Egypt's Path to Islamism

Egypt the Middle East Fulcrum -Yisrael Ne'eman

[T]he Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized most popular force in Egypt and yes, the Middle East today.  The slogan "Islam is the Answer" will be increasingly heard throughout the region even if it is not being pushed at the moment.  As the Facebook and Twitter liberal generation are ushered out one can expect a good few decades if not two generations of Islamic control in one form or another.  The last several days of massive protests still finds liberals and secularists among the demonstrators but their presence and influence will dwindle.  There are those like the Nobel Prize winning liberal and presidential candidate Mohammed ElBaradei who are calling for a national unity government to replace the military regime, but this can only be a temporary measure.

The military is accused of trying to force a legal framework whereby they would continue to hold power and reserve the right to intervene politically if they deem it necessary, something akin to the Ataturk legacy in Turkey until very recently.   This is certainly an immediate cause but not necessarily the focus of all anger.  Barely mentioned and much less discussed is the army insistence on guaranteeing minority (Christian Copts) and individual rights (women and non-conformists).  Now pit that against Muslim Brotherhood demands for Sharia law, even should it not be immediate.  Let's be honest, if the military was advocating Sharia law while asserting its right to intervene in civilian matters liberals and secularists might take to the streets but there would not be tens of thousands of Islamists demanding "democracy" and an end to military intervention.  Paradoxically some of the liberals are staying away, correctly understanding their future liberties are being defended more by the military than anyone else.  Others are playing the democracy game, one which would work very well in Europe or America and are joining the demonstrators.

In the face of rising anarchy, a turning inwards towards Islam appears the only answer.  The Islamists are calling on the demonstrators to honor the people's will and move towards next week's elections.  The idea is that in a step by step process the military will be sidelined and the Brotherhood can consolidate power.

What Western pro-democracy observers are forgetting is that democracy is not the tyranny of the majority but rather rule by the majority and equal rights for all including minority groups, women and specific groups and/or individuals with a different political, economic or social perspective.  What we are seeing is popular anger against the military, yet to demand civilianization of the regime does not necessarily mean one supports democracy as an ideal.  If holding elections is the way to gain power, so be it, but the results cannot be foretold as leading to democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood will not hold pro-democracy demonstrations, but rather demand elections to attain power.  Should they not win power legally one can expect them to undermine the elected regime until they will succeed.  

Egypt may very well go the way of the Iranian revolution although by a different route, a more anarchical one. 

Egyptian elections are of no great importance and will only be seen as a technical detail in the long run.  The Muslim Brotherhood, the most cohesive grass roots organization can be expected to take power in the not too distant future.  One can expect a form of Islamized military at their side when a new Egyptian state solidifies.  Egypt's better educated more secular classes will be marginalized or forced to conform.  And of course the Middle East will be heavily influenced by what happens in Egypt, the fulcrum of the Arab world.
[Mideast: On Target]
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Islamotopia: The Muslim Brotherhood's Idea of Democracy -Uriya Shavit

•Democracy without the Muslim Brotherhood is impossible, but so is democracy under its leadership. There is no doubt that the Brotherhood enjoys broad support in every Arab country that has undergone democratic revolutions or uprisings in the last year. Elections in which the movement is not allowed to participate will therefore lack popular legitimacy.

•The inevitable result of its electoral victory, however, will be the formation of a theocracy. It will not permit the scientific and technological revolution of which Arab societies are in such dire need. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood must be permitted to run in elections, but not gain power.

•How can the West deal with the very tangible threat that Arab societies will be taken over by Islamist movements? If it confronts them, it will only confirm the Brotherhood's claim that the West conspires to undermine the religious identity of the Muslim world and seize control of it.

•However convoluted the knot may be, Western decision-makers must not ignore the astonishing truth revealed during the previous year: Forces within Arab society yearn for genuine democracy, and understand that the Western form of government embodies a formula for human success and political stability.

•The West must make plain what it holds to be the essence of democracy, why the political ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood are incompatible with it, and, thus, why it cannot offer economic or diplomatic support to Arab states that follow the path of political Islam.

•The West needs to explain, to all who are willing to listen, that the conflict is not between the secular and the religious, the West and the East, the Christians and the Muslims. It is, quite simply, a clash between freedom and tyranny.
The writer teaches Islamic history and theology at Tel Aviv University.
(Azure-Shalem Center)
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