just as a guarantor for a safe transition but also as the preferred alternative in the event that political elites fail to produce a civil option capable of performing the security function with the same efficacy. In such a case, the perpetuation of military rule becomes less a question of some "hidden agenda" or "secret intent" and more a product of a "popular" demand for security and stability.

Egypt may not have reached the stage of total anarchy, but the intermittent yet increasingly frequent incidents of violence (such as the recent events in Minya, Al-Arish, Sayyida Zeinab, Sohag and, before them, in Suez and Imbaba) are a tangible indicator that we are heading in a direction inimical to a safe and speedy democratic transition. Moreover, it only aggravates the situation if the military or whoever is in power attempts to politicise the security question. One effect of this, whether deliberate or not, is to promote a disregard for deterring immediate security threats (such as thug violence, theft and aiding prison escapes) on the grounds that police agencies are incapable of confronting these dangers since the revolution, or simply out of fear of confronting segments of the public that have been emboldened by the lack of restraints. Another effect is that it promotes the tendency to restrict the greater margin of civic freedoms that was one of the victories of the revolution. In addition, it works towards prolonging the process of democratisation and the transfer of power to a civil authority (by postponing parliamentary elections from September to November, for example, or by issuing decrees of law without first discussing them with concerned parties).

In a sense, the Mubarak trial could be seen in this context of a trade-off of democratisation for security since it can be turned towards sapping the impetus of the revolution, silencing calls for the implementation of the revolution's demands and the forceful suppression of protestors. This would naturally lead to heightened military-civilian tensions, not only as the consequence of the military's involvement in politics, which would inevitably diminish the quality of the democratic product, but also as the result of the creation of a new flashpoint for conflict, namely the status of the military in the forthcoming political order. According to a recently published study, 25 experiences in democratic transition in the world have suffered severe setbacks or reversals in favour of authoritarian rule because of the security factor.

The economic factor is axiomatically integral to democratic transformation, not only because economic hardship is a prime motivator of popular uprisings and revolutions, but also because economic hope is a chief guarantee for the perpetuation of the process of democratisation in the post-revolutionary phase. Admittedly, economic growth and democratic transformation are not necessarily directly related; however, the provision of a minimum degree of economic "security" and social justice in the post-revolutionary phase is an indispensable safety valve for the completion of the democratisation process. Unfortunately, this condition of economic security and justice has not materialised tangibly since the revolution. This problem has less to do with poor economic performance and declining growth indicators in the leading economic sectors such as tourism and services than it does with the day-to-day commercial transactions that affect people directly. The danger of this economic condition is twofold: it obstructs democratisation on the grounds of lack of sufficient resources and it generates a negative socio-psychological climate. The longer social injustices persist as a consequence of poor economic policies in the post-revolutionary phase the greater are the chances that many among the disadvantaged classes will not only grow frustrated with the revolution but also will turn against it and demand the return of the paternalistic caretaker state. In view of the deteriorating conditions in the current phase, this potential threat to the transition to a democracy built on the pillars of freedom and justice may be greater than the "coalition of counter-revolutionary forces".

Sharp ideological differences -- the third factor abovementioned -- are tearing society apart along cultural, intellectual and identity-based divides, some of which are authentic while others are clearly fabricated. The situation has reached a stage in which cracks and fissures are fracturing formerly unified drives and movements. It is sufficient for my purposes here to register the following observations:

irst, the Islamist-secularist divide reflects no small degree of recklessness and ï¿½ï¿½short-sightedness on both sid es. In my opinion the greater portion of blame falls on the liberals and secularists not only because one presumes they should have better epitomised the qualities of openness and acceptance of the other, but also because of their resentment against the sudden and heavy influx of Islamists into the public sphere, a sentiment that has recently escalated to demands to exclude Islamists (which are not an ideologically or politically homogeneous bloc) from the political process on the grounds that they pose a threat to the revolution. Whereas some of the Islamists' slogans and rhetoric have been truly disturbing, these should be placed in the framework of their exclusion from political life over the past six decades. Certainly further exclusion can only yield further ideological rigidity and polarisation and an intensification of the types of "confrontations" that we have seen during the past weeks and that have soured the post-revolutionary climate.

Second, if differences in opinion are a positive sign of a new openness to all political trends and the potential for political pluralism, the shift from respect for differences in opinion to mutual hostility and ostracism is the first nail in the coffin of the process of democratic transformation, especially when highly charged symbolic dimensions, such as religion and identity, are summoned into the fray. Egypt is one of the few countries in the region in which identity and national character have merged into one over the centuries. Nevertheless, the types of ideological controversies that we are seeing today, especially under conditions of increasingly acrimonious and anachronistic political entrenchments, still have the power to distort and rupture this harmony in identity and shatter its underlying social structure.

Third, perhaps the most dangerous feature in the current state of ideological division in Egypt today is not just that it came very early on in the revolution but also that it extended beyond temporary matters and exigencies to include essential and lasting issues. While the initial dispute between political and religious camps may have focused on a roadmap for the transitional phase (and particularly the dispute over whether or not to hold parliamentary elections before drafting a constitution), its effect was to catapult society to questions that need years if not decades to resolve, such as the relationship between religion and the state, the relationship between religion and society, and the delineation of the civil and religious realms in the public sphere.

Fourth, the disputing parties appear oblivious to the fact that they are not alone in the public sphere. Other classes, sectors and groups are there as well and may act to defend their interests in the event that they feel these are being ignored as a consequence of the rival ideological camps' obsession with their own concerns and the intensive media focus on this rivalry.

Fifth, while the current divisions have a prevailing ideological character, this should not blind us to their underlying dimension as a class conflict over social and political interests in the post-revolutionary phase. Liberals and secularists largely come from the upper and upper middle classes of society and they were primarily instrumental in setting the Egyptian revolution into motion. The Islamists, on the other hand, represent the lower middle class, and some of them participated in the revolution from the outset.

On the whole, what strikes one most at this juncture is that while each side is scrambling to promote its interests and jockey for position, they appear to have forgotten that Egypt is more than able to embrace everyone, but on the condition that everyone assumes a healthy degree of objectivity and self-sacrifice.

The writer is a researcher at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University.

Salafobia

2011-08-11T05:14:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

AlMasry AlYoum 5 August 2011

Salafism is becoming the new bogeyman in Egyptian politics. The Islamist mass rally in Tahrir Square on 29 July, which was dominated by Salafis, showed just how intolerant some political forces in post-Mubarak Egypt can be. No, I don’t mean the Salafis, but rather some liberal and secular groups that are keen on excluding Islamist voices from Egypt’s new political arena. These groups not only demonize Salafis as a regressive current that aims to destroy the revolution and build a new dictatorship, they also deny their right to share Tahrir Square, a space of public dissent for all Egyptians.

Instead of tolerating Egypt’s long-repressed Islamists and building normal relations with them, many liberals and secularists attacked Salafis for chanting religious slogans in Tahrir Square, while others chose to withdraw from the rally.

The sudden emergence of political Salafism in the wake of the revolution shows how much Egypt has changed, yet it also highlights the extent to which newcomers to the political arena can be made to feel unwelcome. Sure, the overwhelming presence of Salafis (many of whom opposed the revolution at the start) can be provocative. But there’s nothing that shocking about Salafis raising conventional Islamic slogans, like “Islamyyia, Islamyyia”, or calling for the implementation of Sharia Law. Such chants are within the bounds of their freedom of speech. What’s more striking, indeed frustrating, is when some liberals and secularists use the same fear-mongering tactics as the Mubarak regime to demonize Islamists, rather than engage with them.

“Salafobia” obscures significant transformations taking place within the Salafi movement.

First, since the fall of Mubarak, three Salafi political parties – Al-Nour (The Light), Al-Fadilah (The Virtue), and Al-Asala (Authenticity) – have been formed. So far, they seem to adopt democratic political views and are willing to reach out to secular and liberal forces. None of these parties espouse violence as a political tactic.

Second, the Salafi bloc is not a monolith. True, some Salafi leaders take a hostile stance towards democracy and secular parties, but others – especially younger Salafis – tend to be more moderate and pragmatic.

Third, and most important, many Salafis groups are now inclined towards integration into the political process. By excluding them, they may adopt more aggressive means to assert their political presence. There’s a need to pull Salafism from the ideological periphery into the political center. If this happens, Egyptian Salafism can become less dogmatic and more open.

Most Salafis who went to Tahrir Square did so to counter-balance the power of emerging secular forces. They reject the adoption of any “supra-constitutional” principles prior to the elections, seeing this as an undeserved reward for liberals who feel bitter about losing the constitutional referendum. They also oppose any delays to the parliamentary elections, slated for November. In short, Salafis feel threatened that liberal maneuvers will come at their expense, ideologically and politically.

The conflict between secularists and Islamists is not just ideological, but also social. Salafis and their supporters come mainly from the Egyptian lower middle class, especially in smaller towns and rural areas, that has been alienated from official politics for the past three decades. Like any other political group, they’re now fighting for their fair share in the post-Mubarak era. The Salafi-secularist divide represents a conflict of interests over how to re-construct Egypt’s political system, rather than an irreconcilable clash of ideologies. For this reason, Egypt’s Salafis should be talked to, not feared.

Khalil Al-Anani is a scholar at Middle East Institute at Durham University and expert on Islamist Politics. His latest book is The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: Gerontocracy Fighting against the Clock (Shorouk Press 2008)

Egypt's Islamists do not conform to any single Brotherhood

2011-08-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

By Issandr El Amrani

The National Aug 8, 2011

On Saturday, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood held their most open internal elections to date, selecting three new executive board members and demonstrating a newfound promise of democratic transparency. As Egypt's Islamists have increasingly asserted their political power, the elections were meant to show that they will wield that power within a democratic framework. Nevertheless, many Egyptians are nervous that their country could be headed down an ultra-conservative, even reactionary, path.

Such alarmism has been a recurrent feature of the many mood swings of revolutionary Egypt. For decades, the Mubarak regime cried wolf about the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and most organised Islamist group in the country. It was either the regime or the Brotherhood, it argued, and this convinced many, ranging from the wealthy elite to foreign partners.

The Brotherhood were paradoxically both repressed and nurtured. In many ways, they conducted a kind of asymmetric cohabitation with the regime, in which the aim was not to gain control of government but rather to win influence over an authoritarian structure that seemed unbreakable.

This was one reason that while many Brotherhood members and other Islamists participated as individuals in the January uprising against Hosni Mubarak and his cronies, the Brotherhood did not back the uprising as a group. Many revolutionaries rejected Mr Mubarak's early attempts at a compromise solution that would have placed his long-time intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, as his anointed successor, but Brotherhood leaders (and many liberal and leftist ones too) rushed to the negotiating table. And it is why the post-revolution Brotherhood has for the most part embarked on a strategy of collaboration with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that now rules Egypt.

Mr Mubarak's overthrow has laid bare these strategies, and also exposed many of the Brotherhood's weaknesses. Dissenting members of the group have gained unprecedented public visibility, with senior figures rebelling against the leadership's orders not to contest the presidency or form political parties separate from the official Freedom and Justice Party. It has also highlighted that the strength of the Brotherhood in an autocratic context - that it is highly structured and cultivates quality cadres, with an emphasis on top-down loyalty - has its downside in the current highly volatile political environment.

One of the more remarkable phenomena in Egyptian politics today is not the legitimisation of the Muslim Brotherhood, but the sudden emergence of non-Brotherhood Islamists on the political scene. Some might be described as liberal or even leftist Islamists - in other words, moderate conservatives akin to European Christian Democrats or Turkey's AKP. This trend also exists in some other, nominally secular, parties and for the most part does not diverge much from a longstanding Egyptian political tradition of conservatism tempered by a concern for the country's sectarian makeup (some 10 to 15 per cent of the population is Christian).

But for the most part, non-Brotherhood Islamists are grouped together under the Salafist label. The Salafists vastly outnumber the Brotherhood. They are ideologically diverse, ranging from traditionalists to utter reactionaries. Unlike the Brotherhood, which has not had any top-notch ideologues or thinkers since the early 1970s, Salafists have a vibrant literature, and many intellectual leaders and influential preachers. Indeed, many Brotherhood members are ideologically close to the Salafist current, even if they have chosen to be part of an organisation that many Salafists disdain.

When recent public opinion polls showed that the Muslim Brotherhood had the support of less than 20 per cent of Egyptians, this probably missed a wider subset of Egyptians who may not support the Brotherhood but would nonetheless describe themselves as Islamists. In fact, the upcoming parliamentary elections are likely to return a larger Islamist political presence (albeit not necessarily an Islamist majority), but one divided among various groups.

This makes the situation quite different from that in Algeria in 1992, where a single party, the FIS, was poised to win elections when the military, backed by the non-Islamist political elite, staged a coup and cancelled the poll. Egypt's Islamists will probably form the largest ideological bloc in parliament, but not necessarily the largest voting bloc. This is because some of them may prefer entering into a political alliance with centrist secular parties (as the Muslim Brotherhood and some others are already working towards) rather than forming a more controversial hard-right alliance. Moreover, as Egypt's political system is still strongly presidential, an Islamist-dominated parliament may not immediately translate into policy changes.

Those who now worry about an Islamist turn in Egypt must remember this, as well as the reality that recent Islamist protests do not tell us much about the many Egyptians who have not participated in protests since the revolution - whether secular or Islamist-led. The most exciting thing about Egypt's current volatile politics, in fact, may be this sense of heading into the unknown. Elections will be a first step at determining a truer political map of the country than the "us-or-them" picture that the Mubarak regime tried to sell for 30 years. After all, it is worth remembering that in the end, those Egyptians who took to the streets simply no longer bought it.

Issandr El Amrani is an independent Cairo-based journalist and commentator. He blogs at www.arabist.net

Not a promising dialogue

2011-07-07T02:28:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 July 2011
Issue No. 1055

When Hillary Clinton said that the US administration intends to hold exchanges with the Muslim Brotherhood, the announcement came as no surprise. The odd thing, if anything, was that it took the secretary of state so long to make this statement. Washington could have started talking to the Muslim Brotherhood the moment Hosni Mubarak left office, not only because of the likelihood that the Muslim Brotherhood would be a major player in the post-25 January phase, but because the obstacle that prevented the dialogue from taking place so far -- namely, the Mubarak regime -- was gone.

What's interesting about Clinton's announcement is not its content, but the fact that she was the one who made it. This was the first time such a high-ranking US official broached the subject, a sign that the Americans now view the Muslim Brotherhood as more of a political power than a security threat.

For the past three decades, since Anwar El-Sadat was assassinated in 1981, the Muslim Brotherhood dossier has been handled by the US National Security Council. The latter viewed the Brotherhood as just another extremist group, not that much different, say, from the Islamic Jihad, and therefore not a worthy interlocutor. After the 25 January Revolution, it seems that the Muslim Brotherhood dossier has moved from the National Security Council to the State Department and the White House.

In my opinion, Clinton was not just sending a signal to the Muslim Brotherhood, but to all those Americans who still reject any dialogue with the Islamists. The secretary was trying to find out how the conservative rightwing and the Israeli lobby in America would react to a prospective dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some US officials still oppose the normalisation of ties between Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood, not just because of the Muslim Brotherhood's religious positions, but also because of its policies towards Israel and links with Hamas.

There are two currents within the US, both holding opposing views on how to handle the Muslim Brotherhood. First, you have the pragmatists in the US State Department and the White House who believe in dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood, not because they like it but because ignoring it could prove too risky for US interests. Summing up the pragmatic point of view, State Department spokesman Mark Toner recently said that talking to the Muslim Brotherhood would be in the best interest of the US.

Then you have the hardliners who oppose any communication between Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood and have no stomach for recognising the nuances of the Muslim Brotherhood's programme and its religious and political intentions. For them, to talk with the Muslim Brotherhood is to give in to extremists. Numerous members of Congress, CIA officials, and Zionist- affiliated research centres subscribe to this view.

This explains the reluctance with which the Americans approached the question of talking to the Muslim Brotherhood. It took Clinton six whole months, after the 25 January Revolution, to make her statement. During that time, Washington was waiting to see how powerful the Muslim Brotherhood was going to be in Egypt's new political landscape, and how likely it was to stay a significant player in the future. Washington, by the way, had no qualms talking to the liberals, the seculars, and assorted youth activists from day one.

The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is no longer a legally banned group but one that has a registered political party must have figured prominently in US thinking. Once the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was formed, the Americans could no longer have an excuse for not talking to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Interestingly enough, Clinton's announcement seems to have thrown the Muslim Brotherhood out of kilter. While FJP officials seemed pleased with the US call for dialogue, the Guidance Office sounded a bit disinterested and even eager to dampen the FJP's enthusiasm.

On the whole, Muslim Brotherhood officials -- who deny having had any official talks with the US in the past few years -- maintain that any talks with the Americans be based on mutual respect and on Washington's non-interference in Egyptian affairs.

Within the Muslim Brotherhood, differences on how to react to the Americans persist. The conservatives believe that the Muslim Brotherhood must not enter into dialogue with Washington before the latter changes its policy on such matters as the Palestinian issue, Hamas, and Sudan. Rashad El-Bayoumi, Mahmoud Ezzat and Mahmoud Hussein, as well as other members of the Guidance Council, seem to adhere to this position.

Alternatively, FJP pragmatists welcome dialogue with the US and conceive of some room for cooperation and understanding. FJP Secretary General Mohamed Saad Al-Katatni, who conferred with a visiting US congressional delegation in 2006, is known to be in support of dialogue.

Talking to the Americans may prove problematic for the Muslim Brotherhood, which would have to reconcile its rhetoric with the realities of US policy in the Middle East. It may not be easy for Muslim Brotherhood leaders to convince their rank and file that dialogue with the Americans is a good idea.

Much of the political capital of the Muslim Brotherhood depends on its opposition to US policies in the region. Often, the Muslim Brotherhood lumps Tel Aviv and Washington together, depicting both as paragons of Western imperialism and hegemony.

In all likelihood, the dialogue between the Muslim Brotherhood and Washington will be fraught with scepticism and ultimately short-lived. The considerable goodwill needed to reconcile their positions, both sides will soon find out, is in short supply.

The new Islamist scene in Egypt

2011-06-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, 22-29 June

I have intentionally refrained from writing about the state of Islamism in the post-25 January revolution, preferring instead to wait until the dust settled and the contours of the new political map became visible. Yet while it is premature to issue definitive judgements over the shape and future of political Islam in Egypt, it is nevertheless possible to make general remarks on the new Islamist scene in Egypt.

The end of old narrative

Perhaps the most immediately striking feature of the new Islamist scene in Egypt is its considerable plurality and diversity, to the degree that one gains an impression of intense fragmentation. By plurality, I refer to both the organizational and the ideological dimensions of Islamism. The organizational aspect is one of the legacies of the lack of political horizons under the Mubarak regime, which closed off public space to the development and diversification of political Islam, effectively reducing it to two chief trends. The first is the pragmatist and pacifist, compelled to play by the rules of the game set by the Mubarak regime and whose agenda, rhetoric and actions were restricted by the threshold set by government authorities. This trend consisted of the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis and independent Islamists. The second is the radical and violent trend that confronted the regime through violence however it failed to accomplish its aims due to heavy and sustained assault by the security forces. It eventually buckled under the pressure and its leaders issued ideological revisions, renouncing violence and abandon weapons as political mean. This "compulsory" duality contributed to distorting the perception of political Islam. It engendered the public perception that to belong to any Islamist group, even a moderate one, was to oppose and enter into conflict with the government. The perception repelled many potential partisans who preferred to remain in the non-politicised religious space.

However, the proliferation of Islamist parties in post-Mubarak era has simultaneously brought a boom in the intellectual, ideological and rhetorical diversity in the Islamist scene. No longer can the conventional narrative that divides Islamists into (moderate/extremist, Muslim Brotherhood/Salafi, fundamentalist/jihadist) serve to depict the shades of the current scene. More appropriate would be to describe some as having "civil" or liberal tendencies and others as traditional or conservative. Certainly, there have been radical transformations in the political, ideological and doctrinal discourses of these movements.

The boom of Islamist parties

The post-25 January Revolution phase triggered something of an "explosion" in religiously inspired political formations. Political participation now became the preferred course of most members of Islamist groups and trends, including those that had formerly rejected and, perhaps, condemned political participation and political party activity on religious and ideological grounds. Many Salafis and Jihadists, for example, now see participatory democratic politics as the best avenue to advance their religious and political projects and to obtain legitimacy in the public sphere. Meanwhile, for the first time in its history, the Muslim Brotherhood founded a political party. In spite of the many reservations that have been aired with regard to the lack of transparency that surrounded the establishment of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), it still marks a turning point in integrating the MB in political life. The Salafis, for their part, have founded two new political parties so far -- Al-Nour (Light) and Al-Fadila (Virtue). There is a good likelihood of more Salafist parties to come, especially given the considerable fluidity that characterises that trend at present. But perhaps the greater surprise comes from the former Jihadist trend (Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and the Egyptian Jihad) whose leaders are also now inclined to participate politically through the aegis of a political party. Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya (which has been exhibiting a clear drive to engage in public political life since the recent release of its leaders from prison) has chosen Tareq Al-Zomor, once charged with the assassination of president Anwar El-Sadat, to represent the party's founders, who also include Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya leaders and former militants Safwat Abdel-Ghani and Mahmoud Taha. El-Zomor was among those recently released from prison, as was his relative Aboud El-Zomor.

Politicization vs. Salafization
The main concern for Salafists is how to flourish religiosity in public sphere; to salafize people. However, this is no longer true in the wake of the Egyptian revolution. Many of salafi leaders direct their grassroots to become more politicized and to increase their presence in political arena. Thus, the most vivid change has occurred among the Salafis who gradually shifted from condemning political involvement as heretical, to reluctance to participate on principle, to willingness to participate under certain conditions. It might be difficult to generalize across the whole of the Salafist movement that comprises a large range of different groups and movements are frequently not organizationally affiliated with each other. However, it is still possible to speak of a generic shift in the Salafist move in favor of political involvement in the broadest sense. A more profound shift can be discerned in the substance of the platforms of the Salafist parties that have already been established (Al-Nour and Al-Fadila). Their rhetoric largely echoes that of other Egyptian political parties in that they embrace a certain set of values (freedom, equality, social justice) and subscribe to peaceful action as the sole means to attain political aims and ends. These developments are signs of the direction of the current phase of evolution in Salafism in Egypt, whether with respect to ideas (agreeing the rules of the democratic political game, building alliances, accepting plurality, respect for the other, etc) or with respect to rhetoric, means (which are no longer confined to mosque podiums and now utilise satellite television, the Internet -- Facebook, Twitter -- and other such modern communications channels) and tactics (including holding conferences and staging demonstrations). Still, the most remarkable about-face comes from former jihadists -- the Islamist militants who once shunned political participation, condemned those who did participate as heretics and branded political parties as heresies. Today, they are becoming involved in civil politics and forming political parties in tandem with their "political revisions," to quote the term used by journalist Ali Abdel-Aal, an expert on the Salafist and Jihadist movements, on his website "On Islam". I believe that these transformations will continue as long as the Egyptian political climate continues to grow more open.

Re-engineering Islamist map

The most striking feature of the new Islamist scene is the burst of internal dynamism after decades of organizational and generational stagnation. It is as though the 25 January Revolution burst a sort of dam, unleashing new revitalising energies that are pushing to restructure and reorder the movements and that may well surface in the form of disputes and rifts. Starting with the MB which is witnessing the most profound split in its history as many young and reformist leaders left the movement. The movement is preoccupied by political arrangements that will secure it a position in the new political system in Egypt. It thus attempts to play down such divisions and contain its harmful consequences. Other groups and movements are undergoing significant transformations. The Salafi Call Group (Daw'a Salafiya), based in Alexandria, the "mother" movement of new Salafistis, has recently created a new leadership board called the 'Presidential Council'. It has simultaneously sought to re-energize its branches throughout Egypt by promoting their proselytizing and philanthropic activities. Interestingly, although the SCG has announced that it would actively participate in politics in Egypt it has yet to resolve to form its own political party or to come out in support of any of the other Islamist parties. While the members of this organization would be naturally inclined to support Al-Nour or Al-Fadila, they have no organizational or even political links with either of the two Salafist parties. The irony is that the Salafist Calling appears more "progressive" and politically astute than the Muslim Brotherhood, which is determined to keep its Freedom and Justice Party under its direct ideological and political control. In addition, the Salafist Calling youth are very active on the Internet and the substance of their web pages and YouTube videos that have begun to proliferate in hyperspace suggests that they are much closer to the pulse of the post-revolutionary Egyptian street and much more involved in its "worldly" affairs, from which they had most often chosen to remain aloof until the eve of the revolution.

The formerly militant jihadist groups, notably Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, arouse our wonder even more. Just a few weeks ago, this organisation publicly announced that it would hold its first ever elections for its emir, vice emir and new Shura Council (a general assembly and local consultative councils at the governorate had been chosen several months earlier). The elections themselves produced more surprises, for they ousted the long-term leader Karam Zohdi that, in turn, precipitated the resignation of Al-Gamaa's founding father, Nageh Ibrahim, from the newly elected Shura Council, in protest against the elimination of Zohdi. On top of this, the "opposition" wing inside Al-Gamaa swept all the leadership positions (Essam Darbala is now the emir and Osama Hafez is his deputy).

Identity politics

One observes, thirdly, the extent to which the identity question has come to prevail in the discourse and agenda of Islamist trends in the post-25 January period. Identity, here, extends beyond the narrow organisational framework and into the cultural space. True, this question has always existed in the agendas of Islamist movements, if only as a mobilisational and functional element. However, it has recently acquired an increasing and polemic stridency against the backdrop of the escalating polarisation between Islamists and secularist/liberal trends during the past few months, as evidenced by the mounting scaremongering and recriminations between the two camps. The growing weight of the identity question in public space casts to the fore the problematic of the relationship between religion and society and between religion and the state, which the Mubarak regime had suppressed from public debate or any constructive dialogue. After the collapse of that regime, the problematic suddenly burst into the open and it will remain a kind of thermometer with which to gauge the relationship between Islamist trends and liberal/secularist trends in the upcoming period. It would appear that the latter trends are trying to compensate for their organisational weakness with respect to Islamist forces by trying to raise fears and suspicions of the Islamists' political intentions, a tactic that may ultimately backfire against liberals and secularists.

From stagnation to fragmentation

The mere fact in the awake of Egyptian revolution is the more the political climate in Egypt continues to liberalise and move towards the establishment of a genuine democracy, the greater will become the tendency of the Islamist movement to diversify and, possibly, fragment, as its various groups compete to win the hearts of voters, obtain or expand their presence in representative bodies, and expand their social influence. This competitive process will have two significant effects. First, it will propel Islamists towards more realistic political party platforms in order to cater to the wishes of the public, which, in turn, will entail ideological and doctrinal compromises. Second, it will increase the chances of alliances and coalitions between the new Islamist parties, and perhaps lead to mergers between likeminded parties such as those representing the Salafis and the independent Islamists. This likelihood will be all the more great if liberals and secularists ally in order to compete against Islamists in parliamentary and presidential elections.

Another consequence of democratic competition will be that the Islamist trends in general will gradually move towards the political "centre" and away from the ideological "peripheries", generating what we might term a centre, a centre-right and a centre- left in the Islamist political spectrum. This will yield a diversification in the ideological and doctrinal theses of the Islamist trends and a simultaneous avoidance of extremism and fanaticism. Otherwise put, Islamist discourse will undergo a spontaneous taming process that will render it more accommodating, more inclusive and more accepting of political plurality and intellectual diversity. As this transpires, ideological polarisation will wane; the importance of identity issues, the form of the state, and the role of religion in the public sphere will recede, and the more society will be able to focus on education, health, job creation and other crucial life issues.

In sum, the current fluidity in the Islamist scene is propelling us towards an end of the conventional image of Islamist groups and trends as they undergo the transformation from fundamentalist religious movements to socio-political movements that play by the rules of the democratic game and respect its outcomes. However, such a development remains contingent on two factors: the development of a solid democratic system in Egypt, and secondly an end to the scaremongering campaigns against Islamists and to their deliberate exclusion from political life in Egypt.

Zawahri: Suburban doctor to chief of al Qaeda

2011-06-18T04:37:00.000-07:00

(Reuters) - The Egyptian who has taken the helm of al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden did not emerge from the crowded slums of Egypt's sprawling capital a militant or develop his ideas in any religious college or seminary.

Instead, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri was raised in Cairo's leafy Maadi suburb where comfortable villas are a favorite among expatriates from the Western nations he rails against. He studied at Cairo University and qualified as a doctor.

The son of a pharmacology professor was not unique in his generation. Many educated youngsters were outraged at the treatment of Islamists in the 1960s when Egypt veered toward a Soviet-style one-party state under socialist Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Thousands of people suspected of subversion were thrown into prison after show trials. One of the young Zawahri's heroes, Muslim Brotherhood luminary Sayyid Qutb, was executed in 1966 on charges of trying to overthrow the state.

"Zawahri is one of the many victims of the Nasser regime who had deep political grievances and a feeling of shame at Egypt's defeat by Israel in 1967. He grew up a radical," said Khalil al-Anani, an expert in Islamist movements at Durham University.

He rose to be al Qaeda's No. 2 before taking over as leader after bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces at his Pakistan hideout on May 2, almost 10 years after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

An Islamist website, Ansar al-Mujahideen (Followers of the Holy Warriors) carried a statement on Thursday saying:

"The general leadership of al Qaeda group, and after the completion of consultation, announces that Sheikh Dr Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success, has assumed responsibility for command of the group."

In a June 8 eulogy for bin Laden, Zawahri promised to pursue attacks on the West, recalling the Saudi-born militant's threat that "you will not dream of security until we live it as a reality and until you leave the lands of the Muslims."

He called this year's Arab uprisings a disaster for Washington because, he said, they would remove Arab leaders who were the corrupt "agents of America."

He also pledged allegiance to the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Omar, calling him "Emir of the Believers."

The pledge, which repeats one made by bin Laden in the 1990s, was seen by analysts as an attempt to shore up al Qaeda's alliance with the Taliban, which sheltered the Arab-led group until U.S. attacks on Afghanistan in 2001 ended Taliban rule.

Western powers have demanded the Taliban cut all ties with al Qaeda.

CHANGED MAN

Born in 1951 to a prominent Cairo family, Zawahri was a grandson of the grand imam of Al Azhar, one of the most important mosques in the Muslim world.

As he studied for a masters in surgery in the 1970s, Zawahri was active in a movement that later became Islamic Jihad, which aimed to expel the government and establish an Islamic state.

People who know Zawahri disagree over whether he was destined by temperament for militancy or pushed into it as a protest against the state oppression of Egyptian Islamists.

A heavy-handed Egyptian security policy designed to weaken Islamism nudged its members further toward violent action, as young men rounded up in state security sweeps revolted against what they saw as unfair treatment.

Zawahri was one of hundreds tried for links to the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, Nasser's successor. He served a three-year jail term for illegal arms possession, but was acquitted of the main charges.

"Zawahri was not given a chance to be part of politics," said his lawyer Nizar Ghorab.

"He lived during a time of great suppression of those who had religious ideas and wanted to change the political scene of oppression under Nasser and Sadat."

People who studied with Zawahri at Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine in the 1970s describe a lively young man who went to the cinema, listened to music and joked with friends.

"When he came out of prison he was a completely different person," said a doctor who studied with Zawahri and declined to be named.

Others say what tipped Zawahri into political violence was Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and Sadat's peace treaty with Israel the same year.

"There was an evolution in his mentality," said Anani. "People like Zawahri saw no way to achieve their goals except to changing the regime by force."

Zawahri's nephew Abdel Rahman al-Zawahri, 26, an accountant, said: "I do not think that what drove my uncle to choose the path he chose resulted from his years in prison or the torture he experienced. He is a thinker and he had an idea and ideology."

On his release, Zawahri went to Pakistan where he worked with the Red Crescent treating Islamist mujahideen guerrillas wounded in Afghanistan, which the Soviet Union invaded in 1979.

"In his childhood and as a young man he was cheerful and had a sense of humor," said Zawahri's uncle, Mahfouz Azzam.

"His years spent along the border as a war surgeon during the war in Afghanistan changed his views about how change and resistance can happen."

"KNOWN AND RESPECTED" ZAWAHRI FAMILY

Taking over the leadership of Jihad in Egypt in 1993, Zawahri was a main figure in a violent campaign in the mid-1990s to set up a purist Islamic state, when more than 1,200 Egyptians were killed.

In 1999, an Egyptian military court sentenced Zawahri to death in absentia. By then he had swapped his comfortable suburban background for the spartan life of a holy warrior.

John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, said on Tuesday that Zawahri, who was al Qaeda's chief organizer under bin Laden, was believed to be living in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and was being hunted.

A doorman in the street in Cairo's Maadi district where Zawahri's brother lives said the Zawahri family owns a hotel in the neighborhood. The family is "known and respected," he said. "They are always cheerful and sociable and very generous."

Starbucks and Costa coffee shops have become popular haunts for residents of Maadi. The shops cater for the many Americans and other expatriates who live there, selling imported Oreo biscuits, Dr Pepper drinks and microwave popcorn packets.

Many of the U.S. expatriates work for American oil companies or at the U.S. embassy, the largest permanently staffed U.S. mission, testimony to U.S. ties and a $1.3 billion-a-year military aid program agreed after the peace deal with Israel.

Sadat signed the peace deal and his successor Hosni Mubarak built on the alliance during three decades in office that came to an end on February 11 this year in a popular uprising.

Al Qaeda, which inveighed against Western-backed Arab autocrats, was nowhere in sight in those protests. Instead the rallies were led by youths, many with a broadly secular agenda and who used Twitter and Facebook to rally the crowds.

Zawahri's sister was among those who massed in Cairo's central Tahrir Square.

"The peaceful revolutions in the Arab world are a huge defeat for Al Qaeda and its ideas," said Durham analyst Anani.

(Writing by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Edmund Blair and William Maclean)

A Brotherhood government?

2011-05-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-Anani

AlMasry Alyoum 29/05/2011

The only way to avoid repression is to attain power. This what the Muslim Brotherhood has learned from history. The overwhelming presence of the Brotherhood in the post-Mubarak era reflects their fear of missing an extraordinary opportunity to reconstruct the Egyptian polity in their favor.

After being banned for more than six years, the Brotherhood seeks not only to get official recognition, which effectively happened when former Vice President Omar Suleiman invited them for a dialogue just before Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. More importantly, the group wants to become a key player in shaping the new political system in Egypt.

A few days ago, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie inaugurated the new Brotherhood headquarter at a large ceremony attended by public figures from all over Arab and Muslim World and covered by local and international media. Moving from a humble two-floor apartment in a Nile-side suburb to a grand villa in Moqattam, one of the largest compounds in the Cairo neighborhood, exemplifies the Brotherhood’s move from marginalization and secrecy towards openness and power sharing. Brotherhood leaders now speak with a tone that reflects a new sense of empowerment and importance.

With the official dissolution of the former ruling National Democratic Party by the Supreme Administrative court last April, the only force that can fill the vacuum left behind is the Muslim Brotherhood. Their leaders are evoking the rhetoric and strategies of the movement's founder, Hassan al-Banna, with the aim of establishing an Islamic state. Al-Banna laid out a sequence of three stages to achieve this goal: the popular diffusion Brotherhood doctrine, empowerment (Tamkin), and implementation (Tanfiz). Khairat al-Shater, a Brotherhood veteran and its organizational architect, has recently asserted that the Brotherhood is in the second stage and moving steadily towards the third. Other Brotherhood leaders have echoed this assessment since the ouster of Mubarak in February.

In addition to the movement’s territorial and social expansion in the post-Mubarak era, the Brotherhood is preparing to dominate the Egyptian parliament after the elections next September. It has decided to contest 50 percent of the seats, though they’re expected to win up to 30 or 40 percent. Many years of campaign and negotiation experience put the Brotherhood in a privileged position to win a substantial victory in September. Moreover, if Salafis decide to participate they are likely to ally with the Brotherhood to ensure the Islamist character of Egypt’s new constitution.

The Brotherhood will play all its cards to secure a plurality if not a clear majority in the next parliament. More significantly, it's proposing a unified candidates list that would encompass all political factions to contest the elections. If this happens, the Brotherhood will certainly have a strong influence on the new government.

Moving forward, the crucial question is whether the Brotherhood is ready to rule the oldest and largest country in the Middle East. Several of their leaders have signaled the group’s hope to become a kingmaker in the next government. Essam al-Erian, the deputy head of the Brotherhood’s newly formed Freedom and Justice Party, recently said in a TV appearance that the Brotherhood is preparing to resolve all Egypt’s problems through a unified government, adding that the group has plans for dealing with unemployment, healthcare and education. More significantly, Sobhy Saleh, the prominent Brotherhood leader and former MP has said that the next Egyptian government will be an Islamic one.

But like other Islamists in Turkey, Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen who have formed coalition governments over the past two decades, the Brotherhood will have to make enormous concessions to guarantee public support in the new government. First, the movement will have to change its political and ideological discourse to become more open and progressive, a move required to bring it in line with the new revolutionary mood in Egypt. This is unlikely to happen with the conservative hawks still dominating the movement. Second, the Brotherhood will have to bargain with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the incumbent ruler of Egypt, over the shape of the state and the future role of the military in politics. Third, the Brotherhood will have to modify its position towards Israel into one that is more practical and in touch with present realities.

Making these concessions might lead to serious problems within the movement, like internal fragmentation and possible schisms. But without them the Brotherhood may have considerable trouble running Egypt’s next government.

Egypt minimal revolution

2011-05-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-Anani

Al-Ahram Weekly, 19-26 May 2011

Although the Egyptian revolution succeeded in ousting the Mubarak regime, it has not yet managed to uproot the ills of its culture, value system and prevailing modes of behaviour. In this sense, therefore, it remains "half a revolution", or more precisely, a "revolutionary act" that still needs follow- through towards completion. During the past three months we have seen only surface changes in the Egyptian state. Leading political figures and symbols were toppled, but the "heart", or foundation, of that state remains unchanged. That "heart" is society whose cells consist of individual citizens. Change at both levels -- the political system and society -- is a prerequisite for the completion of any revolution.

Of course, there is no denying that the Egyptian revolutionary act was sudden and very powerful. However, its major thrust emanated from and remained largely restricted to a particular stratum of society, namely the middle to upper- middle class. It has yet to spread to other strata of society, which remain essentially the same as they were before the revolution. This phenomenon is not peculiar to Egypt. Other countries have experienced similar popular uprisings that succeeded in overturning regimes but did not go as far as to engender radical change in the prevailing values, culture and structures of society. Examples are to be found in the events in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, San Salvador, the Philippines and Peru in the 1980s and in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan at the outset of this millennium. In all these cases, regime change was not accompanied by fundamental transformations in the social structures, value systems and modes of behaviour that govern the relations between individuals, institutions and the horizontal networks of society.

The Egyptian revolution can, therefore, be described so far as a minimal revolution -- it achieved the minimal level of the dream of the majority of Egyptians, which was the overthrow of the old regime and the prosecution of its leaders and most prominent figures. However, it remains a considerable way off from the upper level, which involves the transformation of social and institutional structures and value and behavioural systems so as to enable society to regain its health and proceed towards the realisation of human development and prosperity. Of course, the general resurgence of hope and optimism has reinvigorated the Egyptian spirit, but translating such sentiments into action remains difficult if not impossible. Not every outburst of collective anger and frustration is a revolution. Not every defiance and overthrow of an old regime and its legal edifice is proof of a successful revolutionary act. The sole guarantor of the success of a revolution is society itself. Herein lies the crux of the dilemma: the performer of the revolutionary act (the agent) needs a revolution so that the act and the agent can be brought into harmony, and so that the results are consistent with the beginnings.

A single example should suffice as proof of the foregoing. Since the 25 January Revolution, not a single political party, movement (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) or public institution has undertaken internal reforms, let along radical overhauls, to bring it in line with the spirit of the revolution. Not a single official has voluntarily left office, admitted to error, or expressed a desire to reform himself. We have yet to hear of any business magnate taking the initiative to redistribute their wealth for the sake of social justice. What we have seen since the departure of Mubarak is a feverish scramble to harvest the "spoils" and consolidate new situations and gains before society wakes up and government resumes normal authority. Everyone is operating on the basis of "me first" in their behaviour and their outlook. The regime has fallen, the institutions of state are on the verge of collapse, and political and religious groups are trying to fill the void, but without a sense of responsibility. It is as though we have reverted to our initial state of nature, "the war of all against all". The state has vanished as a ruling authority and a frame of reference, and society has yet to formulate a new governing authority.

The counter-revolution is not coming solely from the remnants of the former regime that are trying by all possible means to abort the revolutionary act and minimise their losses. It is also coming from political and social forces that now sport a revolutionary cloak but are afraid that change will affect them or are unwilling to pay the price of change, as the former regime has done. These forces are an extension of the traditional structures that the Mubarak regime fostered, and they are now trying to capitalise on its fall with the aim of edging themselves into its place. The strident resurgence of extreme fundamentalist movements, such as the Salafis in their various shades, and the rampages of anarchic groups made up of thugs and ex-cons, are tangible indications of a society that has lost the equilibrium that would enable it to tame these tendencies that depart from the general norm. I certainly do not subscribe to any form of historical imperativism or cultural essentialism, which presume that a people, such as the Egyptians, are incapable of change. All such notions met their demise when millions of Egyptians took to the streets to defy the Mubarak regime. Nevertheless, the change that has taken place so far will not necessarily lead to a stable democratic system or the development of a mature society aware of its responsibilities and the challenges that await it. Again, Egypt would not be alone in this. The revolution that overthrew the Fernando Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986 has so far failed to produce a stable political order, let alone a democratic one. The same applies to Mexico, Chile, Iran and Cuba since the 1970s.

Otherwise put, the Egyptian revolution is a political one that has yet to make the transition into a comprehensive social revolution, as occurred with the French revolution of 1789, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and the Chinese revolution of 1911-1949. To a considerable extent, this explains the current state of political confusion, sectarian tension, security breakdown, bureaucratic gridlock, moral fragmentation, and the disinclination on the part of the lower and lower-middle classes to participate in revolutionary action until state and society are reconstructed. If the revolution had spread through all the arteries of society, which had grown congested and calcified over the past decades, and if the revolutionary mentality that was born in Tahrir Square had spread roots and branches in the central squares of all towns and villages in the country, the value system that governs the Egyptian personality would have changed and the arteries would have expanded, enabling society to expel all the residual ills of the July 1952 order, which bred an indolent, self-exonerating mentality that sustained itself by censuring others.

If any revolution is to make the transition from a political one to a social one it must meet three conditions. First, it must make a clear cut with the past -- the past here being everything associated with the old order, especially that corrupt ethical system founded on the triad of ignorance, fanaticism and egotism. Second, society must embrace, in thought and practice, the new revolutionary values, the most important of which form another triad: knowledge, tolerance and inclusiveness. Third, a drive must be undertaken to reconstruct intermediary social institutions such as waqf [religious endowment] foundations, community colleges and interregional social clubs in order to promote harmony between the centre and the peripheries, and to spread the benefits of the revolution among all.

Of course, it takes time to fulfil these conditions. However, to ignore them or to regard them of marginal importance is to allow the 25 January Revolution to remain no more than an exceptional uprising, after which everything reverts to how it was before, or perhaps even worse, which is far from what we want for our beloved country.

* The writer is a researcher at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. He can be reached at: kalanani@gmail.com

Brother-tarianism

2011-04-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

By Khalil Al-Anani

Al Masry AlYoum 6th April 2011

Experiencing authoritarianism does not automatically make one a democrat. The Muslim Brotherhood has faced the worst kind of political repression over the past three decades yet the group still exhibits authoritarian tendencies. With the collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the Islamist group’s undemocratic face is being increasingly revealed.

Last week, dozens of young Brothers held their first public conference, calling for sweeping reforms within the organization. Inspired by the 25 January revolution, these young people are striving to transform the orthodox Muslim Brotherhood into a more democratic and transparent group. However, the movement’s leadership seems deaf to their demands.

At the conference, the youth declared their loyalty to the movement, as they usually do on such occasions, yet the event still managed to irk senior Brotherhood leaders. Their refusal to even engage with the conference reveals their deep sensitivity towards any internal criticism. Despite the fact that the conference’s recommendations on party-building were not novel, their symbolism might hurt the Brotherhood’s established orthodoxies.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest political movement in Egypt, still sticks to its traditional ideology, structure and strategies, which are ill-equipped to deal with the political changes brought about by the 25 January revolution. Living under three dictators — Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak — has shaped the Brotherhood narrative. Over six decades, the Brotherhood has used its experience of political repression as a pretext to suppress any calls for internal change. The group sought to maintain its internal homogeneity at the expense of democratic structures and decision-making processes. Perhaps this explains why the Brotherhood, over generations, has not witnessed any real cleavages or splits.

The Brotherhood has tolerated internal opposition in a manner similar to the former ruling National Democratic Party: with arrogance, underestimation, and punitive measures meted out to dissidents. Members are not allowed to publicly criticize their leaders, ask for structural changes, or seek personal promotion. Not surprisingly, these three taboos have created a good deal of resentment and discontent among the group’s young members. Only time will tell what fate awaits those who organized the conference.

The top-down managerial structure of the Brotherhood has impeded any attempts to oppose or criticize the group’s decisions or policies. Low-ranking members cannot easily voice their demands or complaints to higher-ups without expecting adverse consequences, such as having their membership frozen. In the past, leading dissidents within the Brotherhood have either been marginalized or forced to leave the group all together. For example, Abulela Madi, Mokhtar Noah, and Tharwat al-Kharabawy all left the Brotherhood during the 1990s after opposing Mostafa Mashhour, the Brotherhood’s fifth Supreme Guide. More recently, soft opposition figures — like Abdelmoniem Abul Fotouh, Ibrahim el-Zafarni, Gamal Heshmat, and Khalid Daoud — have been sidelined because they dared to espouse different opinions.

Since its foundation in 1928, the Brotherhood has not made any major changes to its organizational structure. The group’s founder, Hassan al-Banna, established an organization with a well-defined hierarchy and loose internal regulations that grant senior leaders extensive powers without any real accountability. True, the Brotherhood has modified its internal rules three times over the past eight decades, but the changes introduced were by no means substantial.

For instance, according to the second article of the Brotherhood charter, the Supreme Guide holds two conflicting posts simultaneously: the head of the Guidance Bureau, the highest executive board consisting of 16 elected members, and the chairman of the Shura Council, which has 90 elected members and 10 appointees. Ironically, neither the Supreme Guide nor the Guidance Bureau members are accountable before the Shura Council, which elects them.

Furthermore, the process for recruiting and promoting members within the Brotherhood lacks transparency. As a Brotherhood member, you cannot seek an organizational promotion unless your records show complete obedience and loyalty to your leaders.

The young generation of Muslim Brotherhood is prepared to bring this authoritarian past to an end. Many feel that the group must change in the post-Mubarak era. The Muslim Brotherhood undoubtedly stands to gain a lot from Mubarak’s ouster, but the price for freedom and democracy may also be paid within the organization.

The End of Arab Despotism

2011-03-05T03:06:00.000-08:00

By Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, 7 March, 2011

Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and the rest is history. First it was Tunisia, then Egypt, and now it is Libya and God knows who's next. A lot of things are set to change in this part of the world. Egypt's ability to lead would be restored, for one thing. And the region's political map is going to undergo a lasting change. History is speaking, and we're all listening.

The Arab world is in the throes of a revolution, one that will change its shape, mindset and future. Forget partial reform and gradual evolution. As the demonstrators told us in no uncertain terms, "The people want to bring down the regime." If this is not a revolution, what is?

We are now faced with a new and unprecedented situation. The collective Arab conscience is being reborn, and things are never going to be the same again. It's hard to know where this will take us, but allow me to share with you what is known so far:

- The ongoing revolutions are "grassroots" revolutions. They are not imposed from above, nor brought about by military coups. For the first time in six decades, the upper echelons of the political regime are not the ones showing us the way. The Arab people, for the first time ever, are deciding the fate of their own presidents and regimes. The revolution has been spontaneous, fluid, and so far irreversible. The masses that took to the streets were intent on bringing about radical change. They refused to go home before their leaders were ousted. They made history, and they are going to make some more.

- What we see today are not revolutions against despotic regimes alone, but also against conventional elites and the opposition that was part of those elites. A radical shift of existing elites is about to happen. The legitimacy of despotic regimes is gone, and with it the legitimacy of the former opposition. Therefore, the traditional opposition must step aside and refrain from riding the revolutionary wave.

- Part of the vitality of the current wave of Arab revolutions is due to the fact that they were not led from above. In the Tunisian case, the revolution had no unified leadership, although labour and professional groups offered some guidance. In the Egyptian case, there was a lack of unified leadership or even organised groups from the scene. Scattered groups offered horizontal coordination, and I am sure we'll learn more about them in the near future. In Libya, all we can see so far is a spontaneous eruption of anger feeding on historical and psychological injustices.

- The aim of the ongoing revolutions is not only to depose despotic regimes but also to establish true democracy. This is rather ironic considering the disdain with which Arab officials and their Western interlocutors held the idea of democracy in the Arab world. The despotic media tried to dismiss democracy as being a figment of the imagination, a secular idea with no relevance to reality, but the demonstrators begged to differ.

- Arab revolutionaries have proved themselves to be uncompromising in their demands. Their central demand has been to oust the regime regardless of the cost. Over the past few weeks, we've been told of how simple folks were proud of the sacrifices their children have made for the cause of freedom. The way we view martyrdom has changed as a result.

- The revolutionaries didn't seem to care much for what foreign powers thought of them. They didn't ask for foreign assistance. Actually, in Egypt and Tunisia, and lately in Libya, foreign powers seemed to be more of a hindrance than otherwise. The first reaction of Western powers was either to aid and abet the despots or to ignore the whole thing. Indeed, the revolutions brought down the masks of falsehood and double standards, for the West generally acted as if supporting despots was worthier than the cause of freedom and democracy. In one instance, the French foreign minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, offered to train the Tunisian police on crowd control.

- The argument of "Arab Exceptionalism" has been refuted. This used to be a favourite cliché, invented by Arab officials and reiterated by Western academics. Now it is thoroughly discredited, and not a moment too soon. Researchers must take note, and books will need to be rewritten.

- The current Arab revolutions speak volumes about the crimes post-independence regimes have committed against their own people. Those regimes stand now accused of undermining Arab culture and stifling the Arab spirit, of giving birth to one-party and despotic governments. And when shove came to push, those regimes didn't hesitate to fire teargas and live ammunition at their own people, even sending planes to strafe innocent civilians.

The pattern of Arab revolution has turned out to be astoundingly uniform. It starts with a small and localised protest. Faced with brutal suppression, the protests go out of hand until the whole country is engulfed in revolution. At one point, the army is asked to deploy, but it either stays neutral or take sides with the people. The dictators eventually leave. But before that, their reactions are quite similar. They make concessions that are too late, they promise reform that is too limited, and they speak of foreign conspiracies and blame the uprising on Islamists.

The question now is not which country will revolt next. It is whether one autocrat or another will actually step down without first committing brutalities. Either way, the Arab despotic state is fast becoming a thing of the past.

* Khalil al-Anani is a researcher at School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University.

This nation's fragmented soul

2011-01-15T01:22:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Ahram Weekly, 19 January 2011

The collective spirit of our nation is in danger. This much is clear from the Alexandria tragedy and the absurdity that followed. As a nation, we stand divided, bereaved, our soul fragmented -- notwithstanding the fraternity, affected and sincere, that officialdom manages to pull off every time. What happened is a horrible indication of what the national character has become, of how divisive Christian-Muslim relations have grown. I don't care if the culprits are local -- which is most likely -- or foreigners. That's not the point. The point is that all "patching up" in the world is not enough. All the "insincere tears" are not going to mend the damage. The gatherings and the shows of goodwill are useless. This time a quick fix won't cut it. Unless we address the causes of our malaise, unless we examine its roots, more victims will fall.

The Alexandria tragedy is the culmination of accumulated horrors, of illnesses that have been visited upon the national soul. It is the logical outcome of individual and collective attitudes, of official and unofficial discourses that have pushed the nation to the edge of the abyss. We have allowed multiple social, political and cultural diseases to fester, and these have turned into a malignant tumour that exploded in our faces in New Year's Eve.

I can go on forever about everything that went wrong in this country. But let me just focus on what happened last year, for that alone is enough to show the scope of the sociological changes taking place. All around us, we see signs of social tensions escalating because of cultural-tribal reasons. The Naga Hammadi attack is a case in point. Seven people died in that attack and we don't have a court ruling yet. We have a suspect, a hardened felon with a known political record, but we don't see a sentence. This tardiness only reinforces the sectarian and religious dimension of the case. Likewise, look at the official handling of the disappearance of Camillia Shehata. It is official apathy that turned the case into a factional bone of contention.

The sectarian rhetoric, or the "verbal venom" as Nabil Abdel-Fattah calls it, is getting worse all the time. On both sides of the sectarian divide we find Muslims and Christians who are disdainful of public interests and who appeal to the basest of human instincts in their respective communities. Their words carry far, into the recesses of society, into backstreets charged with resentment and anger, and the result is what we've seen in Alexandria.

Each side believes that it is the sole guardian of true faith, and on each side there are champions who wish to see realised only the concerns of their own community, to assert only the separate identity of their people. The bickering is part of something bigger and no less ugly: it is part of a power struggle that ignores the nation as a whole, and that supersedes the common good. And the reason it is happening is that the state, the presumed guardian of collective authority, the inspiration of a common identity, has ceased to function as a rallying point.

Loyalties that used to be inclusive have become divisive. Allegiances that were supposed to be all encompassing have become narrow, exclusive, and tainted with factional sentiments. A mosaic of sectarian and religious allegiances has emerged, localised, distrustful and disruptive. All around us, phoney religiosity has taken over. Rituals and obsessions have emerged to the surface to the exclusion of other concerns. Our government and corporate offices, our means of transportation have been caught in a religious vortex. Corruption hasn't gone away, but hypocrisy has given our public spaces a gloss of mind-boggling piety. In villages and urban neighbourhoods, religious authoritarianism is becoming the norm, as if society needs to be purged of its sins at every turn, at every moment of its tortured existence.

Institutions known for their traditional religious discourse have taken hold of the public space, their social and moral authority growing by the day. Meanwhile, the state has faded from the scene, but not before suppressing every sectarian point of view, every sane attempt at tempered religiosity. It is as if the Bedouins have come to town, and become us.

Instead of strengthening political institutions, instead of fortifying parties and empowering civil movements, the state has repelled them and dragged them in the mud. The only ones left standing were the traditional structures of church and mosque, whose power is now unprecedented. As a result, we've seen the most primitive forms of religious discourses thrive. We've seen the disdain of modernisation grow, and we've seen preachers thrive who are exclusivist in their views and intolerant in their attitudes. We've seen people grow in stature for espousing hatred, for thinking of the world as a zero-sum game, and for summoning the most contentious moments of history whenever they seek to enlighten our hearts.

Hatred is masquerading as religion, taking up public space in a flurry of virtuous outrage, and banishing sanity, tolerance and coexistence from the scene. That's why it is so easy to start a conflagration in our midst. Just light a match and wait for the tidal wave to hit. You don't have to be a genius to do it, and there is no shortage of locals and foreigners who would love to oblige. At the core of the problem is the decay of the historical authority of the state and the metamorphosis of its institutional pillars: parliament and the government. Instead of embracing a collective identity, these institutions have pandered to power hungry sectarians and failed to stop bias and hatred in their tracks.

The legislative elections were a sad reminder of it all. Instead of being a time for the nation to speak its mind, the elections saw justice, equality and fair play trampled underfoot. As a result, an accidental alliance has grown among the politically marginalised and the socially disadvantaged. With a bit of religious flair, fanaticism was within reach. The discontent soon assumed a sectarian flavour and as resentment of the state and people in power grew, anything was to be expected. Social and political violence, even sectarian violence, may only be an attempt to challenge the alliance of power in this country. The violence can be the way through which society's underdogs are trying to exact vengeance against the state that has abandoned them. What the elections make clear is that those in power have underestimated the social resentment and sectarian divisions in the country.

Throughout last year, it became obvious that the politicians -- or let's say the people running the daily affairs of this country -- have lost their ability to keep religion in its place. For 50 years or so, a lot of religious manoeuvring has gone on, often to maintain some sort of political balance. At times Al-Azhar was used to undermine religious movements. At other times, religious movements were played off one against another, as when the Muslim Brotherhood was used to confront currents of violence and extremism. Occasionally, new trends were trained to challenge conventional ones, as when Muslim televangelists and neo-Salafis were pitted against the Brotherhood. Often enough, sectarian currents are being manipulated to stand up against conventional church leaders. And there were cases where clergymen were encouraged to defy bishops and archbishops.

Interestingly enough, the largest two demonstrations of last year were religious or sectarian in character. One was led by Sheikh Hafez Salama in front of Al-Fath Mosque and the other was mounted by neo-Salafis in Alexandria. Both demonstrations were mounted in response to symbolic and cultural issues rather than political ones.

Until recently, the dialectic of religious relations played out within the official framework. But with the leadership busy with survival and succession, various powers and currents felt free to fight their sectarian battles to the detriment of the entire country. A lot of sectarian blackmail has gone on of late. Usually, the blackmail is practiced by members of the Egyptian church or expatriate Copts intent on purely sectarian gains. Often enough, we've heard calls for Egypt to be placed under custodianship, and for the "Coptic question" to be internationalised. How far can some people stoop?

The religious scene in Egypt -- Muslim and Christian -- is full to the brim with symbolic and emotive references that could only spawn discrimination, sectarian divisions, and identity crises. All around us, there is no shortage of religious songs, garments, and symbols in public areas, all taken to the point of obsession. It's no wonder that any political and social dispute could turn into a religious dispute, or worse.

The mental images drawn by each community about the other mocks all values of freedom, equality and justice for all. And what made things worse was the state's inability to sort out thorny issues, such as the role of religion in the public space and the boundaries of individual freedoms. This is one of the worst things about the constitutional and political makeup of the 1952 revolution, which has failed so far to take a clear stand on religion. What many writers allude to as the domination of the "security option" is a result of this failure.

The Alexandria tragedy wasn't just a terrorist act perpetrated by a self-hating terrorist. It was a sign of something much more malignant, and quite embedded in the national soul. It was an indication that something was seriously wrong with the "immune system" of our country, of our communal identity as a nation with a shared history. This is what everyone must understand, before another bombing shakes us to the roots.

Politics of Revenge

2010-12-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Daily News Egypt
1/12/2010

The sole outcome of the recent Egyptian parliamentary elections is a powerless assembly. With no surprise in the sweeping victory of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), the elections revealed its hideous face.

For the sake of the analysis, one has to evoke the shadow of 2005 elections to grasp what happened in 2010 elections. Needles to say, the unprecedented victory of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in 2005 elections was provocative for the Egyptian regime which was keen to diminish the social and political capital of the MB. Thus, the competition between the NDP and MB in 2010 elections was not for acquiring seats, which as predicted are granted for NDP candidates, but rather over the political image and symbolic meanings of the contest.

During the course of the past five years, the NDP was keen to eradicate the political presence of the MB. Not surprisingly, the group couldn’t attain any political gains whether in the Shoura Council (the high house) in 2007 and 2010 and boycotted the municipal elections in 2008. Despite these facts, the movement failed to pick up the message correctly and the result was a shocking loss in the last elections.

Regardless of the furor over the elections procedures, which is by no means unusual, the message was clear; no more politics for the MB. The NDP has not only won the elections but also, and more significantly, wiped out the MB. The difference in meaning is important. The aim of the NDP in these elections was not to defeat the MB, which can be achieved easily, but mainly to discredit its popularity. Thus, the NDP mobilized against the MB by waving the scarecrow of its alleged “religious” state and sought to prevent independent candidates and opposition nominees from bargaining with ‘Ikhwan’s’ candidates. Therefore, the group could neither restore its parliamentary representation nor manage to stop the brutality of the NDP against its candidates.

Clearly, the NDP reaped the benefits of the 2007 constitutional amendments which undermined judiciary supervision of the elections and tied up the MB during the campaign. Moreover, the regime manipulated all parties; the opposition, civil society monitors, and the media. So far, no one could prove elections rigging. Except for some YouTube videos and noisy condemnation domestically and internationally, the elections results seem unshakable. Yet, the predicament that NDP will face is how to fill up the vacuum of the MB members in the parliament.

In short, if the NDP has managed to eliminate the MB in the parliament, the real battle is still ongoing in the street, which, undoubtedly, will be fierce.

Khalil al-Anani is a PhD Scholar at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. He can be reached at: k.m.ibrahim@durham.ac.uk

Uncompromisable Mind

2010-11-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly
November 25, 2010

The Muslim Brotherhood's decision to take part in the upcoming People's Assembly elections comes as no surprise. Polls are vital to that organisation, which is why it participates in all sorts of elections, regardless of the prospective results. In fact, on this occasion, it knows very well that it will not score the surprise success it achieved in 2005. Domestic and international circumstances have changed considerably since then, even if some Brotherhood members continue to live the romance of their heyday.

I may be sticking my head out a bit, but I do not think that the Muslim Brotherhood will win any seats this November. In all events, it differs little whether they get a hundred or none at all. The result will be the same: a glaring sign that in the past five years they achieved no gains and made no inroads. In fact, they lost considerable ground. Many of their leaders were arrested, their economic and social activities were curtailed, and they experienced internal power struggles of an unprecedented degree of ferocity and publicity.

I am not questioning the right of the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in elections. As an organisation with a large number of members and sympathisers it should enjoy this right like any other political party or movement. Nevertheless, there is still reason to question the Brotherhood's motive for participating, which I doubt was driven by considerations relating to the higher public welfare. The Brotherhood was very late in announcing its decision to participate. It only did so after the Wafd Party announced that it would take part in the elections and in spite of the calls to it to join the boycott in protest against the lack of sufficient guarantees for the integrity of the polls. I suspect that the Brotherhood feared a pact between the National Democratic Party (NDP) and official opposition parties and, therefore, decided to participate so as not to lose everything.

However, this does not fully explain the Brotherhood's determination to participate in the elections in spite of the heavy restrictions, exorbitant costs and prospective results. For the Muslim Brotherhood participation has become an end not a means. The more this officially banned organisation takes part in elections, the more it gains "de facto legitimacy", whereas boycotting the elections would be interpreted by the regime as a victory for its policies of repression against the Brotherhood. Participation also gives the organisation a golden opportunity to train its members in public action and to enable them to acquire experience and know-how in dealing with government authorities (so said the chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's Elections Committee in an interview with Al-Shorouk newspaper on 16 October). Then there is the considerable amount of media and legal attention the Muslim Brotherhood receives during campaign seasons, which helps promote and solidify its image as a political "victim". On top of all of this there is the element of parliamentary immunity it obtains through its candidates who win seats in the People's Assembly, which facilitates the organisation's ability to continue its activities.

The pursuit of such advantages is politically and practically legitimate. The problem comes when the Muslim Brotherhood feels that it has to issue a religious decree in order to justify its participation in the electoral process. This represents a radical shift in the Brotherhood's political discourse. The fatwa proclaimed that participation was a duty and boycotting the elections sinful. Issued by Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Barr, a member of the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau, the fatwa is fundamentalist par excellence, not just in its language, which is closer to conventional Salafist rhetoric than it is to the more moderate rhetoric one is accustomed to hearing from the Brotherhood, but also in its unavoidable political and religious ramifications.

According to this fatwa, participating in elections is no longer a question of individual choice, and to boycott the polls or to call for a boycott is evil. Curiously, the Muslim Brotherhood's mufti based his decree on the notion that "parliamentary activity is a form of hisba," which is the Islamic doctrine of ensuring the maintenance of order in accordance with the laws of God. He added that legislative councils are forums for "enjoining what is good and forbidding what is wrong," citing the Quranic verse on which the doctrine of hisba is based. This, too, is a new addition to the Muslim Brotherhood's discourse, which had never before referred to the concept of hisba, at least in connection with elections. Stranger yet, Abdel-Barr held that electoral participation "by candidacy and by casting one's vote" is a form of the "greater jihad " needed to "eliminate wrongdoing".

The effect of a ruling of this nature is to transpose the electoral process, complete with its various types of calculations and practices, some of which may conflict with religious tenets and principles, from the purely political realm to the religious sphere. It simultaneously transposes the question of participation from the realm of al-masalih al-mursala -- considerations of public interest that are subject to the dictates of the conditions and circumstances of the times -- to the realm of religiously ordained duty. Ironically, this puts the Brotherhood itself in a predicament, because it boycotted the 1990 elections without, moreover, citing a religious motive. It also puts some of its branches in other countries in an awkward position, as is the case with its Jordanian chapter that boycotted the parliamentary elections in Jordan this month. No Muslim Brotherhood official has ever dared to issue a fatwa of this sort in the movement's entire history. When the Muslim Brotherhood's founder, Hassan Al-Banna, promoted participation in the 1942 and 1944 elections, he never made it a religious obligation and never thought of making it compulsory for anyone in his group or outside it.

This fatwa puts paid to any claim on the part of Muslim Brotherhood officials that they held an internal vote on the question of whether or not to take part in the elections. In all events, the announcement by Supreme Guide Mohamed Badei that 96 per cent of the members of the Guidance Bureau voted in favour of participation -- a claim that was subsequently denied by another Muslim Brotherhood leader -- makes little difference. It is impossible to separate the decision to participate from the fatwa. For when this is transmitted down the lines to the remainder of the rank and file, they will have no alternative but to march to the polls, for to refuse will result in their excommunication from the group, as has already occurred with some boycotters.

The danger of this fatwa is not just that it is a more glaring example of the Brotherhood's habitual inclination to blend the religious and political spheres. It is also an attempt to reweave the more moderate terms of the Muslim Brotherhood's religious and political discourse into a more rigid and insular framework, which could ultimately work to isolate them.

The Brotherhood's Electorate

2010-11-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

The Daily News Egypt
November 22, 2010

Whereas Muslim Brotherhood’s membership number still a big secret, it’s not difficult to determine its electorate. Three categories of people tend to vote in favor of Ikhwan candidates. First, those who are committed to Ikhwan’s religious and political ideology. They’ve been called “Ikhwan Aml’in”, those who pay membership subscription on regular bases. They participate in the elections not only to comply with the movement organizational mandate but also to fulfill their religious duty. Their number by no means not exceed 50 thousands. However, they can mobilize fourfold their number at least.

Second, those who are not officially members in the MB, however, they are sympathetic with its religious standing and benefit from Ikhwan’s social subsidies. Their voting behavior determined by Ikhwan’s ability to mobilize and reward them during elections campaign and afterwards. Third, those who don’t have specific political preferences, however, they inclined to vote against the ruling party (NDP) candidates. They are protest voters. Not certainly they will vote for Ikhwan’s candidate, however, they surely will vote for those who can buy their votes.

The MB targets the first and second categories. They exemplify Ikwhan electorate. In 2005 elections, Ikhwan claimed acquiring 3 million votes roughly out of 7 million turnouts. Two thirds, at least, came from the aforementioned two categories. Accordingly, each Ikhwan winning candidate (88 members) has got 35,000 votes approximately. However, Ikhwan had run a very successful elections campaign during 2005 which they cannot replicate in 2010.

In the upcoming elections, the MB has nominated 130 candidates, 100 of them will practically run as independent candidates. Regardless the political repression against Ikhwan’s candidates in many constituencies, the movement will not be able to mobilize its regular electorate as it used to do. “Buried your 2005 elections nostalgia”, this was the official message to Ikhwan during the last few weeks. However, the movement insists on participation regardless its substance.

Apparently, Ikhwan lacks the ability not only to mobilize sympathizers but also to convince its grassroots by feasibility of participation in the elections. Neither the MB could evoke 2005 elections' tactics nor did it succeed in having internal consensus over its participation decision in 2010 elections.

The Ikhwan’s predicament in the upcoming elections will not confine to its expected loss, but, and most importantly, to the negative effects on its image as a popular political force. This will be the jackpot for Mubarak's regime.

Khalil al-Anani is expert on Political Islam, Durham University. He can be reached at: k.m.ibrahim@dur.ac.uk

Beyond Park 51: Conflicts of American Secularism

2010-09-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

The controversy surrounding the decision to build a Muslim community center near the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York goes beyond a mere disagreement. Indeed, it is entangled with the relationship between religion and state in the United States — or, to be exact, the nature of the American model of secularism. This issue would not be able to seize American society, which is racially and politically diverse, if it had not been for the sensitivity that has come to dominate the American view of Islam and Muslims, both inside and outside the United States.

More than 200 years ago, the United States set a goal to guarantee freedom of belief and religious practice for all faiths, especially for those who had been oppressed in their countries of origin. To ensure that the unhappy European experience with freedom of religion would not be repeated, America’s Founding Fathers made the Constitution a genuine expression of liberalism. They sanctified religious freedom and forbid violations of that freedom in any way, thereby distinguishing the American model of secularism from its European counterparts.

In brief, American secularism is consistently characterized by three traits: First, to borrow the famous phrase of the late Dr. Abd al-Wahhab al-Messiri, it is a partial secularism. That is, even though this model separates religion from state in terms of operations, it does not separate religion from society in terms of practice. This leaves each individual the freedom to embrace (or not embrace) any religion he chooses, tacitly ensuring the protection of and respect for religious belief, practice and symbols.

Second, it is a secularist model, because although it forbids the state from officially adopting or favoring any one religion, it also acknowledges rights for all religious sects and guarantees each the right to worship without restriction through the establishment of places of worship. These rights were enumerated in 1791 in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, alongside the prohibition on Congress from bias toward any one religion.

Third, it is a secularism of faith, meaning that this model takes a negative stance toward atheism even if it does not forbid it. Perhaps this goes back to the genesis of the United States itself, as a place of refuge for the many devout Protestants who sought to escape the religious persecution they faced in Europe at the end of the 17th century.

Secularism in this form could provide a source of calm and support coexistence within American society. However, a fundamental problem has remained hidden in this model’s political sensitivity. The door was left wide open for religious issues to be employed in the service of ideological and political goals under the banner of religious freedom. This is the other face of American secularism and what distinguishes it from its European counterparts.

French secularism, for example, takes an openly hostile position toward religion, its symbols and its institutions; British secularism guarantees freedom of religion and the practice of faith, but does not allow the politicization of religious issues in the public sphere.

American secularism represents the middle path between these two, for despite the state’s neutrality toward religion and religious institutions, religious issues occupy considerable space in the political sphere, thus making them the target of a great deal of tension. During the last three decades, the socio-political presence of religion in everyday life has increased; this was a primary reason for the downfall of many of the arguments for secularism and modernity. The revival of the evangelical religious right in the United States over the last three decades was a turning point in the trajectory of American secularism, not only because of the increase in society’s demand for religion, but also because of religion’s increasing political role in American society.

It is true that the appearance of this socio-political current was a reaction to the encroachment of atheist-secularist, or humanist, movements that had controlled the United States since the start of the previous century. The sensitivity of many Americans, who have a wide variety of religious beliefs, toward the question of religion made the former movements a sacrifice to political competition. It is because of this that the crisis over the Muslim community center has generated such an unprecedented amount of political controversy in both the public and private spheres. This situation is a prime example of religion entering the political sphere. President Obama’s entry into the debate only increased the uproar, a fact that his opponents exploited with superior skill. Perhaps this is the first time in American history that a religious issue has become the impetus for divisive controversy so intense that it threatens the continuation of domestic coexistence in the United States.

Regarding the impact of the Muslim community center crisis on American secularism, there are three points that should be discussed briefly: First, the current controversy has given this model a severe shock. The commentary on the crisis, whether articulated by politicians, journalists or ordinary citizens, demonstrates the confusion the American public feels when it comes to taking a clear position. Obama fell into this confusion when he initially supported the establishment of the center and then retracted his position, thus appearing weak and uncertain. Second, the importance of American secularism for culture and identity, as well as its unifying ability, has begun to decline, which will harm the model in the long term. Third, the impartiality of this model (a quality which is inherent to the spirit of the Constitution) and its ability to solve religious conflicts has become highly uncertain. This translates into a greater likelihood of religious conflict — at least in symbolic terms, as is the case with the Muslim community center.

This raises a further question: Has the Clash of Civilizations thesis* been transferred from the international stage to the domestic? What is striking about the Muslim community center crisis is that it coincides with the growth of hostility toward Islam and Muslims within the United States. This hostility extends beyond geography and political discord to arrive at the front lines of civilizational identity and belonging. Many Americans, or at least those covered by opinion polls, have a completely distorted picture of Islam and Muslims. If this is an understandable perception of foreign Muslims, it is a provocative change in attitude toward American Muslims, who are radically different from their coreligionists, especially European Muslims. American Muslims consider themselves, not as a Muslim minority within a Christian majority, but rather as Americans first and Muslims second.

This issue will become more complicated if foreign Muslims enter the debate, as happened recently when a group of scholars from Al-Azhar University rejected the establishment of the Muslim community center in the current location. These scholars argued that the center is really a Zionist conspiracy aimed at distorting the image of Muslims and Islam and prolonging the battle between the United States and the Muslim world. They also feared the crisis could further recruitment to extremist ideology.

The curious part of this crisis is that the person responsible for the establishment of the center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, works for the U.S. State Department on a project promoting dialogue between civilizations and the improvement of relations between America and the Muslim world. He is a true American, who feels a sense of belonging in this nation. This does not, however, prevent many from suspecting his allegiance and believing that he represents, as someone said recently, “the Islamic vanguard for the establishment of Sharia in the United States as a preliminary step toward the launch of an Islamic caliphate.”

The symbolism of the current crisis lies not only in its religious aspect, but also in its significance for culture and identity. In this, it differs little from many similar issues that have arisen recently in the West, such as the minaret and the veil. It seems as though we are heading toward a new phase of tensions between Islam and the West, against a background of disinformation and political disorder that comes without a true understanding of the dimensions of this issue or its context.
Source: http://watchingamerica.com/News/66868/the-conflicts-of-american-secularism/

The future of Islam in Europe

2010-07-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, June, 23, 2010

The current Western obsession with the niqab, or full- face veil, often seems part of a subconscious plot to restrict anything Arab and Islamic, symbolic as that may be. The niqab is not really Islamic garb, this I am sure something that Western politicians know. And yet it is becoming a target of hate because it is seen as a cultural symbol that is extraneous, and indeed dangerous, to European societies.

Sometimes I wonder, what if it were Indian women, or Sikhs and Buddhists for that matter, who wore the niqab ? Would European parliaments still spend entire sessions discussing the niqab ?

Theological debate on niqab aside, Western outrage against the niqab seems to be a by-product of Islamophobia, a phenomenon that is raging like wildfire across Europe, asserting itself sometimes as mosque- phobia and at other times as minaret-phobia. Should this trend continue, the day may come when European parliaments ban men from wearing their beards long and shaving their moustaches. I wonder what kind of phobia we'll name that one!

There is a real crisis of conscience in the West. When it comes to Islam, Europe seems to be negating its past of freedom and equality, the very essence of what it claims to be defending today. What damage is done to 65 million in France, 22 million in Australia, and 10 million in Belgium, and a similar number in the Netherlands from hundreds, or even thousands of niqab -clad women? Whether the niqab is an expression of faith or habit, I fail to see the damage it is being blamed for.

Meanwhile, the Western intelligentsia seem silent on the matter. For all their loud defence of homosexual rights and of gay and lesbian marriages, the European intelligentsia remain sympathetic to anyone who criticises Islam and Muslims. Criticism of Islam is seen as part and parcel of Europe's freedom of expression.

The French parliament has voted to ban the niqab, calling it a threat to the secularism of the French state. But secularism is innocent from this kind of thinking. The ban on the niqab -- and an earlier ban on the hijab -- has nothing to do with secularism. As a doctrine, secularism was supposed to defend the rights of everyone, especially minorities. Secularism was supposed to protect the rights of all to religious freedom and identity. It was supposed to be a statement of pluralism and religious tolerance.

I have three words I wish to add to the famous motto of the French state, that of liberty, equality, and freedom. I wish to add the phrase, "for non-Muslims only".

The ban on the niqab is a moral scandal as well as an insult to the Western tradition. For one thing, the anti- niqab crowd assume that any woman wearing the niqab (and perhaps any man wearing robes and a beard) is a time bomb that must be defused. The anti- niqab crowd make no distinction between extremists and moderates. It is bigotry such as theirs that inspired the murder of an innocent Egyptian woman, Marwa El-Sherbini, in Germany a year ago.

There is no real evidence of a connection between the niqab and terror. All the terrorist operations that took place in Europe -- from London to Madrid -- were mounted by men baring their faces. The attacks mounted by masked men and women across the Arab and Islamic world are rare compared to those mounted by individuals showing their faces. Terrorists like to be seen and recognised. That's how they are.

I find it ironic that the admirable work of the great intellectual and philosophical brains of the European Enlightenment, of men like John Locke and Montesquieu and Kant, is being reversed by their grandchildren. I find it appalling that in a multi-ethnic country such a Britain, a country known for its religious pluralism and human tolerance, more than 30 Muslim tombs in Leeds have been desecrated. Shops owned by British citizens of Muslim origin were attacked in Birmingham a month ago.

Equally disturbing is the fact that religious fervour and identity-related obsession are spreading across Muslim communities in Europe. Muslim minorities in Europe seem to think that the future of Islam hinges on such outward matters as wearing the niqab, growing a beard, or attaching a minaret to a place of worship. Some members of the Islamic community, especially those of Asian origins, deal with Western societies as if they were still back in Peshawar or Islamabad. Their actions only fuel the Islamophobia of those at the other end of the spectrum.

Islam may be the fastest growing religion in Europe, but its true power is not in outward appearances, but in the spiritual appeal of its message, a message that attracts those wishing to break free from materialism.

The tendency of Muslim communities in Europe to place their "universal" connections above their local loyalties is perilous. There is a tendency for Europe's Muslims to worry more about Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan than about the more immediate tasks of women's rights, communal ties and political affiliation. They confuse one's country with one's citizenry. In their minds, their countries are not where they live, as in Britain or France, but where they came from. But this doesn't make sense, for it is in Europe that they ask for their rights as citizens. It is in Europe that they demand equality and religious freedom.

The schizophrenia of European Muslims is triggered by a mistaken loyalty to Salafi, or fundamentalist trends. As many know, Salafi movements oppose integration and are loath to constructive coexistence. The Salafis both fuel the current Islamophobia and thrive on it.

Some of the Muslims who live in Europe have turned into an impediment to Islam. Some actively obstruct the spread of its message of tolerance. Some are distracting non-Muslims from the values of Islam, because of their ignorance and their obsession with appearances.

It is my opinion that mistaken religious concepts are being propagated among the Muslim minorities of Europe. These concepts are bound to hinder their integration into their new societies. A few days ago, I heard that some Muslim men in London branded as haram, or religiously banned, the participation of British Muslims in the general elections of last month. This is crazy. Even worse, the fanatical utterances were made by recent British converts to Islam.

New converts to Islam tend to subscribe to Salafi views as being pure and therefore perfect. In doing so, they turn their back on tolerant views and the progressive opinions that are required for coexistence. This narrow-minded view of Islam makes much of appearances, such as garments and minarets, and of the literary interpretation of religious texts. It also tends to confuse freedom of worship with respect for the public sphere. It is necessary for European Muslims to stop viewing the cultural legacy of European countries as a threat to their religious freedom.

Western countries defend and allow the practice of religious freedoms without hindrance. But they also want to maintain their cultural legacy and protect it from perceived threats, especially when these threats -- like the niqab -- are matters of contention within the Islamic world, not just in Europe.

The Salafi interpretation of Islam may not be dominant among European Muslims, but it is the most vocal in Europe's public sphere. As such, it creates a wall between Europe's Muslims and non-Muslims. It also inspires some of Europe's most racist laws. The Salafi currents are giving Europe's rightwing groups reason to claim that a Muslim takeover is imminent unless action is promptly taken.

A polarisation of identity is taking place inside two groups, each obsessed with the other, and each reassured of its own superiority. Should this continue, the next decade will just be as bad as the last.

* The writer is senior scholar at the Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies, Durham University, UK.

Reading Between the Lines:Islamist Views of Israel

2010-06-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

Despite their ideological and political differences, Islamist organizations share a common stance on Israel. From the Muslim Brotherhood to Salafist-Jihadists, Islamists view Israel as an illegitimate entity and the leading enemy of the Muslim world. Along with leftist and nationalist movements, Islamists believe that Arab countries have forsaken the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel, and question the dedication of Arab regimes to helping the Palestinians establish an independent state.
Although Islamist groups share a belief that Israel is illegitimate, they differ in their views on how to best approach Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood argues that Egypt should reconsider the Camp David Accords, whereas Gamaa Islamiya, which recently renounced violence, supports the treaty, and believes it was crucial in restoring occupied Egyptian territory. Salafist-Jihadist groups like Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, do not believe in the possibility of coexistence or peace with the Jewish state.
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Opposite effects

2010-02-28T04:06:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly March 3, 2010

The recent arrest of several Muslim Brotherhood leaders came as no surprise. Many had been expecting the move for weeks. What did raise eyebrows was the charge sheet, some items on which were so naïve as to seem laughable. The regime appears to have felt that it would be boring simply to repeat the allegations it usually levels at Muslim Brotherhood members. "Membership of an illegal organisation" and "distributing printed material that threatens social peace and security" were apparently deemed too tame. Instead, the latest detainees are accused of "creating an organization that subscribes to the ideas of Sayed Qotb and espouses an anti-infidel agenda" and "attempting to organize armed camps for the purpose of mounting hostile activities inside the country".

The most peculiar charge, perhaps, was levelled by the Higher State security prosecutor against Deputy Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat. According to a report appearing in Al-Masry Al-YomIn the Shade of the Quran. of 11 February, he is accused of being the real, "secret" supreme guide, having been elected to the post by the Muslim Brotherhood's international Shura Council two weeks before it was announced that Mohamed Badei was the organisation's new leader. Less high-profile detainees were charged with possession of Qotb's widely disseminated

The regime is mistaken if it thinks such charges will undermine the Muslim Brotherhood's credibility. Whatever the faults in its political discourse, everyone knows the group is ideologically moderate and seeks to participate peacefully in politics. Attempts to link the organization to terrorism are certain to fail.

The dilemma facing the regime is that it cannot assimilate the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate player in the public arena, but nor can it eradicate them and relieve itself, and Egypt, of a protracted and futile confrontation.

One cannot help but wonder why the authorities did not act during the Muslim Brotherhood's recent internal elections which were accompanied by an unprecedented level of media coverage. Surely it would have been more appropriate, given that the Muslim Brotherhood is an officially outlawed organisation, to arrest newly elected Badei "red-handed", as it were, during the globally televised press conference he held to inaugurate his term of office. Perhaps the regime was hoping that the power struggle that has been raging in the Muslim Brotherhood's higher echelons would erupt into a schism that would cause the whole organisation to crumble. This did not transpire, and the regime fell back on its habitual course of repression and detention.

To explain the timing of the recent clampdown we need to examine the regime's ongoing strategy to contain the Muslim Brotherhood. Since the mid- 1990s it has regularly rounded up Muslim Brotherhood leaders and tried them before military courts whenever it thought the group was becoming overly confident or ready to engage with a wider public. There have been no less than six military group trials in less than 15 years. The first three were held in 1995 and the next three in 2000, 2003 and 2007. The last of these went on for more than 70 sessions, the longest trial in Egyptian history.

Suppression may tax the Muslim Brotherhood organisationally but it also gives them reason to tighten ranks and focus on recruitment. In today's political climate, repressive tactics can only be counterproductive, enhancing the group's popular image and allowing it to appeal to potential recruits on the basis that it is being persecuted. Surely it would be more astute for the regime to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to formally engage in public life since nothing could be more guaranteed to throw it into ideological confusion and organizational disarray.

The Muslim Brotherhood, like most closed organization, tightens ranks when exposed to outside threats but splinters in environments where it must compete on the basis of political ideas rather than the ability to purchase support through handouts and the provision of social services. When the Muslim Brotherhood unveiled its platform for a proposed political party in 2007 it faced vehement criticism not from the regime but from independent politicians, intellectuals, human rights groups and other members of civil society. I believe that, if there were greater freedom to form political parties in Egypt, Mohamed Habib, who resigned two months ago as deputy to the former supreme guide, or the reformist brother Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, would establish a political party with no ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is precisely what Recep Tayyip Erdogan did when he split away from the Turkish Prosperity Party led by Nijmeddin Erbakan.

The generation gap in the Muslim Brotherhood would give impetus to such a move. Many younger members of the organization are in a state of shock following the elimination of reformists from a hierarchy now dominated by elderly, conservative hardliners. A good many young reformers now love to leave the Brotherhood, their problem being there is nowhere for them to go.

If the regime can not tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood as a political faction, why does it not permit them to re-establish themselves as a philanthropic society engaged solely in charity work? At least then they would fall under the law.

Let me make three observations that relate to the above. First, the Egyptian regime makes no distinction between conservatives and moderates (reformists) within the Muslim Brotherhood, a fact that obviates any possibility of assimilating the group into Egypt's formal political life. Second, the regime's current policy will propel the Muslim Brothers to organise themselves secretly and resume subversive activities, at which point the allegation that they are a militant organisation bent on violence will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Third, many groups among the Egyptian political elite have no objection to the suppression and political death of the Muslim Brotherhood on the pretext of saving the country from the spectre of a Khomeini-like state. They would then position themselves to carve up the political spoils with the regime.

The Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate political faction will constitute no real threat to the regime. Any challenge it might face in the future will come from a political figure with sufficient charisma to attract mass public support. My worst fear is that continued pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood will drive it underground.

* The writer is senior scholar at the Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies, Durham University, UK. He can be reached at: kalanani@gmail.com

Survival is not enough

2010-01-30T03:15:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, February 3, 2010

The MB in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world has suffered one crisis after the other over the past three years. If this tells us anything it is that the Egyptian, Jordanian and Algerian branches of the Islamist group are beset by confusion and political decline, sufficient to undermine their image among the public as a possible alternative to existing regimes. As different as the circumstances are for the Muslim Brothers in these countries, the branches of their elderly organisation have one major element in common. They are gripped by a structural and ideological crisis which has erupted into unprecedented internal disputes. In the case of the Algerian branch (Movement for the Society of Peace), differences have escalated to the point of schism.

The current crisis calls into question the viability of the MB's political programme. Will it be able to survive among, and compete against, other political and religious programmes? Is the Muslim Brotherhood obsolete as a socio-political movement? Will it retrench as a closed and insular religious association after having lost its spirit of initiative and ability to inspire people?

CRISIS AND INTERNAL RIFTS:

For the first time since it was founded 80 years ago the Egyptian MB became embroiled in a dispute over the election of a new supreme guide. The crisis began following the death of Mohamed Hilal, the most senior member of the Guidance Bureau, in October 2009, at the age of 90. According to the MB's internal regulations the influential Essam El-Erian should have filled the vacancy, having received the highest percentage of votes in the last Guidance Bureau elections in June 2008. However, the conservative wing objected to El-Erian's promotion on the grounds that it was procedurally illegitimate and not immediately necessary. In response the then supreme guide, Akef, who supported El-Erian, threatened to resign. His first deputy, Mohamed Habib, then announced in an interview on Al-Jazeera that Akef had delegated most of the powers of his office to him.

Over the next two months tensions in the ranks of the MB escalated as elections to the 16- member Guidance Bureau drew closer. One camp, led by Mohamed Ezzat, pressed for elections to be held as soon as possible so that a new supreme guide could be chosen before the official end of Akef's term on 14 January 2010. An opposing camp, led by Habib, wanted to defer elections until June 2010, which would be after the MB had elected a new Shura Council, the approximately 100-member body responsible for electing members of the Guidance Bureau and the supreme guide. After a brief stand-off between the two camps Ezzat's prevailed.

The ensuing elections contained a number of surprises. First was the elimination of Habib and Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh from the Guidance Bureau, curtailing reformist influence in the Brotherhood's upper echelons though El-Erian was elevated to the bureau. Then Habib resigned from all his positions within the organisation apart from his membership in the Shura Council.

The crisis cast into relief the absence of real democracy and transparency in the organisation. Against the backdrop of controversy over the elections and charges that the procedures were inconsistent with internal regulations Akef was at a loss over how to contain the disputes on the Guidance Bureau.

Aside from conflicting interpretations of the bylaws, many MB members aired doubts over whether the current Shura Council was fully competent to elect the members of the Guidance Bureau, especially since the powers of the deputy supreme guide, who should have chaired the council during the elections, had been overridden. This calls into question the legitimacy and credibility of the newly elected Guidance Bureau and its authority to elect the next supreme guide. The crisis also pierced the MB's aura of being somehow more principled than their opponents by exposing the squabbling, bartering and back room deals that plague all Egyptian political parties, including the NDP.

The elections, tantamount to a bloodless coup against the reformists and pragmatists, destroyed the hopes of the younger generation of Brothers that internal reform is possible. Most of the new members of the Guidance Bureau are over 50 and have no known reformist inclinations. Indeed, apart from El-Erian, little is known about them. The MB's grassroots members are as much in the dark as the general public.

As for the election of the new supreme guide, it was more of a political appointment or internal promotion than the result of a democratic process. There was little difference between Badei and Rashad El-Bayoumi, whom the Guidance Bureau preferred because he was the most senior member. Both represent the hardline conservative trend that now dominates the group.

NEW GUIDE, OLD RHETORIC:

After a difficult and protracted interlude the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) elected a new supreme guide, Mohamed Badei. The fate of the MB leadership had been pending ever since the seventh supreme guide, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, announced that he would step down after his first term even though the Brotherhood's internal regulations entitled him to a second.

Badei's election has raised many questions, and they concern not only the legitimacy of the process by which he reached office but his own political and ideological positions.

The man who is now the eighth supreme guide comes from the heart of the MB's institutional machine. If this machine can be described as conservative and intent upon ensuring the organisation's survival, Badei is its representative. The address he delivered upon taking office made this clear. He reaffirmed the MB's commitment to the renunciation of violence, gradual reform, non-confrontation with the regime and other familiar stances. But what lies behind his language of appeasement?

There is a marked difference between the new MB leader and his predecessor, Akef, who during his six-year term, from January 2004 to January of this year, introduced a qualitative shift in his organisation's political rhetoric with audacity and unflagging persistence. While it is still too soon to issue judgements on the potential of the new supreme guide, it is nevertheless possible to make some brief observations that might offer clues to the future of the Muslim Brotherhood under his leadership.

Although Badei attempted to draw a veil over any procedural irregularities surrounding his election the shadow of suspected illegitimacy will lurk behind every decision he makes. He will also find it difficult to strike balances and accommodations between the conservatives and reformists, who no longer have anyone to represent them in the upper echelons of the Muslim Brotherhood. Akef was particularly adept at this, giving the reformists considerable manoeuvrability. And even if he should be so inclined Badei will not be able to offset the ideological and political dominance of the conservatives who, after all, brought him to power.

The new Supreme Guide has no known connections with other political parties or forces in Egypt. Such connections could facilitate the conclusion of alliances or political deals with them, another process at which Akef demonstrated considerable skill.

In the end Badei will most likely strive to avoid any confrontation with the regime, not only out of fear of the power of the latter but because of his own weak position when it comes to maintaining discipline and control over the MB's rank and file.

Even so, any suggestion that the MB will withdraw from engagement in political life because of the conservatives' control over the organisation is logically flawed. Political involvement is vital to the MB if it is to score political gains, sustain its connection with the public and ability to recruit new members. The movement's problems in the foreseeable future will stem not from its absence from the political arena but from the way it manages the political game, especially as regards the project to form a political party, its position on women and Copts, and its relationship with the regime.

CAUGHT BETWEEN A LEADERSHIP CRISIS AND A CRISIS OF DIRECTION:

However determined the MB is to remain in the political game, its current state of political and organisational confusion casts a shadow over its ability to maintain an effective political presence. The MB does not function in a vacuum; it is driven by a political and ideological outlook that either will or will not reverberate in the environment in which it seeks to operate.

The MB's entire political enterprise is in crisis, to which testify four interrelated factors. The first is the decline in its ability to inspire the Arab public. This phenomenon cannot be solely attributed to its inability to compete with rival movements and discourses from across the Islamist spectrum, from the jihadist to the reformist trends. It is also the product of a rigidity that has closed the door to more modernist and secularist concepts and modes of political action.

The second factor is the stagnation that has beset all the reform initiatives the MB has presented in the countries in which it operates. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has not voiced a new idea since the reform initiative it unveiled in 2004, and the same applies to its sister movements in Algeria, Jordan and, perhaps, Yemen.

Third, MB movements have failed to reach accommodations with the regimes in their countries, whether because of the regimes' determination to suppress them and to lure them into futile battles or because of the movements' lack of leaders with the political and negotiating skills needed to persuade or compel the regimes to assimilate the Muslim Brotherhood into official political life.

The fourth factor is the widening generational gap in the MB. Structural rigidity has inhibited the incorporation of younger members into the hierarchy, a problem that has plunged the movement into internal conflicts that drain its energies and mar its public image.

The Muslim Brotherhood may not wane entirely. What has happened, though, is that the group has lost the initiative, and in doing so no longer looks a credible alternative to the existing regimes.

* The writer is senior scholar at the Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies, Durham University, UK. Email: k.m.ibrahim@durham.ac.uk

Uncertain future for MB

2010-01-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, 31 December 2009 - 6 January 2010

Over the past eight decades, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has succeeded in augmenting its social profile and organisational presence in Egypt. Unfortunately, the Muslim Brothers' political rhetoric has yet to develop in a way that qualifies it to become a partner in government or a political party on the lines of those founded by MB offshoots in other Arab countries.

Any realistic prediction of the shape of the MB a decade from now must proceed from an assessment of the movement's development since the late 1970s. It was at this point that the Egyptian Brotherhood decided to participate in the political process and abide by its rules. In the 1980s it made unprecedented inroads, expanding its popularity and influence. Indeed, it became the most influential and widely accepted grassroots movement in the country, which enabled it to achieve major breakthroughs in participatory politics. Its members won significant numbers of parliamentary seats in the 1984 and 1987 elections and began to dominate many professional syndicates.

These successes occurred in tandem with two major developments. One was the regime's steadily intensifying battle against militant Islamists belonging to the Jamaa Islamiya and Islamic Jihad. The second was the MB's growing ability to communicate with and influence large segments of the Egyptian public in mosques, schools and universities. By the early 1990s the government had become so leery of the threat posed by the still officially outlawed group's steady rise that it decided to take definitive action to halt it. The Salsabil case of 1992 brought the first mass arrests and military trials of MB members since the 1960s. It is noteworthy that while these trials were in progress the MB issued its first document addressing such fundamental issues as citizenship and freedom of expression. Appearing in 1994, the document, in spite of its vagueness, marked a significant development in the group's rhetoric.

A decade after the so-called "citizenship paper" appeared the MB issued a "reform paper" outlining the organisation's positions on a number of rights and governance issues. The rhetoric had noticeably matured, though it remained marred by ambiguities and inconsistencies. The MB then scored an unprecedented victory in the parliamentary elections that were held in November 2005. Its members now controlled 20 per cent of the seats in the People's Assembly.

Since the outset of 2006, however, the MB's fortunes have steadily declined in the face of the increasing determination of the regime to eliminate the movement from the political scene. Not since the Manshiya incident in the 1950s has the relationship between the regime and the MB reached such a degree of animosity. It would be no exaggeration to say that the carefully calibrated political contest between the two has escalated to a zero-sum game. The backdrop to the confrontation is a shared sense that the battle has neared its end. In some quarters of the regime a belief has come to prevail that the MB is at its weakest for decades and could soon be wiped out. Conversely, the MB leadership believes that the regime has grown so old and decrepit that it could easily be tipped into the grave. Both sides are biding their time, waiting for the opportunity to deliver the blow that will lay the other to rest.

In truth the government has scored a number of gains against the MB in recent years. It has largely succeeded in neutralising the largest opposition movement in the country, adding weight to claims that the MB is faltering despite its parliamentary presence. The MB has been economically drained as the regime has systematically attacked its sources of finance. Some 20 large and another 20 smaller companies owned by prominent MB members have been closed down which is perhaps why, according to the official story at least, the MB leadership in Egypt has begun to appeal for financial assistance from abroad. The movement has also be en organisationally drained through the arrest of second, third and possibly fourth tier members. This attrition has sapped the group's ability to withstand the assault from the regime and, in the absence of the mid- level leaders, to communicate with its membership base.

In August 2007, in an attempt to absorb some of the regime's wrath, the MB published its first manifesto for a political party. The step partially backfired. The document contained some very undemocratic ideas regarding the rights of women and Copts and the creation of a body of clerics that would wield supreme power. The document roused the anger of swathes of Egypt's intellectual, cultural and political elites and even drew criticism from some Muslim Brothers abroad, including Rashed Al-Ghanoushi, Ali Al-Bayanouni and Kamal Al-Halbawi.

Given the above, the fate of the MB over the next 10 years will be contingent upon two sets of variables, one associated with the organisation itself, the other associated with its relationship with the regime and political developments in Egypt.

In the first category must be included the extent to which the MB can develop, open up and democratise its discourse. As a start towards this end the organisation would have to revise its party platform and rethink many of the points that stirred harsh reactions. That the MB is capable of such a revision remains questionable given the extent to which conservatives now dominate the organisation.

It will need, too, to change its organisational structure, radically overhauling its internal regulations governing the powers and jurisdictions of the supreme guide, the Guidance Bureau and the General Shura Council. As the recent crisis in the Guidance Bureau and rumours of the supreme guide's threat to resign have demonstrated, the MB does not have a sturdy enough institutional infrastructure to resolve internal disputes.

Opportunities for the younger, reform-minded generation to rise within the hierarchy so as to allow an injection of fresh blood and courageous ideas are also needed. The generation gap in the MB is already wide and threatens to yawn further, though it seems unlikely that the organisation's geriatric old guard will willingly relinquish power.

Nor does it seem that the MB is truly ready to found a political party. This has much less to do with the general political climate and circumstances than it does with attitudes within the MB itself. A large segment of MB members do not see the point of establishing a political party; rather, they view the move as a distraction to the proselytising activities, which they believe is the MB's major calling. The likelihood, then, is that the confusion and overlap between the political and proselytising activities will persist.

The MB also remains torn between a nationalist and universal agenda. The organisation remains at a loss over whether to define itself as an Egyptian national movement with no international agenda or as a religious movement with a global agenda. It is one thing to take positions in support of other Islamic countries and resistance movements, quite another to act against national interests. The MB has transgressed the bounds on several occasions over the past three years.

As regards the relationship with the regime and other domestic political factors, the MB's future is contingent upon the regime's ability to resolve the question over whether to assimilate the MB as a legitimate participant in party politics. At present, the chances of this occurring are unlikely. The regime's determination to exclude Islamists, in general, and not just the MB, from the political process, looks unshakeable.

It also depends on the extent of liberalisation within Egyptian politics. The more Egypt moves away from an authoritarian government towards greater democratisation and plurality the greater the chances that the MB will shift to a less rigid rhetoric and more democratic outlook.

The ability of the MB to reformulate its relationship with the regime and base it on the principles of respectful competition, as opposed to animosity and backstabbing the regime regionally and internationally, as it has done on several occasions over the past two years, is also important, as is the group's ability to improve its relationship with other political and social forces. One of the chronic illnesses of this movement has been its failure to build permanent political alliances.

It is difficult to see any qualitative leap forward being made by the MB by 2020, either on the level of its ideological discourse or in terms of political participation and influence. Its parliamentary success in 2005 increasingly looks as if it might be the high point of the coming decade.

The MB found itself in a crisis as it attempted to elect a new guide and, for the first time since 1995, a Guidance Council. The elections turned out to be a face-off between reformists and conservatives. And it ended in a victory for the conservatives, indeed the ultra- conservatives, who tightened their grip on the Guidance Council. This was a blow to the reformists and may prove to be the start of the intellectual and political decline of the group.

The elections are bound to cast a shadow on the MB's image at home and abroad. Marred by discontent and division at the MB's uppermost echelons of the group, the elections may have spelt the end of the reformist thinking, without which the MB is likely to slip back into its old secretive ways.

One must expect further clashes to occur between the MB and the regime, either because the conservatives cannot formulate a realistic agenda or because they cannot engage in mainstream politics and maintain a workable relationship with the regime. The new general guide may turn out to be incapable of winning over the public, so much so that the MB may look back to Mahdi Akef's days with yearning.

Should this happen, hardline wings are likely to appear within the MB, or many of the group's members would leave the MB to join more hardline groups. In other words, the MB's recent crisis was a turning point for a group now facing an uncertain future.

Khalil al-Anani is a Senior scholar at the Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies, Durham University, UK. Email: kalanani@gmail.com

Dissenting Brothers

2009-11-07T05:25:00.000-08:00

Khalil al-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, November 6th, 2009
Founded in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has never experienced a leadership crisis as serious as that which erupted two weeks ago. As is now well-known, the problem originated with the refusal on the part of the MB's Guidance Bureau (the organisation's highest executive body) to accept Essam El-Erian as a member to replace Mohamed Hilal following the latter's death four weeks ago. It was a clear act of defiance against Supreme Guide Mohamed Mahdi Akef who wanted to promote El-Erian and who maintained that the MB's internal regulations gave him that right. In response to the refusal Akef has threatened to resign and designated most of his powers to his first deputy, Mohamed Habib.
Of course, the crisis goes much deeper than the question of El-Erian's promotion. This is not the first time the supreme guide has encountered resistance. The problem is rooted in the way the MB handles its internal disputes and in its reading of the Egyptian political scene as it touches upon the organisation's image and activities. Although in the course of the past two decades the MB has managed to deal clearly and firmly with internal opposition, disciplining and marginalising dissenters, it has signally failed to benefit from any intellectual and ideological diversity among its ranks. As a consequence, it has forfeited an important political asset which it desperately needs in its confrontations with adversaries.
The tensions in the upper echelons of the MB hierarchy are too sharp to be swept under the carpet in the usual way. The supreme guide has set himself against the will of the conservative wing of the leadership over the promotion of El-Erian, whom he believes deserves a chance to serve on the Guidance Bureau. But regardless of what actions he takes, including the threat to resign, there are unmistakable signs that he will be unable to reign in the conservatives. Since becoming head of the movement in January 2004 Akef has worked hard to maintain smooth relations between the different ideological trends within the MB. Almost always, however, his efforts have come at the expense of the reformists or pragmatists, whether because of the relative weakness of their influence within the organisation compared to the conservatives or because he feared a rift that would render the organisation vulnerable to the regime's political and security tactics.
That tensions have reached their current pitch is due to the brewing conflict over the succession to the office Akef now holds. In March Akef announced that he did not intend to nominate himself for a new term, which would begin on 13 January. His decision marked the first time in the group's history that a supreme guide has voluntarily stepped down at the height of his career. All six of his predecessors died while still in office. Akef's unprecedented and, apparently, unexpected decision, triggered an initially silent power struggle over who would fill his post. Interestingly, the struggle has not been between conservatives and reformists, but rather between hardliners and pragmatists inside the conservative camp.
The current situation is significant for several reasons. Rarely have internal differences bubbled over into public view. This time, however, the main players have been vying ferociously for media attention.
Then there is Akef's threat, subsequently denied, that he would resign. That Akef should have been driven to such a step reflects the magnitude of the pressures and anger he has faced during his nearly six-year long tenure. Having served as the keel between diverse trends, Akef's threat must reflect his sense of failure at checking the conservatives' hegemony over all the organisation's bodies and decision-making mechanisms.
That Akef has delegated many of his powers to his first deputy is also unprecedented, as well as being in violation of the group's internal regulations. Article 6 of the MB's charter states that the supreme guide can leave his post under three conditions -- poor performance of his duties, resignation or death. Since none of these conditions obtains Akef had no right to delegate his responsibilities to his first deputy.
The crisis has thrown into relief a major problem in the MB's constitutional structure, the lack of an institutionalised arbitrating authority capable of settling disputes between the supreme guide and the Guidance Bureau. It has also demonstrated that many of the group's internal taboos regarding reverence for, and uncritical obedience to, its leaders have cracked.
The MB leadership will undoubtedly attempt to resolve the crisis as quickly as possible, so that it does not spread through the movement's rank and file. For this reason, the MB's General Shura Council will hold elections for the next supreme guide within the next couple of weeks. Even so, it is doubtful that the new leader will enjoy the same level of prestige as his predecessors and will, as a consequence, be hampered in any attempts to maintain equilibrium inside the group. Neither the MB's Secretary- General Mahmoud Ezzat, or First Deputy to the Supreme Guide Mohamed Habib, the two leading contenders for the post, have the historical legitimacy of Akef, the last of the MB's founding generation.
But the election of the next supreme guide is not the only problem with which the MB must contend. No less important, or problematic, is the need to elect a new Guidance Bureau. The current bureau was elected in 1995, since which time some members have been added through promotion, as was the case with Mohamed Mursi who became chairman of the political committee in 2004, and others by means of the partial elections in 2008. Comprehensive elections to the bureau should have been held a year ago, following the election of the new MB Shura Council which is responsible for selecting the members of the Guidance Bureau and the supreme guide.
The MB is entering a very delicate phase in its history. Even if MB leaders manage to smooth over the current crisis, its effects will continue to reverberate beneath the surface and, undoubtedly, erupt once again.

Brotherhood leader says he did not quit

2009-10-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

Nadia Abou el Magd,

Tha National, October 20. 2009

CAIRO // Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the supreme guide and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, denied having quit his position after Egyptian newspapers reported his resignation during a stormy meeting on Sunday.

“I didn’t resign; this is fabrication by the media,” Mr Akef said in a telephone interview yesterday.Mr Akef did not deny there had been disagreement on Sunday over the promotion of Essam el Eryan, a reformist within the group, to the Maktab el Ershad, or the guidance office. The maktab is the Brotherhood’s politburo and comprises 21 leaders.“This is the first time in the group’s history that the group’s supreme leader has threatened to resign. This is pretty serious,” said Khalil al Anani, an Egyptian expert on the Muslim Brotherhood, in an interview yesterday. Mr al Anani is affiliated to the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

“Mahdi Akef would never admit that he had resigned, or warned he might resign, to maintain the group’s image and unity especially in front of its eager enemies in the regime,” he said.The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 and banned in 1954. The prohibition remains in force despite even though the group renounced violence in the 1970s. It remains Egypt’s strongest opposition group and has hundreds of thousands of followers across the country. Its members contest elections as independents to get around the ban and, in 2005, shocked the government by winning 88 seats in parliament.

According to sources inside the group who witnessed Sunday’s meeting, but did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, Mr Akef had threatened to resign after the group’s conservative wing, lead by Mahmoud Ezzat, known as “the Iron Man”, refused to promote Mr el Eriyan to the Maktab el Ershad, to replace Mohammed Helal, who died last month.The conservative faction also rejected another suggestion by Mr Akef to have el Eryan as his deputy.

“There is an ongoing struggle between conservatives and reformists within the group as well as fierce competition and struggle among the conservatives to replace Akef,” Mr al Anani said.Mr Akef’s threat to resign was a strong signal to the Brotherhood’s radical conservatives that despite being a conservative himself, he was siding with the reformists, added Mr al Anani.Mr Akef, 81, who became the seventh leader of the group in 2004, announced six months ago that he would step down by January. Mr Akef is known as a “live martyr” for having spent 20 years in prison – a term reduced from a death sentence – for being among the group charged with plotting to kill Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. Mr Akef was released from prison by Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor as president, in 1974.

In a statement posted on the group’s website yesterday, Mohammed Habib, the deputy leader of the Brotherhood, said: “Mr Mohammed Mahdi Akef is still the group’s supreme leader and enjoys the love, appreciation and respect of all members of Maktab el Ershad.“Mr Akef is the supreme guide and the banner for all the Brotherhood. He is present in the minds and hearts of all, and he is dearer to them than themselves.”

He emphasised that Mr Akef met all the Maktab members in “a cordial meeting” yesterday.Mr Habib, 66, is widely seen as Mr Akef’s successor. He spent five years in prison beginning in 1995 for belonging to the group.Although he ranks among the Brotherhood’s conservatives, he faces fierce competition from a more hawkish group within the wing led by Mr Ezzat, 65, who has stronger organisational ties within the group and himself spent nine years in prison for his relations to the Brotherhood.

Some younger members oppose Mr Ezzat as the next leader and have expressed their rejection by waging a campaign via mobile phone text messages reading, “We object to Mahmoud Ezzat’s attempts to replace Mr Akef. We demand he be sacked for his exclusionary practices especially towards Dr Essam el Eryan.”Dr el Eryan, also in his sixties, did not answer repeated calls yesterday, but was quoted in the press as saying that the campaign and the fight over his promotion have put him in a sensitive situation. Dr el Eryan is a physician and has been imprisoned several times for belonging to the group.

“The ongoing crackdown on the group and the arrest of prominent figures from the reformist wing, like Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, has been pushing the group under the grip of the conservatives,” Mr al Anani said.“The regime is targeting the reformists in order to justify its accusation of the group that it lacks democracy and is reactionary, and at the same time, to cut links or possible co-operation with other opposition groups in the society,” he claimed.

Mr Aboul Fotouh, another member of the Brotherhood, has been in jail since May, along with five senior leaders and scores of other mid-level leaders. They deny charges that include money laundering, attempts to revive the group’s international network and spying for foreign organisations. Their case has yet to be heard in court.Khairat el Shatter, another prominent conservative but pragmatic leader of the Brotherhood, is serving seven years in prison for financing the group. He was convicted along with scores of others in April 2008. Mr el Shatter was the mastermind behind the victory in the 2005 legislative elections.

Asked about whom he would like to succeed him as the leader of the group, Mr Akef said: “This is none of my business. There are many blessed, efficient leaders in the group. May God bless them and guide them to choose the best successor.”Mr Akef is the first of the group’s leaders to announce he would step down. His predecessors died while in office. Some members of the group are concerned about the current squabble and the future of the group.

“Mr Akef, despite his controversial statements, sometimes is a security valve for the group,” said Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, 29, a journalist and a leading member among the young moderates and reformists of the group.“The likes of Ezzat would be catastrophic and will explode the group from within. They are so dogmatic and have nothing to do with politics or other political forces in the society. They are like mosque imams, and this is the last thing the Brotherhood needs at this stage and amid the authority’s heavy continuous crackdown on the group.”

On the brink of implosion

2009-09-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani
Al-ahram Weekly, September 16, 2009

It is mistaken to imagine the file on change and reform in the Arab world was closed the moment Bush and the neoconservatives left the White House. Structural change is not produced by perennial pressures that ease the moment they accomplish their objective or when their proponents depart. Rather, it is a reaction to situations that have become so ossified as to build up an explosive force beneath the surface. Arab regimes fear the type of change that could topple them or reduce their power. But to allow the current stagnation and rot to continue courts the type of change that could throw the whole of society into turmoil, as is currently happening in a number of Arab countries. The rise in violent socio-religious movements is one of the signs of the disintegration of Arab societies. It mirrors the failure of the state to contain and assimilate the diverse forces of society. Organisations such as Al-Qaeda could not have proliferated were it not for the glaring failure of the Arab state to perform its primary functions. Even though such movements stand on the ideological fringes of society, they thrive and breed in the fertile soil provided by political bankruptcy, economic need and social oppression.
It is against such a backdrop that one must read the train of crises that have eroded the authority of the state and lent enormous impetus to secessionist movements in the Arab world. The origin of the Houthi problem in Yemen cannot be chalked up to an extremist ideology and its secessionist leanings. Rather, it is the manifestation of a sociological structural crisis that stems from the failure of the post-independent Yemeni state to ensure a minimal level of functional sufficiency and psychological satisfaction to one of its social constituents. The Houthi problem in the north is a replica of Yemen's southern problem, which has also worsened in recent months, reflecting the dismal failure of the Yemeni regime to follow through on the two decade old north-south unification in a manner that generates solid socio-political unity. It will not do to point fingers at foreign meddling. The origin of the Yemeni crisis is inside Yemen and will only be remedied through an examination of the foundations of the state and its ability to redefine the way it works and how it relates to its citizens. Only such an introspective process will produce solutions capable of guaranteeing the survival of the state's legitimacy. No state that has two-thirds of its people living below the poverty line, a 40 per cent illiteracy rate and a weak central government, is safe from social upheavals. Yemen's dilemma is that the state lacks teeth. The government's energies and effective powers have been sapped in the course of continuous confrontations between the north and the south. As a consequence, Yemeni society has become a breeding ground for every brand of extremist movement or group that seeks a foothold for political and religious projects intended to supersede the nation state. It would be a disaster for Yemen and its neighbours if the three major forces opposed to the regime (the Houthis, the southern secessionists and Al-Qaeda) made common cause and overthrew the regime in Sanaa.
What threatens Yemen has already erupted in other countries, notably Sudan, where calls for secession have been sounded from the south and east, and may soon emerge from the west. Events in Yemen today are almost a repeat of developments in Sudan over the past two decades. In both the central government lost its ability to assert its authority over all the country's territory and it failed to market a vision for an overarching national project as an alternative to local allegiances and secessionist trends.
In Palestine, hopes for the creation of a Palestinian state, even one lacking full sovereign rights, have faded. The reason for this is not to be found so much in political divisions as in the spread of extremism and the increasing insistence by different groups that they alone represent the national cause. In other countries, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco among them, a similar peril menaces, as yet from a relatively safe distance. In Egypt, where discontent seethes below the surface, the government retains the power to contain and deter. Yet only a few years ago, the social and religious tension that has been manifesting itself as such an alarming rate was inconceivable and it was impossible to conceive of a force that could rival the power and prestige of the state. Egypt is far from becoming a failed state, in the sense of the collapse of central government and the disintegration of the political system. This does not, however, obviate against the erosion of the status of the state and its moral capital, a result of its poor economic performance, increasingly glaring social disparities and its failure to assimilate important segments of society. In such a climate the question of the handover of power could well become the straw that breaks the back of Egypt's delicate social cohesion, all the more so if the hereditary succession scenario is pushed through regardless of the risks.
The danger looming over the Arab world resides not so much in the spectre of the collapse of this regime or that but in the ability of its social structures to withstand the consequences of deferring promises for more than half a century. Nothing is inconceivable in the region. Who would ever have imagined that the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran could teeter as it did recently, or that state and society in Yemen would stand on the brink of collapse? Who would have imagined that the economic and social situation in an ancient country such as Egypt could have reached its current degree of festering tensions?
Three factors are the primary cause of potential unrest. The first is the declining credibility of the Arab nation state due to political incompetence, economic corruption, social injustice, the failure to achieve domestic cohesion and to embrace religious and sectarian minorities, and the inability to meet the growing demands and aspirations of certain segments of society, notably young people. The second is the growing tendency on the part of the Arab state towards exclusiveness and an ever tighter monopoly on power, expressed daily in the form of police repression and tighter social surveillance and the natural reaction to which is social and sectarian discontent and rebelliousness. It is sufficient in this regard to note the current state of the relationship between some Arab governments and moderate Islamist movements. The mutual suspicion and hostility that characterises this relationship could cause many members of these movements to revise their regard for the value of peaceful political action and also drive others into the embrace of radical Islamist groups, as occurred recently in Gaza. The third factor is outside forces eager to exploit internal tensions to strengthen their influence in Arab society and whose success in such designs is contingent upon the existence of the foregoing conditions.
These factors combine to create the four types of Arab states we see at present in this region. The first are those that enjoy a degree of economic competence and social legitimacy but that are unable to tolerate serious opposition, which encourages radical opposition, especially of the militant Islamist sort. Many of the Gulf countries fall into this category.
The second type is to be found in those states that live on past laurels but are incapable of regenerating their political legitimacy due to their weak economic performance and consequent social tensions. In this category we find Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, countries in which the conditions are rife for civil strife and immanent upheaval.
At a third level there are those states that survive on a minimum degree of legitimacy and have no tolerance whatsoever for opposition both at home and abroad. Libya, Tunisia and Syria are models of this type of state, each the potential prey to an implosion of tremendous force should the appropriate conditions ripen.
At the lowest level we find those states that have lost the ability to survive in one piece as society around them crumbles and disintegrates with the help of outside agencies. In this category are Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Lebanon.
Perhaps US pressures for reform offered the last opportunity for many Arab regimes to take a closer look at their situations and revise their calculations. Unfortunately, it appears that the desire to monopolise power prevailed, with the result that the Arab state today stands teetering between precarious stability and full-scale implosion.

Re-thinking Al-Wasat Party

2009-09-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

The Daily News Egypt, September 11, 2009

I do not know why the Party Affairs Committee refused to give legal license to Al-Wasat Party. The reasons for the decision were not convincing at all. The announced reason behind the rejection is that Al-Wasat’s program offers nothing new to the political arena in Egypt.
However, there were hidden reasons behind the decision. Since 1996, the party founders have applied four times to obtain the right to form a party, but all their requests were rejected.
The real reason behind rejecting Al-Wasat Party is that the Egyptian regime still insists on excluding all moderate Islamists from the political scene, and it still depends on the security approach in dealing with all Islamists without distinction whether they are extremists or moderates.
Theoretically speaking, Egypt has about 24 parties whose names Egyptians do not even know, nor do they know who their leaders are, except for the four major ones: the National Democratic Party, Al-Wafd, Al-Taggammu and the Arab Party; as well as the two new parties, of Al-Ghad, which split after its leader Ayman Nour was imprisoned, and the Democratic Front Party, whose leader Osama Al-Ghazali Harb tried to build on sound political foundations.
It is unfair to have all liberal, nationalist, and Nasserite currents represented, while there is no legitimate or legal representation of the Islamist trend. There was hope that Al-Wasat would represent and lead this trend, but the regime insisted on excluding it too.
It would be naive to say that Al-Wasat’s program does not offer anything different from the existing parties, since it provides progressive political and religious ideas. It differs radically from the Muslim Brotherhood, which is still struggling between its political and religious roles.
The question is, is the regime so afraid of Al-Wasat to the extent of denying it a license?
This is definitely untrue.
The regime has an excellent ability to destroy parties from the inside, as it has done to many parties, such as Al-Ahrar, Al-Wafd and Al-Ghad. Thus, the regime can easily command, control and monitor Al-Wasat and its members.
Hence I believe that there are three main reasons for rejecting Al-Wasat Party. The first reason is that there is a structural problem in the Egyptian official mentality with regard to dealing with Islamists in general. As I said before, the decision-makers see this issue as a threat to Egypt’s national security and should not be tolerated by any means.
The second reason is that the regime fears that Abul-Ela Madi, the party’s founder, and his co-founder Essam Sultan, are just a façade for the Muslim Brotherhood; and after obtaining the license, the Muslim Brotherhood will jump in and control it either from above or down through penetration via membership.
This claim is illogical, not only because of the strong disagreement between Abul-Ela Madi and the Muslim Brotherhood, as the relation between them has reached a deadlock, but also because of the structural differences between the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ideas of Al-Wasat.
The third reason is that the regime fears that Al-Wasat would be the real alternative to the ruling National Democratic Party and that it would attract political and popular figures who may ask to share power or to play as the main opposition in parliament.
In short, rejecting the establishment of Al-Wasat is a veiled message to all Islamists that they are unwelcome in this country, something which could lead to disaster in the future.

Egypt Pressures Muslim Group

2009-08-31T05:46:00.000-07:00

By ASHRAF KHALIL

WSJ, August 26, 2009

CAIRO -- Egypt has accelerated a crackdown against the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, amid uncertainty over succession plans by President Hosni Mubarak and ahead of next year's parliamentary polls.

Authorities last week detained 30 Brotherhood members in the city of Suez. Two days later, security forces arrested seven midlevel Brotherhood officials gathered for a meeting in Cairo. The next day, officials rounded up an additional 18 members northeast of the capital. Two detainees have since been released, but the 53 others rounded up remain in custody without charges.

The flurry of detentions appears to be wider ranging than previous crackdowns on the group, targeting activists and Brotherhood leaders seen as moderates and reform-minded. In July, two prominent young Brotherhood bloggers, Abdel Rahman Ayyash and Magdy Saad, were detained at Cairo's airport. They spent a week in custody before being released.

In June, Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, another prominent moderate and a member of the Brotherhood's ruling guidance council, was arrested. He remains behind bars, uncharged, on a rolling series of 15-day detention orders, the latest handed down Sunday.

Brotherhood officials and some analysts say the crackdown is the latest push by Mr. Mubarak to marginalize the group. "It has become a zero-sum game," said Khalil al-Anani, an expert on Islamist political movements. In a July article published in the Daily News Egypt newspaper, Mr. Anani wrote that the Mubarak regime seeks "to eradicate [the Brotherhood] completely from political life."

Officials aligned with the government suggest the crackdown has more to do with public criticism of Egypt's muted reaction to an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. The Brotherhood organized public demonstrations over the issue, in defiance of a government security lockdown.

In a January statement, the group's supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, challenged the regime to cut political and economic ties with Israel, and fully open the border with Gaza.

"The Brotherhood has been overstepping their role regarding foreign policy," said Abdel Moneim Said, head of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, and a member of the powerful Policies Secretariat in the ruling National Democratic Party. Now the government, he said, "wants to remind them of the limits of the game."

Efforts to obtain comment from government officials were unsuccessful. Egyptian officials typically speak of the Brotherhood as a threat to public order and often refuse to refer to it by name in interviews, instead calling it "the banned group."

The 81-year-old Mr. Mubarak has ruled Egypt for almost three decades. In June, he looked frail receiving U.S. President Barack Obama in Cairo, triggering a fresh bout of speculation about his health.

During his trip to Washington this month, however, he looked more vigorous, quieting health concerns. Still, Mr. Mubarak has never made a succession plan clear, refusing even to name a vice president.

The Brotherhood's influence here has fallen in recent years. Technically outlawed, it still fields Brotherhood-affiliated candidates in Egyptian elections. In 2005, those candidates won 20% of seats in parliament, which triggered roundups and detentions.

Egypt also amended its constitution to make it more difficult for independent candidates, like those affiliated with the Brotherhood, to run. The Brotherhood boycotted local council elections last year after the government rounded up more than 800 of its members, including dozens of prospective candidates.

Some reformist members say the new crackdown could backfire by radicalizing members. The group swore off violence in the 1970s.

Islamists, US policy and Arab democracy

2009-08-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

John L Esposito*

Al-ahram Weekly, August 22, 2009
The continued detention of Abdel-Moneim Abu Fatouh, prominent professional, Muslim Brotherhood leader, and moderate voice for reform is a reminder of the need to distinguish more clearly between moderate (non-violent) Islamists and terrorists. US and European policymakers must pursue a diplomatic path of engagement and dialogue with moderate Islamists and with Arab and Muslim partners at the same time that they use a military strategy to capture and contain Muslim terrorists.
Islamist parties are an integral part of Muslim politics and societies and they are not going away. Since the late 20th century Islamic-oriented candidates and political parties in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia have opted for reform through ballots, not bullets. They have successfully contested and won municipal and parliamentary seats, held cabinet positions, and served in senior positions such as prime minister of Turkey and president of Indonesia. Elections since late 2001 in Pakistan, Turkey, Bahrain and Morocco, as well as in Palestine, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have reinforced the continued saliency of Islam in Muslim politics in the 21st century.
A critical challenge today is to distinguish between mainstream and extremist groups, secular and religious, and to work with democratically elected Islamists. US administrations and many European governments have often said that they distinguish between mainstream and extremist groups. However, more often that not, they have looked the other way when autocratic rulers in Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere have intimidated and suppressed mainstream Islamist groups or attempted to reverse their electoral successes. The challenge has been particularly complex in connection to resistance movements like Hamas and Hizbullah. Both are elected political parties with a popular base. At the same time, they are resistance movements whose militias have fought Israeli occupation and whom Israel, the United States, and Europe have labelled as terrorist organisations.
There are established precedents for dealing with such groups, such as the ANC in South Africa and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA in Ireland -- groups with which we've had to come to terms. The United States and Europe need to deal with the democratically elected officials, while also condemning strongly any acts of terrorism by their militias and clearly distinguishing terrorist attacks upon civilians from legitimate resistance. At the same time, the US must condemn Israeli attacks upon civilians like the recent Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and the 2006 assault upon Lebanon.
The Bush legacy in the Muslim world leaves America with a significant credibility gap to overcome. While the spread of democracy has been the stated goal of the United States, majorities in some 35 Muslim nations surveyed by Gallup did not believe that the US was serious about the establishment of democratic systems in the region. For example, only 24 per cent in Egypt and Jordan and only 16 per cent in Turkey agreed that the United States was serious about establishing democratic systems.
America and European governments that advocate self- determination and democracy need to demonstrate by their statements and policies that they respect the right of any and all movements and political parties, religious as well as secular, to participate in the political process. Failure to respond to the subversion of the electoral process in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Musharraf's Pakistan, the attempt "to manage" and determine the process of democratisation in post-Saddam Iraq, and the refusal to recognise the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza must be avoided if the West, and the US in particular, is to avoid the charge that it operates on a clear double standard. Respect and support for the democratic process and human rights have to be seen as truly universal.
Governments in the Muslim world are challenged to demonstrate their commitment to political liberalisation, civil society and human rights by fostering the development of civil institutions and values that support democratisation. Policies must distinguish between organisations, secular or Islamic, that threaten the freedom and stability of society and those that are willing to participate in a process of gradual change from within the system. The litmus test for both governments and reform/opposition will be their internalisation of the principles and values of democracy, plus the extent to which their policies and actions reflect an acceptance of basic democratic freedoms, diversity of opinion, of multiple political parties and civil society organisations, as well as an appreciation for the concept of a "loyal opposition" rather than viewing alternative voices and political visions as a threat to the political system.
* The writer is university professor of religion and international affairs and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

Give the moderates a chance

2009-08-22T05:03:00.001-07:00

By Khalil El-Anani

Al-ahram Weekly, Augest 22, 2009
Arab authoritarian regimes are in the habit of repressing moderate Islamist movements without thinking of the consequences. We don't have real political parties in the Arab world. Most of our secular and liberal parties are in tatters and offer no real competition to the regimes. Therefore, the only alternative to moderate Islamists is the radicals and militants who are willing to turn to violence at a moment's notice.
If Arab regimes want to exclude moderate Islamists from politics, then at least they should open the way for secular and liberal parties to assert themselves in political life. This is not happening, do you know why? Because the regimes want to use the Islamists as a bogeyman to scare the West. Interestingly enough, the West -- especially the US -- is not buying it.
Since the Muslim Brotherhood's spectacular performance in the 2005 elections, the confrontation between the regime and the group has been on the rise. But over the past six months or so, the regime has done everything to drive the Brotherhood out of political life, accusing it of money laundering, terror, and links with Hizbullah. I wouldn't be surprised to see Brotherhood members accused of links with Al-Qaeda before long.
The Muslim Brotherhood is taking it lying down, fearing that any resistance would lead to more repression. Consequently, the Brotherhood is likely to disappear within a few years. This would be the end of moderate Islamists in this country, but not the end of radicalism.
There is an undercurrent of radicalism among the young in Egypt. And in the absence of moderates, radicals will have a field day. Perhaps the security services will catch some radicals every now and then, but some are likely to escape the dragnet and do considerable damage.
The regime cannot go on cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood without offering alternatives. This country has several secular parties -- liberals, nationalists, Nasserists, etc -- and yet it doesn't have one Islamist party. It is time to allow the moderates to have their party. Al-Wasat Party seems like a credible candidate, if you ask me.

Mubarak Regime and Brotherhood: Zero-Sum Game

2009-07-19T04:57:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani
Daily News Egypt

Hypothetical question: What would happen if Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef was arrested?

Hypothetical answer: Nothing.

The Egyptian regime has succeeded in scaring the society from and neutralizing it regarding the Muslim Brotherhood. But at the same time it did not succeed in eradicating the Brotherhood from the Egyptian society. The group remains steadfast in the face of the regime’s crackdown.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the relationship between the two parties have changed from a mere political confrontation to “us or them” type of battle.

Over the past few weeks about five members of the group’s Guidance Office have been arrested — the first time since the 1954 Al-Manshiya incident in which the Muslim Brotherhood was accused of attempting the assassination of President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Over the past quarter of a century (1981-2006) the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Mubarak regime was based on a simple implicit equation known to all: namely allowing the group to play its religious (preaching) and social role (charity) on the condition of not threatening the political survival of the regime.

The two parties have applied this equation until the early 2000s, when the regime turned against the group. This became evident after the 2005 parliamentary elections when the group achieved a historic victory that shook the ground under the feet of the ruling party.

Since the beginning of 2006 the Egyptian regime has been applying a comprehensive strategy aimed at isolating the Muslim Brotherhood socially and undermining them economically in preparation to eradicate them completely from political life and transform the group into an antique that can be placed in the Egyptian Museum. Therefore, the problem of the regime with the Brotherhood isn’t merely electoral bickering or a media battle anymore, but rather a problem of survival and existential threat.

The Brotherhood has failed to face the regime’s strategy and has committed grave mistakes, notably its inability to form a national coalition to confront the regime’s oppression, in addition to the large distance separating the Brotherhood and the society resulting in the group’s isolation from its grassroots.

Mubarak’s regime has gotten us used to the fact that the more the regime oppresses the Muslim Brotherhood the more this indicates that the regime has an intention to hold dialogue with them behind the scenes in preparation for political bargains between them.

It must be noted that the recent crackdown on the group comes amid talks about power inheritance in Egypt and the dissolution of the People’s Assembly scenarios, not to mention the heated conflict between the old and the new guards within the ruling party.

Although the Egyptian regime would not scruple to uproot the Muslim Brotherhood from the Egyptian soil — certainly it won’t be able to do what its predecessors (Abdel Nasser and Sadat) couldn’t — the Egyptian society would pay a heavy price as a result of the nihilistic confrontation between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Firstly, the stepped up crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood could increase the polarization within the Egyptian scene, which is already boiling over other many political, economic and social factors.

Secondly, the political and religious isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood could contribute to the emergence of either more superficial or stricter religious discourse.

Thirdly, the increased suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood could force some of the group’s grassroots to turn on their leaders and stage violent protests or call for civil disobedience.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the arrest of the group’s leading reformers, led by Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, is tantamount to the execution of Sayyid Qutb in mid 1960s of the last century and its far-reaching repercussions on the Muslim Brotherhood’s young generation and the other young religious enthusiasts at the time.

It is enough to look at the Muslim Brotherhood discussion boards and blogs to find out the extent of resentment and tension among the Brotherhood grassroots after the arrest of Aboul Fotouh, and their appeals to the group’s leaders to move and to take firm positions against the regime.

Fourth, the arrest of the group’s reformists and moderates could throw the group into intolerance and conservatism. This could benefit the regime temporarily, but it could adversely affect the society on the long run.

Fifth, the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood could contribute to the emergence of radical religious movements seeking to fill the religious and political gap between the state and the society.

Sixth, the targeting of the Muslim Brotherhood could lead to its breakup and fragmentation of the group into smaller groups and pockets that do not abide by the decisions of their leaders.

Finally, the regime’s oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood could lead to the repetition of the Algerian model in the early 1990s when the military and secularists turned on democracy and deprived the Islamists of their legitimate gains, turning Algeria into a pool of blood still bleeding to the very moment, which we do not wish to happen in Egypt.

The fight for the Iranian Republic

2009-06-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

Daily News Egypt

The significance of the current gridlock in Iran goes beyond what happened in the June 12 elections. It strikes at the heart of a political theory, which is the source of religious and political legitimacy of the State of Iran, namely “Wilayat Al-Faqih” or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists, which has served as a barrier protecting and theocratizing the Iranian State for over three decades.
One fault of the Iranian constitution is that it did not draw boundaries between the authorities within the State of Iran. Instead, they apportioned the powers and authorities and made them overlap in an ambiguous way.
The legislative power, for example, has been apportioned among several parties such as the Majlis of Iran (the Islamic Consultative Assembly), the Guardian Council and the Expediency Discernment Council. There is no judicial authority that can decide on the validity of laws.
Although the Iranian constitution gives the Supreme Leader absolute powers and a guardianship over the whole country (and sometimes over all Muslims of the world), it does not give the Council of Experts the power to bring to account the leader for his mistakes or personal inclinations, but it only has the power to appoint or dismiss him.
The constitution also gives the Guardian Council powers broader than that of the president, the parliament and the judiciary (Articles 4, 68, 72, 85, 93, 94, 98, 99), while this council is answerable to the Supreme Leader.
Furthermore, although the authority given to the Expediency Discernment Council seems to be fettered by the Supreme Leader’s powers (Article 112) it has significant powers to interpret and amend the constitution (Article 176). Thus, the map of powers and authorities in the Iranian political system is inextricably correlated, making it vulnerable to different interpretations and changes in the event of a crisis similar to the current one.
The current developments in Iran are nothing but a new episode in the struggle between religious clerics and the Ayatollahs for political clout in the decision-making process in Iran. The hidden conflict between Hashemi Rafsanjani, current head of the Assembly of Experts and the powerful Expediency Discernment Council, and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is a struggle for leadership, not only for the powers laid down by the two men when they joined forces after the death of Khomeini.
Rafsanjani was the architect of Khamenei’s appointment as the supreme leader following a controversy about his efficiency as an influential religious leader after the exclusion of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri a few months before the death of Khomeini.
Khamenei’s religious and political leadership was consolidated after a historic political trickery between him and Rafsanjani whereby they eliminated the right of the Ayatollahs inside and outside Iran to claim religious leadership.
Since the mid-90s the supreme leader has broadened his powers and has tightened his grip on politics in Tehran, on the grounds that he holds both the time (guidance) and religious leadership, thus affecting his relation with Rafsanjani, who has since led a political trend aimed at minimizing Khamenei’s powers and restricting them to religious matters.
The conflict between Khamenei and Rafsanjani reached its peak after the latter’s defeat in the 2005 presidential elections. At the time, it seemed that Khamenei was working for the defeat of his former ally so as to monopolize power with an unknown president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the absence of the electoral balance between Ahmadinejad and Mir Moussavi in the interest of Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani had only two options: to exercise pressure in order to divest Ahmadinejad of his legitimacy by calling into question the integrity of the entire electoral process, assisted by the mistakes committed by Ahmadinejad during the electoral campaign, most notably accusing Rafsanjani and his family of corruption and nepotism, as well as the arrest of a number of his family members during the post-election week of protests.
The second option was to move the conflict from the president to the supreme leader by re-opening the file of Khamenei’s religious and political capacity and his efficiency to lead the Iranian nation, and reviving the controversy that surrounded Khamenei’s assumption of power 20 years ago.
Therefore, the possible way out of the current Iranian crisis will be either one of two scenarios: the first is to remove Ahmadinejad from the presidency to appease Rafsanjani and restore the balance between him and Khamenei as well as to give the reformists their share of the Republic’s cake.
The second scenario, which is more dangerous, is to remove Khamenei from his religious and political post by inciting the religious leaders against him.
Khalil Al-Anani is an expert on Political Islam and Deputy Editor of Al Siyassa Al Dawliya journal published by Al-Ahram Foundation. email: kalanani@gmail.com

Cairo University, the Big Prize

2009-06-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

I believe that the only gain from Obama visit to Egypt is picking Cairo University to be the place to outreach the Muslim World. Cairo University will be under the eye of the world and the global media will put it a spotlight on it.
The University has suffered greatly from neglect and disregard for the past three decades, the last important event of the University was the speech of President Anwar Sadat at the Dome of the university's celebrations in 1970s. I remember when I graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences fourteen years ago, was an honorary part of the graduation ceremony in the same room, which will witness Obama speech to the Muslim World. During that time, the Dom looked like an old man no body cares about his sufferance.
Historically, the Cairo University, was a great place to produce the best scientists, thinkers, and scholars during the last century. Our national leaders graduated from it, such as Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa Al-Nahas, Makram Obeid, Talaat Harb, Taha Hussein, Ahmed Lotfi Al-Sayed, Abdel-Razek Alsanhori, and Naguib Mahfouz.
Recently, many ministers and the current Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin, Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Mufid Shehab and others distinguished in Egypt and the Arab world have graduated from the university. Moreover, The University has one of the oldest clocks in the world which has been established in 1937.
However, the university has disappeared from the arena of global scientific excellence; it was not selected during the last three years in the top 500 university in the world. As a result, the level of civil liberties within the university have been diminished, and the student elections is not free and. Moreover, the security forces are controlling everything in the university. They arrest all students who belong to the opposition parties and suppress professors and scholars who are calling for more freedoms and improving wages and salaries.
While the suffering members of the faculty and staff from the low salaries and wages, as well as the low level of science laboratories in schools and a decline in the quality of teachers in the faculties of medicine, engineering, and economics.Now Obama, will restore the image of Cairo University, and will take it back to the spotlight around the world. How much I wished that Obama meet with ordinary people and students not politicians and members of the NDP, the ruling party. I had hoped that the Obama meet with all Egyptian youth from Upper Egypt, Delta, Sinai, and Matrouh, not with businessmen and famous Egyptians. I wished that he had the chance to meet openly with ordinary Egyptians to inspire them such as he did with the European youth in Strasbourg in the late of April.
Nevertheless, I’d like to thank Obama for choosing Cairo University, as a place to launch a historical speech to the Muslim World, and I am sure that this visit will be recorded by history and forever.

Thank you Mr. President.

Al-Qaeda in Egypt?

2009-05-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

The Egyptian authorities announced the arrest of a cell, seven people claiming they had the bombing of Al-Hussein, on 22 February. The exciting thing in the statement of the Ministry of the Interior is the link between the cell and al-Qaeda and the Army of Islam in Palestine. The Statement did not prejudice the internal contradictions of the strange, the first being that the statement refers to the members of the cell had entered Egypt from the Gaza Strip through tunnels, and they received intensive training to carry out bombings in Egypt and Paris. This contrasts with the bombing, which occurred in Al-Hussein, which was through the use of an improvised explosive device, was homemade bomb, which has been mentioned before in the government statement after the incident took place directly. Secondly, if Al Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of Al-Hussein, it would have claimed responsibility for directly. One of the characteristics of al-Qaeda is to influence the media and the desire to emerge.
Third, Al Qaeda and despite its interest in Egypt, it did not constitute any cells, whether active or dormant, for the simple reason that most of former jihadists know well, Ayman Zawahiri, and refuse to pledge allegiance to the Emir of Jihad Organization, which stopped the use of violence. Fourthly, that those who carried out the bombing of Al-Hussein did not leave a message on their goal of the bombing, and whether the purpose was to embarrass the Egyptian regime, or to send a message to the Western countries.
The story of Al-Qaeda looks fabricated and unreal. However, if not al Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of Al-Hussein, who is? I wrote previously that in Egypt, a small jihadist cells adopt the ideas of jihad, which are not associated with large organizations such as al-Qaida or the jihadi organizations such as the group known as Islamic Jihad or others. Many of these cells have been dismantling during the last three years. Along the lines of what happened with the "Tawhid and Jihad," which the 2004 bombings in Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh bombings in 2005.

The second question is: Why the Government announced that the responsibility of al Qaeda? There are two reasons for this, either the government knows the real cause of Al-Hussein and the bombings but did not wish to disclose his or detection of a political or social considerations. Or that the government wants to use the scarecrow to justify al-Qaeda a state of emergency and issued a new law on terrorism. It is known that the Palestinian Army of Islam hasn’t involved at any operations since 2007, whether within or outside the Palestinian territories. In 2006 when it participated in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier "Gilad Shalit" with Hamas. The second operation was the kidnapping of British journalist who works for “BBC" in March 2007.

This is not the first time the Egyptian government about the arrest of al Qaeda cells in Egypt, in 2007 the Interior Ministry announced it had arrested 35 members of the governorates of Beni Suef and Al-Qalubia, and directing the first of its kind, accusing them of belonging to the organization of «Al-Qaeda", and since that time has not hear anything about this organization. Assuming that the story of the Ministry of the Interior is correct, and that al-Qaida began operating in Egypt, however, this reflects the serious implications. First, it is a sign that Egypt will witness a new wave of terrorist acts that has been stalled for years. Secondly, that al Qaeda has resorted to recruiting young, especially in light of the situation of the economic and social tensions that have affected the current of young people frustrated by the lack of jobs and food. Third, al Qaeda might benefit from the growth of the Salafi movement in Egypt is now in order to shift the direction to Jihadi Salafism. In short, there is no convincing evidence that Al Qaeda have a presence in the real Egypt, at least until now.

A Burden Tongue

2009-05-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

It seems that the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, has become a burden on the group, and the cause of many of the problems faced with the Egyptian regime. True that the Egyptian regime was pursuing a comprehensive strategy since 2006 to exclude the Brotherhood from the political scene, but the problem is that the Muslim Brotherhood recklessly dealing with this fact. The errors occurred in the group has given many justifications for the regime to target the movement and to arrest many of its prominent leaders.

New crackdown on the Brotherhood, which had been arrested nearly 14 members of the first and second line leaders are a continuation of the ongoing series of arrests by the regime against the group, but also a reaction to the strong statements and irresponsible by the leader of the group a few days ago with Hizbullah in the case of the cell that was disclosed late last April, in addition to a strong attempt to do demonstrations of solidarity with the Jerusalem issue.

True, Mahdi Akef, deals not wait very fervent in his choice of words, but it is also true that his statements to provoke the regime and give an excuse to crack down on the group and arrested its members. There are many examples of a bad choice of his words. His mistakes as occurred in many errors can be recorded in the book to ridicule. Akef has occurred in three major mistakes over the past few months, the first of that deal with the issue of Gaza war from the perspective of emotional and not political, and tried to take revenge on the regime and attempt to mobilize the people against it during the demonstrations by the group during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip during the months of December and January 2009. The regime was in very critical because of the pressure on the regional played by Iran and Hezbollah, an effective role for the destabilization of the situation in Egypt and the people agitating against the regime. In spite of the absence of organizational ties between Muslim Brotherhood and Iran or between them and Hizbullah, but the regime tried to link the group with the regional hub, which includes Iran and Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Second, the strange situation from Mahdi Akef in the issue of "Hezbollah cell," which was unveiled last April, which did not distinguish between the Egyptian national interest and sympathy with Hezbollah. The Supreme Guide, faced strong criticism from all political forces in support of its position on Hezbollah. This provoked the regime and makes it just waiting for the opportunity to suppress the group. The current issue known as the "International Organization of Brotherhood" where about 14 members were charged with working to revive the international organization of Muslim Brotherhood and to support the Islamic movements abroad and try to train their members to use violence. Despite the lack of a realistic case and untutored but given the rules of the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to invalidate them, distort their image.

Thirdly, the Muslim Brotherhood did not deal intelligently with the U.S. President’s Barak Obama visit to Cairo that should take place on the fourth of June. The reaction of the group cool to Cairo to take a selection of Obama speech for the Islamic world, and the leaders of the group the distinction between Egypt as history and great civilization, and the problem with the Egyptian regime.

The problem of the Muslim Brotherhood, they do not learn from their mistakes and not aware of the seriousness of the current stage with the group. The group as they face the challenges of internal and external. First, there is the case of a vacuum within the intellectual community in the group, where there is no clear strategy for the group to deal with the continued repression of the regime. The movement resorts to the technique of patience, even with adversity.

Secondly, the group refuses to enter into political alliances with the opposition parties to address the suppression system, and since 2005 the relationship between the group and the rest of the parties and the break with a big gap. Thirdly, the group has lost its ability to inspire its members, especially young people, which significantly affect the image of the group in front of the society.

Fourthly, the group lost its luster because of their ideas to the public reaction and its inability to deliver a democratic and civic discoure.

It is time for Brotherhood to wake up and rethink their political calculations. Moreover, Mr. Akef should be accountable for his uncontrolled tongue.

Khalil Al-anani is expert on political Islam and Senior Fellow at Alahram Foundation. His e-mail is: kalanani@gmail.com

De-Radicalization in Egypt and its impact on Al-Qaeda

2009-04-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

It is remarkable that even as al-Qaeda is stepping up violence and terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, a process of revisionism—of rethinking jihadi doctrine and philosophy—is gaining steam, presided over by leaders of formerly violent extremist groups who now profess the error of the thought and ideology that have guided them for the past two decades. The various revisionist efforts reinterpret religious texts and fatwas related to jihad1 with the objective of minimizing extremist or militant understandings of sacred texts, so as to make these texts more grounded in reality and more suitable for practical application.
Revisionism has taken hold in Egypt, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia, bringing to light rifts between jihadi movements and among their members. Yet, disagreement continues regarding the potential of the revisionist movement to put out the flame of jihad in the Islamic world; to stop—or at least reduce— jihadi violence; and to influence new generations of jihadis. This Brief examines one instance of jihadi revisionism—Sayyid Imam al-Sharif’s 2007 renunciation of his own influential jihadi manifesto—and the response of the jihadis, especially that of Ayman al-Zawahiri, to this effort.

Middle East Brief No. 35, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, US

For full text press: http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/meb/MEB35.pdf

Electing guidance

2009-04-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

Al-ahram Weekly, 5 - 11 March 2009

Will the eighth Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide be selected through a vote or consensus? At the age of 81 the current supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, doesn't want to stay on for another term. His leaving the post would be unprecedented. Previous holders have stayed in the post until they died or were otherwise incapacitated.

The MB doesn't really have a voting system. In previous cases the supreme guide was selected by the 13-member General Guidance Office, then endorsed by the rest of the group's members.

It is a system that has served the MB well in the past. The group never experienced a power struggle over its most senior post. Only once was there a hint of a power struggle, when the fifth general guide, Mustafa Mashhour, was named during the funeral of his predecessor in 1996. The move was widely seen as an attempt to block his rival, Maamoun El-Hodeibi. On Mashhour's death in 2002 he was succeeded by El-Hodeibi.

According to recently-amended MB statutes the supreme guide should be selected through a vote in the group's 90-member Shura Council. Each member would be asked to name three candidates for the post, not including himself, and the one with the most votes wins.

Candidates are not expected to campaign since it is assumed MB members are already familiar with their views. As things stand a conservative, rather than reformer, is expected to win. The reason is that most of the MB Shura Council members are from the second and third generations of the group's recruits, known for their conservative politics.

So who are the main candidates for the job?

The MB Secretary-General Mahmoud Ezzat, an ultra- conservative who prefers to focus on doctrinal rather than political matters, is a contender. Another is Mohamed Habib, currently first deputy to the supreme guide, who prefers political to doctrinal work. If the two men run neck to neck Ezzat is likely to concede to Habib whose political savvy makes him more popular both inside and outside the group.

The current supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, is likely to keep a keen eye on the selection process, intervening when necessary to prevent frictions from turning into bad blood.

MB reformers have no hope of winning. Their supporters are either too young or too disorganised to make their voice heard. Even the reformers are eager to maintain the image of unity the group seems to treasure. The young, in particular, are going to be excluded from the vote since they are not represented on the MB Shura Council. Few, then, expect whoever is finally selected to satisfy all MB members.

This need not have been the case. The MB could have overhauled its electoral system in two ways: by allowing the young to vote and by allowing all members aged 40 years and above to run. Admittedly, it is hard for the MB to hold elections due to security impediments, but it may have been able to do so by electronic means, e- mail for example.

MB branches in Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, Kuwait and Morocco all hold fair and free elections for the leadership post. Only in Egypt does the group cling to the old ways. Every now and then you hear people wanting a non-Egyptian as the overall head of the international MB operations. This is unlikely to happen. The Egyptian MB has occupied this role since its inception and is not going to give it up easily.

The new leader will be faced with urgent tasks. One is to steer the MB down a more democratic and egalitarian course, especially with regard to citizenry rights. Another is to make the MB more accommodating of younger generations. A third is to seek a means of coexistence with the regime and the opposition, preparatory to turning the group from an underground religious organisation to a legally functioning political party.

Khalil Al-Anani is an Egyptian expert on political Islam and democratization in the Middle East and is a senior fellow at Al-Ahram Foundation. E-mail: kalanani@gmail.com

The Brotherhood’s relationship with the US

2009-04-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

Khalil al-Anani

Daily News Egypt, April 9th, 2009

The relationship between the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood will always remain a complex one. This is not only because of the mistrust between the two parties that has increased during the Bush era, which has dealt with the Islamic world with haughtiness, but also because neither party is willing to engage in an unconditional dialogue.
The question should be what does the Muslim Brotherhood want to discuss with President Barack Obama, not whether the Brotherhood can actually do so.
Since President Obama took office, the Muslim Brotherhood has appeared more willing to engage in dialogue with the United States, especially in light of Obama’s much-touted new discourse about the Islamic world and his desire to turn a new page with it on the basis of mutual respect.
The Brotherhood believes that the time has come for Obama to mend what the neo-cons have destroyed and to re-examine US foreign policy in the Middle East.
The Brotherhood’s need for dialogue with Obama has increased in light of his diplomatic approach towards Iran, Syria and the Taliban.
But the group has set three preconditions for dialogue with the Obama administration. The first pertains to the US stance on the Egyptian regime.
The Brotherhood have serious doubts about the ability of President Obama to boost freedom and democracy in Egypt, and they are confident that Obama will not place pressure on the Egyptian regime to improve the record of liberties and political reform because Obama needs Egypt’s support in the Palestinian issue.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s misgivings about Obama are corroborated by the very fact that he has not mentioned a word about democracy in the Middle East since his inauguration two and a half months ago.
The second condition is that the Obama administration should reconsider its position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly with regard to the need to recognize Hamas as a key player in the Palestinian arena. In this regard, there seems to be a divergence between the stances of the Brotherhood and the United States, which will not sacrifice its relationship with Israel for dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The third condition is that the Obama administration should change its outlook on Islamists in general, distinguish between extremists and moderates and desist from trying to dominate the Arab and Muslim world.
But can the Muslim Brotherhood engage in dialogue with Obama even if the US president considers these conditions?
I believe there are two obstacles to the Muslim Brotherhood’s dialogue with Obama: the Brotherhood’s concern that a dialogue with Obama will erode their popularity on the Egyptian street; and their fear of the suppression of the Egyptian regime, which may intervene to stymie any dialogue between the Brotherhood and the United States.
Although the opportunities for dialogue between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Obama administration are not so good, it is not impossible and it could be the Brotherhood’s first step towards gaining legitimacy.
This takes us to the most critical question: will Obama put pressure on the Egyptian regime to grant the Muslim Brotherhood a license to form a political party?

Khalil Al-Anani is an Egyptian expert on political Islam and democratization in the Middle East and is a senior fellow at Al-Ahram Foundation. E-mail: kalanani@gmail.com

Egypt's Facebook activists plan 'day of anger'

2009-04-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

DUBAI: Courtney Radsch
Al-arabiya Net

Egyptian activists planned a 'day of anger' and strikes Monday to protest President Hosni Mubarak’s administration on the one year anniversary of a nationwide strike as the security forces ramped up arrests of anti-government protesters.

Security and police forces were out in force in many city centers including Cairo and Mahalla, the site of deadly clashes between factory strikers and police last year, and made a series of arrests aimed at organizers and participants in the movement.

Dozens of leftists activists and members of the banned Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested Monday following a crackdown over the weekend in which several students and protesters were arrested, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information

“The security forces have been making some random arrests from Kifaya and the April Sixth movement, going on a rampage against all the people who are making this,” one of the organizers of the Facebook group, Abdallah Elshamy, told AlArabiya.net.
Protesters held small protests throughout Cairo despite heavy police presence. A few hundred people gathered at the Press Syndicate that while hundreds of protesters gathered at Cairo and Helwan Universities, according to Twitter updates from activists.

Parliament members affiliated with the banned Islamist Muslim Brotherhood staged a solidarity walk out. The Muslim Brotherhood had called for people to peacefully take part in the 'day of anger' but did not organize its members to participate.

The April Sixth movement formed after a year of worker protests culminated in clashes between security forces and workers in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla on April 6 last year, killing three people, including a child, and injuring more than 150.

Organizers called on participants to wear black and protest at work and school and the Facebook page had more than 75,600 members as of Monday morning.

They want the government to raise the minimum wage from 167 Egyptian pounds ($29) to 1,200 Egyptian pounds ($213) and elect a body to draft a new constitution.

The April Sixth Youth use the social networking site Facebook and the micro-blog Twitter, which allows users to send out short messages called tweets via mobile phones to their followers, along with a forum for criticism of a government in power for more than a quarter century and to push for political and economic right.

But some analysts say that because the movement is a virtual one, without any real organization or set of demands, it cannot build the trust needed to create a coalition among disparate groups to demand real change.

“The movement is still a movement not more than this, so it’s difficult to make political or social change,” al-Ahram Center analyst Khalil al-Anani told AlArabiya.net.

“This year the April Sixth movement didn’t succeed in gathering all angry people behind them; if they would do this they would of course succeed in their strike today,” he added.

Unlike last year, when the virtual movement linked with the Mahalla factory strikers, the movement this year did not get the support of any other strikers or unions such as doctors or truck drivers, who have planned strikes in recent days, said al-Anani.

Muslim Brotherhood succession debate reveals fractures

2009-04-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

By Rasha Saad,

Cairo (dpa)

In Egypt, even opposition leaders rarely step downfrom their positions voluntarily. When rival factions from Ayman Nour's Ghad Party clashed inNovember, they nearly burnt to the ground the party's offices in alandmark downtown Cairo building. In April 2006, the deposed leader of the Wafd Party occupied theparty's headquarters with a band of armed henchmen.

When rivalsarrived and tried to eject him, violent clashes ensued and a firebroke out. Twenty-three people were injured. So it is perhaps no surprise that when 81-year-old Mahdi Akefrecently confirmed that he would not seek to renew his six-year termas the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largestopposition group, the story stayed in the news for days. Akef, whose term will end in January 2010, would become the firstsupreme guide to step down. All of his six predecessors were replacedonly upon their death.

The Brotherhood is officially banned in Egypt, and its members areregularly arrested. For these reasons, members say, the supreme guidehas been selected by the 13-member General Guidance Office, whosedecisions were subsequently endorsed by the rest of members.

In an interview with the regional Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awsatnewspaper following his decision, Akef implied that he sought to setan example. Egypt, he said, "always has a 'late official,' not a'former official'." Akef's resignation thus throws into question whether the groupwill be able to elect a new guide democratically.

Essam al-Arian, a senior member of the group, told the GermanPress Agency dpa that elections would be held to replace Akef, inaccordance with the group's internal statutes, which specify that thesupreme guide should be elected by the Brotherhood's 100-member ShuraCouncil. According to this process, or "voting by consensus," as theBrotherhood calls it, the council presents a list of eligiblecandidates from within the Shura Council as well as a list ofeligible voters. A three-member committee elected from the Guidance Office thenmeets individually with eligible voters separately to cast theirballot.

The group defends the secretive voting process as necessarybecause of the government's frequent arrest campaigns against thegroup, which remains banned in Egypt. Were the group not banned, said Abdel-Galil al-Sharnoudi, editorof the group's website, they would select a supreme guide "in theNational Stadium, in front of millions of Egyptians."

But Khalil al-Anani, expert on political Islam and who has written books about the Brotherhood, said that it is the narrowness,not the secrecy, of the Brotherhood's mechanisms for choosing a newleader that need to be reformed for the group to claim it isdemocratic. "The supreme guide should be chosen through general elections thatinclude representatives of all generations and trends within thegroup, not just the Shura council," al-Anani told dpa.

Al-Anani said the current system limits the possibility for changewithin the group since competition is limited to the conservativeswho constitute the majority of the Shura Council. Moreover, al-Anani said, the small number of "reformers" on thecouncil also have no hope of becoming supreme guide because theirsupporters are either too young or too disorganised to make theirvoice heard, and even the reformers are eager to present the group asunified.

Most observers identify Deputy Supreme Guide Mohammed Habib andGeneral Secretary Mahmoud Ezzat as likely contenders to replace Akefin 2010. While Ezzat has a reputation within the group as preferring tofocus on "dawaa," or religious evangelism, Habib has a reputation asbeing more politically orientated. Al-Anani said that if the two of them got equal votes, Ezzat wouldlikely concede to Habib, whose political experience and pragmatismmake him more popular inside and outside the group. For younger members of the Brotherhood, Akef's decision may heraldthe beginning of internal reforms they have long sought. Ibrahim al-Hudaybi, a young Brotherhood activist whose grandfatherand great-grandfather were both supreme guides, applauded Akef'sdecision, but said it "should be the rule, rather than theexception." "Even inside the guidance office, they know that the groupbenefits from the diversity of its members," he told dpa. "They willnever be able to exclude any forces inside the group."

Habib, the deputy supreme guide, dismissed the importance of therecent reports, saying they were recently republished, a year afterAkef's first announcement that he would not seek a new term. "The matter is thus not on the table for the group now. We willwait until January and see. If Akef insists on his decision, we willtake it from there," Habib told dpa. It was perhaps cautious response from a man often named as alikely successor. But, al-Sharnoudi noted, the Shura Council can alsochoose not to accept Akef's resignation and insist that he stay on. "The Shura Council is not likely to accept Akef's resignationeasily," he told dpa. "His fiery and emotional statements aside, Akefis a leader, and all the Brotherhood agrees on his efficiency andgreat value."

Rewarding hardliners

2009-03-26T23:23:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

Al-ahram Weekly, 26 March - 1 April 2009

President Barack Obama's infatuation with dialogue may have gone too far. He began his presidential term with a promise to talk to foes across the board, including Iran and Syria. And a few days ago he told the Iranians to turn over a new leaf, promising to engage them in far-ranging discussions.
It is good to talk, but not when your opponent sees your overtures as a sign of weakness. The US currently promises to talk to all its adversaries -- Syria, Iran, the Taliban, North Korea, Russia and Somalia. Only Al-Qaeda has been excluded. Even they might be approached! Just wait.
Obama's call for dialogue with Iran, as well as with moderate members of the Taliban, seems rational and pragmatic on the surface. But deep down there is something inane, if not outright sinister, about it. The Nowruz speech shows the US administration to be indecisive at best, hapless at worst.
Thanks to Obama's new policy radicals are being rewarded. The more extreme you are the more likely the US is going to treat you with kid gloves. This type of diplomacy will encourage hardliners to stand tough and feel vindicated. Now Iran, Syria and the Taliban are all thanking their lucky stars.
Everywhere dialogue is offered hardliners will use it to bolster their own position vis-à-vis moderates. This is clear in the case of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who saw Obama's call for dialogue as a personal reward for all the years during which he challenged the West. Come the next presidential elections in June Ahmadinejad will be hard to challenge. And Taliban extremists, who vowed not to let up until the US is defeated, just as the Soviets had been, now feel their years of bloody radicalism have paid off.
From now on the US must brace itself for a hardening of position by all its opponents. And its allies in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, now feeling vulnerable, are soon going to start making demands of their own.
In the midst of all the talk about engaging former foes one group seems to have been left out, the moderate Islamists. President Obama doesn't seem interested in opening channels of dialogue with Islamist moderates, be they legally organised as in the case of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, the Justice and Development Party in Morocco and the Movement for the Society of Peace in Algeria, or legally handicapped as is the case with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria and the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia.
It is ironic that Obama's aides, while touting dialogue with the radicals as if it were a magic cure, seem to have forgotten about the moderates. Newsweek 's Farid Zakaria thinks it is a great idea when in fact it is both naïve and unethical.
Moderate Islamists have a wider appeal across the Arab and Islamic world than the radicals, and are well positioned to challenge Islamic radicalism. Yet they are being left out of the equation while groups that used to chant "death to America" are being solicited to engage.
What is this if not a backhanded boost for the radicals?
Why exactly are the moderates left of the equation? One, perhaps the most important, reason is that the US doesn't want to step on the toes of its allies, who all face a political challenge from Islamist moderates. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria (now a potential US ally) are all happier repressing the Islamist opposition than talking to it. And the Americans don't want to get caught in the middle.
Another reason is that moderate Islamists are not that interested in talking to the US. Some Islamists think that such a dialogue would compromise their puritan image and undermine their political appeal. And now that the US is losing interest in the moderates they are likely to be repressed more by their governments, which in turn may fuel the flames of radicalism. That's how self-defeating the current policies are. We've already seen how Arab governments cracked down on the Islamist opposition in the last two years of the Bush administration. The trend is likely to continue.
By talking to the radicals the US is hoping to drive a wedge between hardcore extremists and those within their ranks with more moderate views. But do you really believe there are moderates in the ranks of the Taliban? Do you really believe that Al-Qaeda was spreading mayhem around the globe just for fun? And what would happen, I wonder, if it transpires that Al-Qaeda is planning a big attack on US interests or those of a US ally? Would the US still opt for dialogue then?

Can Obama talk to the Brotherhood?

2009-03-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani
Daily News Egypt, March, 26

Aiming to open dialogue with rivals of the US like Iran, Syria, and Russia and the Afghani Taliban movement, American president Barack Obama treads the steps of dialogue diplomacy. But can Obama follow the same diplomacy with the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

There are four reasons that will prevent the Obama administration from holding any dialogue with the Brotherhood. First, Obama’s consultants see the political discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood as conflicting with democratic values concerning equality and discrimination between citizens on the grounds of religion and gender. Second on the list is the Brotherhood’s antagonistic attitude towards Israel. Obama’s administration believes that the Brotherhood’s extreme stance towards Israel is manifest in two points: not recognizing Israel as a state and supporting the Hamas movement, Israel’s archenemy. The third reason is the wrong American perception regarding the possibility of a return to violence by the Brotherhood, or backing it up. Finally, is the US perception that the Brotherhood is an unofficial group, legally speaking, and so there can be no talks with it.

On closer inspection, these are only pretexts, not real reasons. The Americans use them to hide the actual reasons. Regarding the first point, it is true that the political and religious discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood seems regressive, particularly concerning the rights of Copts and women, but this is more a consequence of the closed political climate in Egypt which provides the Brotherhood no chance to develop their ideas easily. Moreover, this does not apply to the Brotherhood as a whole, as there is a reformation current within the young generation which adopts a more liberal attitude and defends the rights of Copts and women to be president. At the same time, Obama’s administration will hold talks with Taliban which forbids women from leaving their homes.

Concerning the second reason, the Brotherhood’s attitude towards Israel is no less hostile than the attitude of the nationalists, the Nasserists and ordinary Arabs. The key is not in changing the Brotherhood’s discourse but in the transformation of Israel’s brutal policies towards Palestinians, and respecting international decisions which give Palestinians their rights. Note that the Brotherhood’s discourse is tactically tailored to recruit more people who are willing to change the instant Israel offers tangible compromise to the Palestinians.

It is relevant here to talk about what the Jordanian Brotherhood did in 1994 when they did not oppose the peace agreement Jordan signed with Israel known as “Wady Araba.” At the time strong oppositions stemmed from the Nasserists and nationalists not the Brotherhood. This was simply because there was a good relationship between the Brotherhood and Jordanian regime, which proves that the Muslim Brotherhood is characterized by pragmatism and political realism.

The third reason is altogether wrong, associated as it is, with Western stereotypes of the Muslim Brotherhood in general. They refer to what the group was like in the 40s and 50s, not in 2009. Now the Brotherhood has criminalized violence and seeks inclusion in political life.

As for the fourth reason, it is fictional. The Brotherhood are banned legally but they exist politically and socially and they shape the only major opposition force in Egypt.

I believe that the real motive for the non-existence of American dialogue with the Brotherhood is the American administration’s fear of upsetting the Egyptian regime, and the desire to maintain the historical alliance between the two sides on one hand, and the fear of upsetting Israel and maintaining its interests on the other.

The question is, does the Brotherhood want to talk to Obama? This I will discuss in my next column.

Khalil Al-Anani is an Egyptian expert on political Islam and democratization in the Middle East and is a senior fellow at Al-Ahram Foundation. E-mail: kalanani@gmail.com

Dangerous denial

2009-03-16T01:45:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

Ahram Weekly, March 1-18

The only difference between the Darfur massacre and earlier Arab massacres is one of perception. What used to happen in Arab prisons and dungeons has happened in front of the cameras and in full view of international observers. Human rights brought it out in the open. That's what happened.

Had the International Criminal Court (ICC) existed five decades ago it would have much to contend with. It would have had ample evidence of genocide committed by Arab regimes between the 1950s and the late 1980s. Had this happened, perhaps a few of our leaders would have experienced a fate similar to that of Omar Al-Bashir.

However, many crimes and massacres of the past two decades were committed in the glare of television cameras. And the West and its rights organisations chose not to speak up. What happened in Iraq over the past two decades is a case in point. The blockade and starvation, all orchestrated by the US and endorsed by the world community, led to the deaths of thousands and the displacement of many more. The havoc former US president Bush brought upon Iraq is just as horrific as what Saddam Hussein did, and where is Bush now?

There is no reason for Bush not to be tried as war criminal for what he did in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no reason for Bush not to be tried for the suffering the Palestinians had to endure because of his unquestioning support of Israel's extremists.

What Israel did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Hutus and Tutsis did to each other in the mid-1990s. But I see no one being brought to trial for the displacement of nearly five million people. I don't see anyone held accountable for the massacre of unarmed Palestinians in Sabra, Shatila, Deir Yassin and Qana. The recent war on Gaza alone is enough to put Israeli officials on trial as war criminals. But do you see this happening? Western media and rights organisations have an uncanny capacity either for exaggerating or downplaying what happens around us.

The oddest reaction to the ICC ruling on Al-Bashir came from Sudanese Justice Minister Abdel-Baset Sabdarat. The minister said that the arrest warrant was part of an international conspiracy aimed at seizing "Sudan's oil". The ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is working for Western oil companies, including Shell, Chevron, Texaco and Total, the Sudanese officials say. According to Sabdarat, Moreno-Ocampo simply wanted to "punish Sudan for not allowing these companies to prospect for oil and giving the contracts to Chinese, Malaysian and Indian companies instead."

President Al-Bashir, as expected, denounced the arrest ruling as an act of "neo-colonialism". Borrowing from the rhetoric of Nasser and Saddam, the Sudanese president urged the "formation of an international front to fight all types of imperialism, hegemony, and humiliation."

Sudan, which is not a member of the ICC, is entitled to its views of course. For now, the Sudanese regime claims that the ICC based its decision on exaggerated reports. Only 10,000 people died in Darfur, Sudanese officials said. UN and rights organisations, meanwhile, believe that 300,000 people died and nearly two million more were displaced.

The worst part, as far as I am concerned, is this: the Sudanese regime doesn't think that the killing of 10,000 people is a big deal. Its view is sadly not without parallel in this part of the world. From the 1950s and into the late 1970s, it was common for certain Arab regimes to speak in this same tone President Al-Bashir is using now, while smashing their opponents right and left.

Just as saddening is the reaction of Arab intelligentsia, a section of which is now twisting itself out of shape to find a legal way out -- a loophole through which Al-Bashir may walk. It's all déjà vu from Saddam's time. For some reason, the people who are trying to help out the Sudanese leader didn't move a finger to help out his victims in Darfur.

International justice is still taking its first tentative steps, and as I mentioned before, doesn't seem to view all cases of injustice as equally worthy of attention. Other countries with more bargaining power than Sudan may have escaped the attentions of the ICC, no doubt. But let's just focus on the business at hand; namely, that justice is now a cross- border concept. No longer can a country credibly hide behind the screen of "sovereignty" in matters of human rights. This is a good thing.

The ICC ruling on Sudan is a credit to the growing power of human rights groups. Without the legal and media effort of these groups, the ICC wouldn't have acted. Ironically, the people of Darfur are not litigants in the ICC case; the UN Security Council is. The Darfur rebels didn't propel Moreno-Ocampo into action. The members of the UN Security Council -- most of whom are not even ICC members -- did. And according to Article 16 of the court's bylaws, they are the only ones who can postpone the ICC ruling.

Sudan could have acted first, for example by bringing all those responsible for genocide in Darfur to a fair trial, or at least by admitting that there is a real crisis in Darfur and doing something to resolve it. Arab countries, too, should have acted before it was too late. Instead of scrambling now to ask the UN Security Council to postpone the ICC ruling they should have asked Sudan to clean up its act.

The Sudanese regime is in denial. It thinks that just because China and Russia are on its side, the UN Security Council is going to reconsider the whole thing. This is wishful thinking. The global scene is one of continual haggling, and Sudan can find itself sold down the river. Sudan would be mistaken to assume that the ICC ruling is a legal gimmick that will blow over in time.

In fact, the damage is already done. The Sudanese regime and its symbols of sovereignty have been dealt a harsh blow. From now on, the Sudanese regime will be living in fear or in a state of "voluntary" isolation from the world. And nothing will change that, not the posturing, not the expulsion of relief organisations, and not the costume dancing of the indicted president.

A deal may eventually be reached between supporters and opponents of the ICC ruling. But either way, Sudan -- and all the Arabs -- will lose. Sudan cannot hold credible elections so long as Al-Bashir is in power. Secessionists will be tempted to try their hand. And Darfur rebels may have another go at Khartoum, as they did a year ago.

Arab countries, now desperate for a reprieve, may have to entice major powers with concessions that should not be made. Egypt and Saudi Arabia may find themselves more involved in peacekeeping operations in Sudan than they ever wanted to. And international peacekeepers may have to be sent to Darfur with a completely new mandate. This is all very destabilising, and yet there is worse. Sudan may end up being a safe haven for radicals and extremists who would be more than glad to sow chaos across the entire region.

At this point, the options are rather limited. Perhaps the Sudanese president would buy time by taking daring steps, starting with serious efforts to bring justice and stability to Darfur. But most likely, he'll keep playing the whole thing down, at great peril to his regime, his country, and the region.

A justice of double standards

2009-03-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Khalil Al-anani

Daily News Egypt, March 12, 2009

The only difference between the Darfur massacre and previous 'Arab' massacres is the image. What happened inside Arab prisons in the past happened far from the cameras, international observers and the reports of international human rights organizations.
If the International Criminal Court (ICC) had existed five decades ago and the Arab regimes' genocidal crimes since the 1950s through the late 1980s had been documented, many Arab leaders would have faced what the Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir is now facing.
For example, there is no significant difference between what President Omar Al-Bashir has done with the people of Darfur, who have been killed, rendered homeless and displaced, and the repression, torture, abuse and murder perpetrated by late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser against his opponents, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. The same goes for the actions of late Syrian President Hafez Assad, also against the Muslim Brotherhood, in what is known as the Hamah Massacre, when hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members were arrested, killed and displaced for allegedly spreading chaos; or the actions of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who ordered several massacres, foremost among them the Halabjah massacre, where chemical weapons were used, claiming the lives of nearly 10,000 Iraqis.
All the above is true. But it is also true that many crimes and massacres were committed over the past two decades at the time when these crimes were broadcast on air, without Western society and human rights organizations lifting a finger. The siege, starvation, the killing of thousands and displacement of thousands of other in Iraq over the past two decades by the United States and the sanctions imposed by the international community is also genocide, even though what the former US President has done in Iraq may not be equivalent in horror or criminality to what Saddam Hussein did against his opponents over the past three decades.
Thus Bush too must be tried as a war criminal for what he did in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as what he did against the Palestinians through his absolute support for Israeli extremists. What the Israelis have been doing for decades against the Palestinians is more heinous than what the Hutu and the Tutsi did against each other in the mid 1990s. Who is responsible now for the displacement of nearly 5 million Palestinians?
If we only look at what happened recently in Gaza as an example it is enough to prosecute all Israeli officials as war criminals on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity with their use of white phosphorus and DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosives). The DIME bombs are like small nuclear bombs, which Israel imports from the United States.
Strangely, during a visit I made to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, I saw nothing that would convince me of the truth about what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. What I did find, however, was a dark room with illuminated pictures of displaced children, men and women and a large banner reading: "Victims of Darfur."
I see this as a malicious attempt to convince the visitors to the museum that what is happening now in Darfur is no less reprehensible than what happened to the Jews in the 1940s. These pictures have led to strong pressure by human rights organizations on the US Congress to adopt the issue of Darfur and push the White House to take strong action against the Sudanese regime. And this is what has actually happened during the Bush administration.
But the question is: Why have our human rights organizations and Arab civil society organizations failed to adopt the issue of denouncing the American and Israeli massacres against Arab peoples? Why have we not seen an Arab media campaign to expose the Israeli racist behavior towards the Palestinians? Why do our politicians not speak the same language of 'humanity' adopted by Western officials when they speak about their issues?
Trying to answer this question has helped me realize the big difference between 'our massacres and theirs'.

Who is behind Al Hussein blast?

2009-02-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

Khalil Al Anani

Daily News Egypt, February 23, 2009

The blast in Al-Hussein on Sunday indicates the fragile security situation in Egypt and shows how easy it has become to commit acts of violence.

The Al-Hussein blast bears a striking similarity to the April 7, 2005 suicide bombing carried out by Hassan Bashandi when he blew himself up amid a group of foreign tourists, killing three and wounding 11.

The common factor is not only the choice of the targeted area, but also the tools that were used in both bombings: a homemade explosive device that can be easily assembled through readily available online instructions. The second point we should be aware of is the participation of women in the bombing, as according to initial security accounts two people donning the niqab (full face veil) who are likely to be women, took part in the bombing.

The same thing happened on April 30, 2005 when two women opened fire on a tourist bus in Old Cairo’s Al-Sayeda Aisha district before committing suicide.

It seems we are witnessing a new type of terrorism that can best be described as “random individual terrorism.” It is a pattern indicating the absence of a large organization taking responsibility for these operations.

Instead, small extremist cells made up of four or five members sharing a violent ideology and seeking to implement it on the ground could be behind the attacks, making it very difficult for security bodies to track them down.

But the question is: who is behind the Al-Hussein bombing? There can be several explanations: First there has been a large increase in Salafist discourse in Egyptian society over the past three years. I have repeatedly warned of the possibility of a change of thought among the Egyptian Salafist trend, which opts for violence.

It is true that the Salafist movement is not interested in politics, but at a certain point, some of its members may show a desire to express their ideas in a violent way, as was the case in Taba, Dahab and Sharm El-Sheikh which were the target of terrorist bombings between 2004 and 2006. Small fundamentalist groups claimed responsibility for them.

Second, regional tensions, especially after the war on Gaza, and the political ascendancy of the conservative Israeli right, as well as deep Arab division, fan feelings of violence and the radical ideology of some small religious groups who seek revenge on behalf of the Palestinians.

Third, some new jihadists are bent on embarrassing and retaliating against the Egyptian regime as punishment for its regional policies especially during the war on Gaza. Targeting tourism, which is a major source of national income, could be part of this vengeance.

Finally, the bombings may be in response to international attitudes in favor of Israel, and thus increasing the anger of many categories within the Egyptian society, especially the marginalized and the underprivileged.

Finally, there could be a relationship between Al-Hussein bombing and some of the recently-released suspects who were arrested in connection with the 2005 Khan El-Khalili bombing. They could be trying to retaliate for those who received life sentences or were killed during the operation.

We should also take note that the impact of ideological reviews shunning violence made by the Islamic Group and Al-Jihad Group is still limited, and that it is difficult to count on them alone to stem violence in Egypt.

Khalil Al-Anani is an Egyptian expert on political Islam and democratization in the Middle East and is a senior fellow at Al-Ahram Foundation. E-mail: kalanani@gmail.com

Lines already drawn

2009-02-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

Khalil Al-anani

Alahram Weekly

The US did not need the bombardment of Pearl Harbour in 1941 in order to break out from its isolationism and end the ambiguity that had prevailed in the world order during the first decades of the 20th century. Nor did the Soviet Union need the collapse of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 to underline that it no longer inspired respect and awe among its enemies and friends alike. In both cases indications of developments existed well beforehand. All that was lacking was the acknowledgement.
Similarly, the Arabs did not need to be defeated three times by Israel to realise that a new regional order was being constructed, with international approval, aimed at giving Tel Aviv the upper hand in determining the direction of regional interactions for decades to come. This is precisely why Israel threw itself into three wars, determined to prove itself an emerging power that had to be heeded.
The primary function of conventional Arab forces for five decades has been to try to reach strategic equilibrium with Israel. Egypt steered this process in the 1950s and 1960s, Iraq and Syria took over in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s the entire process fell apart as the official Arab order, which had arisen essentially to confront Israel, crumbled. Yet many Arabs continue to refuse to acknowledge that a new regional order has been in the making during recent decades, or that what is happening today is more than battles of wills at a time of sudden tension. They close their eyes to the fact that what we are experiencing are the upheavals accompanying the birth of a new regional order built on the ruins of the old Middle East. That Middle East met its demise with the end of the conventional equilibrium between the Arabs and Israel, whether as a consequence of Egypt's decision to withdraw from the game and set a ceiling on confrontations with Israel, a policy that was clear during the recent Gaza crisis, or as a consequence of the disappearance of "old" Iraq and the preoccupation there with ordering new circumstances, remains debateable.
It seems to have escaped everyone's notice that three wars in less than six years (2003-2009) have overturned balances and effaced the remnants of the "old" regional order. Against this backdrop it is only to be expected that "emerging" regional forces, such as Iran and Turkey, are not only striving to strike an equilibrium with Israel in the way conventional Arab powers once did, but also to replace these powers.
The "new" Middle East exhibits four basic traits. The first is the shift from the centre (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq) to the periphery (Iran and Turkey), ending once and for all the myth of Arab equilibrium with Israel. The primary interactions in the region are essentially non-Arab. They are taking place along three axes: US-Iran, Iran-Israel and Israel-Turkey. In all three the Arabs play, at best, subsidiary roles as encouragers (Syria) or facilitators (Qatar, Hizbullah, Hamas).
The US sees no greater threat to its interests in the Middle East than Iran's rise as a regional power. Washington's determination to "appease" Tehran is a clear acknowledgement of the latter's influence and role in managing Arab-Arab interactions. The situation is reminiscent of Eisenhower's stand towards Abdel-Nasser in the 1950s. Then Egypt was accorded a central role in steering regional interplay. Iran is poised to become one of the architects of the new Middle East and tacit recognition of this role will form the bottom line in its haggling with the US.
Israel, meanwhile, is "terrified" by an Iran that has steadily extended its tentacles into the Arab world. For Tel Aviv the Arab order is like an ageing lion that has lost its teeth, infinitely preferable compared to the prospect of a highly influential, possibly nuclear, Iran.
Turkey is playing on tensions within the region in order to advance its own centrality. At times it acts as a cooling agent in regional and inter-Arab disputes, as exemplified by its mediation between Damascus and Tel Aviv, Hamas and Fatah, perhaps between Hamas and Israel and, in the future, between Tehran and Washington. At other times it tries to outbid the Arabs in championing Arab causes: witness Turkey's prime minister attempting to imbue the confrontation with Israel with an "Ottoman spirit".
The second trait concerns strategic transformations in regional security. For all practical purposes notions of Arab regional security have been supplanted by bilateral security arrangements. We can detect three patterns in this regard. The first are Arab regional arrangements, as in the Syrian-Iranian alliance. The second are "functional" security arrangements, which are most clearly illustrated by the alliance between Tehran and new players such as Hizbullah and Hamas. The third are regional-international security arrangements, epitomised by Israeli-US agreements which undermine Arab security from the Bab Al-Mandab to the Mediterranean, and by the security alliance between Israel and major European powers, such as France and Germany, which aims to halt the smuggling of arms to Hamas.
Then there is the shift in the model of leader states from an Arab environment to its regional counterpart, as epitomised in both Iran and Turkey. The former is careful not to present itself to the Arab peoples as seeking regional domination but casts itself as a champion of Arab rights and causes, unencumbered by the chains that shackle Arab forces. Put simply, Tehran is striving to become an updated version of Nasser's Egypt, towards which end it has donned the resistance and liberation mantels Nasser once appropriated, and is resolved to acquire nuclear technology in order to restore the lost equilibrium with Israel and up its stock in the Arab street as an Islamic nuclear power.
Turkey, too, is careful to avoid giving the impression of an emerging power seeking to extend its influence in its backyard at a time when European doors remain closed. Rather, it presents itself as a concerned and decent friend, keen to lend a hand at a time of Arab weakness. In this regard it has two advantages. It is a Sunni country, which clears it of the taint of sectarianism. Secondly, it is democratic, undermining Israeli claims to regional exclusivity in this respect. Little wonder, therefore, that both Iran and Turkey have won widespread admiration in the Arab world and enjoy public support for the steps they have taken to enhance their regional influence.
The fourth trait that characterises the "new" Middle East is the changes in the nature of the concept of the enemy and the consequent replacement, in any practical terms, of collective action with a policy geared towards political axes. Nothing could be more indicative of the end of the old Middle East where Israel was the uncontested enemy. The official Arab consciousness is undergoing a radical transformation with the enemy epithet now applied to other regional powers. If this phenomenon reflects a collective burying of the head in the sand in the face of the threat posed by Israel, it also reflects a failure to contain the potential threats posed by Iran. The meeting in Abu Dhabi a week ago served to underscore the limit on Arab options in dealing with this dichotomy.
The foregoing transformations bring grim consequences. Inter-Arab relations are being poisoned as differences in opinion and outlook are portrayed as conflicts over interests and aims. The political climate is being stirred and agitated, by some in order to force a showdown with the traditional enemy, Israel, by others in order to facilitate indirect confrontation with Iran on the pretext of blocking Persian encroachment in the region. A vicious battle is raging behind the scenes over the topography of any new Middle East.

The Brotherhood and the Gaza Crisis

2009-01-31T12:46:00.001-08:00

Khalil Al-anani

Despite the fact that the Palestinian cause is pivotal in the discourse of violent and moderate Islamist movements, their discourse is not too different from that of the official Arab elite. This fact came across very clearly during Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
Overall, the Islamists’ attitude towards the Gaza massacres was like other political trends such as the nationalists and leftists: spontaneous reactions reflecting an inability to turn Israel's "barbarism" against Palestinian civilians into a global issue that can garner the same degree of attention the Jews received for the Nazi Holocaust.
Moreover, many Islamists, especially those belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, committed the same mistakes made by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, that is, they were incapable of addressing or convincing global public opinion of their just cause on the one hand, and of the brutality of the Israeli occupation on the other. We never even felt any active and organized Islamic move to build bridges with international organizations concerned with human rights and issues with humanitarian dimensions.
On the contrary, the Islamists' positions were identified with that of Hamas throughout the war, not only through the adoption of the resistance option, regardless of casualties, but also in terms of the miscalculation and misunderstanding of the regional and international game.
Many of these movements placed their position on the conflict on regional axes, even if it contradicted with the national interests of their own countries.
This was evident in the position of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which seemed to be moving in the opposite direction as the Egyptian regime, harshly attacking and accusing the country of complicity in the Gaza crisis, criticizing Egypt's ceasefire initiative, demanding the adoption of the Doha Summit resolutions (a summit in which Egypt refused to participate) rejecting the resolutions of Sharm El-Sheikh Summit, and staging mass demonstrations to exert pressure on the regime and demand it open the Rafah crossing.
The dilemma of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is that it still adopts the mentality of its founder Hassan Al-Banna, which was rooted in its confrontation with the West and the United States regardless of the circumstances and the passage of time.
During Brotherhood protests condemning the Gaza war, the group not only aimed to show support for Hamas but also to embarrass the Egyptian regime before public opinion to avenge its repressive policies towards the group over the last two years.
The group would have done better to make a distinction between its conflict with the regime and its attempt to blackmail it over the Gaza issue on the one hand, and Egyptian national interests, which must rise above partisan differences, on the other.
I see no justification for the group's attack on the regime except from two perspectives: either the group is either part of a regional Iran-led game against Egypt; or it does not understand the nature of the game and it was roped into it unconsciously.
This is a disaster. In both cases, the group is responsible before its members and Egyptian society for what it has displayed over the past three weeks.
Even young reformists within the group disapprove of what it has done and have had reservations about Hamas’s strategy in the conflict with Israel. Some of the ones I’ve spoken to say that they have not adopted the same vision of their leaders.
It is surprising that the group has not staged similar protests to demand political reform, or mobilized public opinion against the government regarding the regime's authoritarian policies. This is the dilemma of the political thought of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Khalil Al-Anani is an Egyptian expert on political Islam and democratization in the Middle East and is a senior fellow at Al-Ahram Foundation. E-mail: kalanani@gmail.com.