“And then there is the latest fright word, the Muslim Brotherhood. You would never know it from Halevi, but the Brotherhood is non-violent, has always opposed al-Qaeda, and condemned 9/11 and other acts of international terrorism. Yes, they are an Islamic organization which would prefer an Egypt based on Islamic law, much as the Shas party - a significant part of Israel's ruling coalition - pushes for an Israel based on its extreme interpretation of Torah. Halevi (and other lobby types) may want the Muslim Brotherhood to be terrorists but, sadly for them, that is not true. And, besides, the January 25 revolution is not a Muslim Brotherhood revolution. They support it - almost all Egyptians do - but that does not make it theirs. Nor do they claim otherwise.”
—“Egypt: Why is Israel so Blind?” — Al Jazeera EnglishU.S. reexamining its relationship with Muslim Brotherhood opposition group
WP reveals US gov’t connection to Muslim Brotherhood:
On Monday, in what analysts said was a clear reference to the Brotherhood, the White House said a new government in Egypt should “include a whole host of important non-secular actors.”
[…]
For years, however, U.S. officials have engaged in back-channel talks with Egyptian members of the movement in recognition of its substantial popular support.
The unofficial contacts have taken place sporadically since the 1990s but became more frequent after members of the Brotherhood were elected to the Egyptian Parliament in 2005. Afterward, U.S. diplomats and lawmakers held several meetings with Brotherhood leaders, including at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
U.S. officials justified the meetings by saying they were merely speaking with duly elected members of the Egyptian legislature.
“I do think that having contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood was not a bad idea,” said Robert Malley, a Clinton administration official who directs the Middle East and North Africa program for the International Crisis Group. “They are an important constituency in Egypt. They’re very likely to play a role in any future arrangements there.”
[…]
Despite the White House’s decision Monday to extend a rhetorical olive branch to the Brotherhood, analysts said the Obama administration remains divided over whether and how to deal with the group, both in the near and long term.
J. Scott Carpenter, a State Department official in the George W. Bush administration, said the White House overture could backfire by alienating leaders in the Egyptian military, who could remain in control of the country even if Mubarak is forced out.
“It was completely unnecessary and counterproductive,” he said of the White House statement. “It sends the wrong message to the military.”
Hillel Fradkin, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, said the U.S. government should be spending more energy reaching out to secular factions that have been active in the anti-Mubarak protests.
“If we’re going to deal with people in the opposition, it makes the most sense for us to engage with groups that can be reasonably thought to support a liberal democratic outcome in Egypt,” he said.
In contrast, he said deepening a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to bear fruit, because the movement’s goals are at odds with U.S. interests. “How are we going to persuade them to like us?” he said. “They don’t, and they won’t.”
Thanks to a popular website renowned for its sexism and bigotry, this joke of an article has been making its rounds on the internet:
Egypt presidential candidate seeks Constitution based on Sharia Law
Egypt’s Constitution should be based on the Koran and Sharia law, presidential candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement Mohamed Morsi said.
“The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal,” Morsi said in his election speech before Cairo University students on Saturday night.
Today Egypt is close as never before to the triumph of Islam at all the state levels, he said.
“Today we can establish Sharia law because our nation will acquire well-being only with Islam and Sharia. The Muslim Brothers and the Freedom and Justice Party will be the conductors of these goals,” he said.
The Muslim Brotherhood Islamist group has been banned in Egypt for decades before being legalized following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in last year’s popular uprising, and has since emerged as a powerful political force.
The first round of Egypt’s presidential election is scheduled for May 23-24. The presidential campaign starts on April 30 and finishes at midnight on May 21.
The president will be elected for a four-year term.
Apparently fear-mongering over the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is ramping up again like it did at the height of the protests and what’s even more apparent is that the West knows little to nothing about Islam, Shari’a law, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Are they a fantastic political organization? No. Are they al Qaeda? No, and to be clear, which faction of the Muslim Brotherhood are we talking about?
Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party campaigned on Shari’a law being incorporated into Egyptian law but it’s unclear what that necessarily means as of yet because Egypt and its various political parties are still trying to figure out what the country is going to look like post-Mubarak. And then there’s this:
“The final version (of the program) will be broadly acceptable to everyone because the atmosphere has changed, circumstances have changed and the Brotherhood themselves have changed,” Essam al-Erian told Reuters in an interview.
There’s too much currently up in the air and the FJP is one of the most pro-capitalist and pro-foreign investment parties Egypt has seen in awhile. Shouldn’t the United States and the West be ecstatic over that? We hear “Islamist” and start panicking because this anti-Islam sentiment has been hammered into us and hammered into us again for good measure since 9/11 and beyond.
We don’t judge the Muslim Brotherhood or the FJP on the tenets of their policies or politics but by the fact that they’re somehow incorporated with Islam and we know that’s bad. We’re told Islam is everything antithetical to “Western values” and it must be vehemently opposed.
The headlines over the duration of the Egyptian presidential election have featured startling fragments of reality which included words like “Islamist” and “Muslim” to define a single candidate with the content of the articles featuring little to no information on actual policy proposals or campaign platforms. Could anyone derive any substantive information on the Egyptian candidates from the pathetic excuse for journalism we’ve been fed from the Western media? Maybe a miserable handful of articles have let go of some information but all of it has been ingrained with anti-Islamic rhetoric.
I feel pretty grossed out that I’m here even having to defend the FJP but it’s necessary when the West goes on one of its anti-Islam, fear-mongering sprees which only seek to spread disinformation. This needs to stop. This is not substantive criticism of the FJP, the Muslim Brotherhood, or Mohamed Morsi. This type of rhetoric is Islamophobic.
Can we all stop acting like political Islam means that "Arabs can't do democracy"?
I mean, really? Talking about the possible dangers of the political rise of the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists or the Ennahda Party (particularly when it comes to social freedoms) don’t have to involve saying things like “Are the sceptics who said that Arabs could not handle democracy—and would inevitably elect nasty people who would never surrender power—being proved horribly right?”
Just to point out - we rarely look at the Evangelical role in US politics as an argument for a Western inability to successfully implement and maintain a democracy, but Evangelical Christianity’s political and activist role is frequently aimed at detriment to social freedoms like the right to choose or the freedom to plan a family and to have safe sex, or to have the same rights even if you’re gay.* We absolutely need to be talking about what the outcome of Ennahda’s big win in Tunisia and the growing power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt might mean for those populations, but we also need not to get carried away into the land of paternalistic Orientalism and start making broad decisions and evaluations of any culture’s innate ability to form a certain kind of government to our own liking, or make snap decisions for those countries about whether or not their new systems are successfully created.
Important things to remember here when talking about this: not all residents of the Middle East or North Africa are Arab or Muslim; a significant chunk of Egyptians and Tunisians did not vote for political Islam and are exerting pressures on those parties to dilute their politics, make promises about their social policies, and form coalitions with more moderate or secular parties; talking about the failure of a political transition just as it’s officially beginning is hasty and silly; not Western does not equal not successful.
*If you’re reading this and you’re Evangelical, this is not equivalent to me saying your religion is bad or that you automatically believe these things or act in these ways. I’m talking about the politicized elements seen in and wielded by numerous conservative/Republican candidates and their political influencers.
“To say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. It is far better, and more accurate, to talk straight: These allegations about Huma Abedin, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant.”
—Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) putting the smackdown on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for baseless attacks on Secretary Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin.
Joe McCarthy Michele Bachmann essentially accused Abedin of working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood to inflitrate the U.S. government, and released an odd, 16-page letter in defense of her witch-hunt against Muslim Americans. Said witch-hunters also include Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.), and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.).
Sen. McCain, bravo. I’d buy you a beer if you’d just disown famed Islamophobe Frank Gaffney completely. Here’s video of him taking Bachmann to task:
“In the heavens there is calmness and on the earth there is beauty. In the gardens there is freshness and in you there is a sign. In the sea there is might and in the air there is nourishment. Take from all this comfort for your soul and recovery for your mind. And do not waste your time by being unmindful, this will shield you from good and lead you to evil. ”
—Al Imam Al Shaheed Hassan Al-Banna
Smoke & Mirrors: Attacking the Muslim Brotherhood Using Women’s Rights
muftah.orgOver at Muftah, the brilliant Sara Salem has a piece up on the critique directed towards the Muslim Brotherhood for their policies on women’s rights being decontextualised, dehistorisised and exploitative.
If the aim is to understand the situation of women in Egypt, how is it possible that so many analyses focus on religious and cultural problems (which are blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood or general “Islamic conservatism”) and ignore the role of neoliberal economic policies? It is impossible to discuss the role of women and poverty without addressing the effects capitalism and neoliberalism have had on the Egyptian economy. In times of economic crisis, it is often women who suffer the most. Alleviating economic inequality is rarely discussed, even though it would contribute largely to alleviating women’s suffering.
Selective outrage for the sake of personal or political motives is not going to help Egyptian women or the Egyptian women’s struggle. What is important is to understand the complex dynamics of how and why Egyptian women are suffering; not to make blanket statements about ideology. It is not enough to say that the Islamists are oppressing women without also explaining how, why and in what specific instances this is occurring.
In short, women’s bodies as battlegrounds, women’s rights as rhetoric and women’s empowerment as a political ploy.
And in many authoritarian regimes, gender rights were framed as gifts, bestowed by the benevolent father figure that is the head of state. Except these gifts can be granted or withdrawn, in accordance with the political climate.
Highly recommneded read!
Obama Praises Clinton Aide Targeted By Bachmann: ‘Huma Is An American Patriot’
thinkprogress.orgBachmann has stood by her false allegations and has even picked up support from high profile Republicans like Newt Gingrich. (Other Republicans, like John McCain, have denounced Bachmann’s attacks.)
Tonight, President Barack Obama publicly praised Abedin, calling her an “American patriot’ and saying that he personally has relied upon her counsel. From the transcript of his remarks:
They are entrepreneurs and lawyers, community leaders, members of our military, and Muslim American women serving with distinction in government. And that includes a good friend, Huma Abedin, who has worked tirelessly — (applause) — worked tirelessly in the White House, in the U.S. Senate, and most exhaustingly, at the State Department, whereshe has been nothing less than extraordinary in representing our country and the democratic values that we hold dear. Senator Clinton has relied on her expertise, and so have I.
The American people owe her a debt of gratitude — because Huma is an American patriot, and an example of what we need in this country — more public servants with her sense of decency, her grace and her generosity of spirit. So, on behalf of all Americans, we thank you so much. (Applause.)
h/t: Think Progress
