The Muslim Brotherhood, Postmodernism and Future Challenges | ||
The Muslim Brotherhood, Postmodernism and Future Challenges Egypt has gone through many ups and downs since 1952 when Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy in Egypt and announced a republic.
By Mahdi Goljan (PhD) Undoubtedly, we can consider the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the most influential actors in Egyptian political scene. It was established in 1928 with the goal of establishing an Islamic government. In other words, the Brotherhood considers “religious law” as the pivot and foundation of all legislations and all governmental decisions. Americans also are aware that Egypt’s situation is significantly different from that of Mubarak’s era and that they can no longer influence regional policies or encourage Egypt to support the Zionist regime,etc. Egypt has gone through many ups and downs since 1952 when Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy in Egypt and announced a republic. Anwar El Sadat and Hosni Mubarak both were kings ruling over people under the title of president; but the Brotherhood led a a revolution beyond what had happened in 1952 and the result was the victory of Islamists over U.S.-backed monarchists. The Brotherhood is both affecting and affected by the revolution. In other words, they should carry out a revolution within and do not let Salafists, American or Israeli thoughts take over them from within or without. Fortunately, after the revolution of January 25, 2011 and expansive role in the course of the revolution, particularly in parliamentary or presidency comptitions, they still follow their original policies to promote the global Islamic movement to achieve Islamic goals. Active presence in political arena is among the main achievements of the Muslim Brotherhood . Prior to the participation of Justice and Development Party in election campaign, and considering pessimism towards the Muslim Brotherhood, there was not much hope in triumph of the group. One of the unwritten obstacles in Arab and Middle East world (Turkey is also included) is that political parties and forces with religious attitudes cannot achieve success in political field, but the Muslim Brotherhood broke through the barrier and proved that to be successful in political field, it is necessary to use intelligent approaches. As an example, most of the Western media predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would act similar to Al-Qaida whereas its policy had always focused on suppression of Al-Qaida-supported groups in Egypt. At the same time, Al-Qaida leaders accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of putting aside Jihad and involving in political trends of Egyptian government. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood’s success has invalidated Al-Qaida claim, because they believe that Jihad is the only way to success while the Brotherhood always avoids it and used political competition to come to power and finally achieved it. In regard to the Brotherhoods’ activities and their impacts on the future destiny of the country, it should be borne in mind that the Muslim Brotherhood is involved in different issues regarding the future course of its policies both inside the country and also in its foreign relations, particularly with the United States. While previous generation of such movements sought social role and conservative activities in the political scene, the new generation looks forward to a more serious presence in politics, and they have practically proved that they pursue this goal. In the aftermath of the January revolution, , continuity of military cooperation with the U.S. has turned out to a significant question. Egypt has great importance in the Arab world and its actions influence the region drastically. The United States owns security interests in Egypt and thus should be assured of them; but the interesting point is that U.S. influence in Egypt has dwindled recently. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood is among ardent critics of the U.S. military operations in the region and seeks reduction of U.S.-Egypt cooperation. Interestingly, the new Brotherhood is like a Pandora box for the U.S.: it can neither give it up nor accept it completely; thus, both sides are eager to cooperate with each other, because none will benefit from military confrontation, etc. First, the presence of Egypt’s president in Tehran was unpredictable after 30 years of severance of diplomatic ties. In fact, Morsi and his political Party (Freedom and Justice Party) and Muslim Brotherhood try to demonstrate a “new era” in Egypt foreign relations; the reason is that Mubarak’s foreign policy was unacceptable to almost all Egyptians. Morsi’s activities in recent months indicate that he will have hard days ahead in major policy issues. The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to formulate an independent foreign policy to let Egypt regain its regional influence. Iran-Egypt relations became critical during three decades of Mubarak’s rule; but President of Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood believe that these relations, particularly diplomatic and strategic relations with Iran and all other Islamic countries should be resumed because the Persian Gulf region is very significant for Egypt. Also, Iran tries to keep its relations with the Brotherhood even if it is at the least possible level; since no side will benefit from severance of ties. The critical dialogue between Iran and the Brotherhood not only will contribute to preservation of the present level of relations, but also is important in effectiveness of such party in future. Iran could be the best ally of the Brotherhood in world today. It is not an enemy at all! The important point is that both the countries have a common enemy called Israel or better saying “the usurping Zionist regime”. The Brotherhood acts differently in each country. In other words, it has regional and local approaches within the framework of its general strategy. The Muslim Brotherhood does not act uniformly in Syria, Yemen or Bahrain which causes observers occasionally feel a sort of paradox in their policies. It seems that in Syria the prevailing discussions are about the stances of the ruling party, i.e., Baath Party and those of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a longstanding difference. After Syria’s independence from France, both parties tried to come to power and finally the Baath party gained victory over the Brotherhood and that’s why they always feel sort of animosity toward Baathists, they believe that Bashar al-Assad should resign, either through reforms or otherwise, since he is a Baathist! Morsi wants to achieve what Saddam Hossein tried to achieve recklessly, that is, formation a powerful and effective Arab Union. One of the prerequisites of this union is omission of Syria. After the defeat of Brotherhood from the Baath party, the former launched two types of campaign against the Baath government: reformist campaign along with political cooperation and military struggle, particularly by highlighting Assad’s Alawi affiliation and provoking Sunnis and even the attempts to assassinate Assad which caused severe suppression of the Brotherhood. Historical animosity between the Baath and the Muslim Brotherhood resulted in severe conflicts between Morsi and Bashar al-Assad, and hence, Morsi considers Syria more dangerous than Israel. While the Muslim Brotherhood reacts to killing of opponents in Syrian, not only it is not neutral towards killing of Bahraini pro-democracy Shias, but also openly supports the oppressing government of Bahrain. The Muslim Brotherhood’s stance towards Syria is based on some considerations regarding Arab history and Arab people. Certainly, the next Arab generation will pose questions about the Muslim Brotherhood’s stance and ask: why did not you act effectively when you could? Why Morsi did not support Syria and was certain about U.S. determination to wipeout Syria under any circumstances? It seems that Syria turned out to be an offside trap for the Muslim Brotherhood, challenging them with a significant historical test at early stages. A test which requires more thinking and the Muslim Brotherhood should be cautious not to be entrapped by the logic of opponents. They should not forget the fact that Islam’s opponents have always achieved victory through division. The Arab world is trying to organize a new league with the leadership of Egypt which has one of the most ancient civilizations and has been one of the most influential actors in the Middle East, Africa and the Arab world. Definitely Morsi intends to do what Saddam Hussein irrationally intended to do; in other words he intends to create a powerful and influential league. At the same time, the US wants the newly formed league to target Iran as its number one foe instead of Israel. To achieve such a goal, the Zionists are trying to fan the flames of Iranophobia instead of Israelophobia. This project has been planned in US-Israeli think tanks and costs arm and leg. One of the prerequisites of the formation of this union or league is to remove Syria. U.S. strategy is to fan the flames of a war between Arab league and Iran and attempts very hard to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, the Arab League is not aware of the fact that change in Syria does not benefit Arabs, but will weaken their situation vis-à-vis Israel. Now, Syria is considered to be the most serious threat to Israel. Therefore, Syria’s defeat means Iran’s defeat, thus to achieve its goal, the U.S. has mobilized all its means. In presidential elections, 48% of votes went to the previous regime’s candidate and the other 52% to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the gap was not very wide. Therefore, Egypt today is not a homogeneous society and it can create several troubles for the Muslim Brotherhood and even may force them to choose policies which are not always concomitant with their ideology. Mohamed Al-Morsi introduced himself as the president of all religious groups. In other words, he meant that he would cover the remaining 48% and assured that his policies will ignore them. On the other side, they are confronting Egypt’s military council which is to limit the president’s authority by enacting self-made laws. As I mentioned above, the Brotherhood are facing some political paradoxes among which Syrian crisis is the most important one. The significant point is the manner in which the Brotherhood will face such paradox. Is political post-modernism the solution? Perhaps in no period of time we have had such intermingling between the future of Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. The future of the Muslim Brotherhood and consequently that of Egypt depends on the ability of Muslim Brotherhood to adjust itself to domestic, international and the Middle Eastern developments.
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