Revolution of Sphinxes. Part II

President Mubarak’s fate is almost prejudged. Most of the national leaders have already said goodbye to him. President Obama voiced his wish to pass the power immediately. The only thing left to know is to whom specifically? In the first part of the article we’ve analyzed the first candidate — acting Vice President of Egypt, General Omar Suleiman. Long-time head of Egyptian intelligence, well-tried fighter against Islamic fundamentalism, participant of the most unbelievable operations against Al-Qaida, author of the fake materials that became the pretext for American invasion into Iraq — he perfectly suits the USA and their allies. He, however, has a strong competitor.

Muslim brotherhood

Egypt holds an essentially important place in the world. Its geographic location and potential give it a unique opportunity to become the only state capable of acting as a uniting force of Pan-Arabism. Cairo university of Al-Azhar, this Sunni Vatican, can make Egypt the centre of Islam’s western wing. Mubarak’s disappearance from the political scene may be of the same importance for the Arabian world as the Iranian Shiite revolution of Khomeini. But there’s also a chance for Egypt to turn into the Sunni Iran.

“Muslim Brotherhood” is undoubtedly to become the key political player on that field. Common belief, planted into in the Western public consciousness and widespread in the experts’ society — that “Muslim Brotherhood” may cast Egyptian historical development back to the dark Medieval times or even further — is not quite fair. “Muslim Brotherhood” (also known as Al-Ikhwān Al-Muslimūn) is the oldest and most influential Muslim organization in the world, inside of which radical and moderate policies have been intertwining for ages. Certain analysts believe the “Brothers’” ideology to be akin to the Christian Protestantism — “modernization disguised with the calls to come back to the roots”. Such unexpected twist is difficult to comprehend for the Western minds but as we know from historical — and the contemporary — experience, modernization is not always accompanied by liberalization. “Brotherhood” ideology is deeply connected to the traditions of Islamic modernism of the 19^th century, represented by Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”, Mohammed Abdu and Rashid Riba. These Sunni pundits have opposed both alien Western hegemony in the Islamic world and the orthodox Islam. From one hand, they’ve been proclaiming Pan-Islamism, from the other one — the need to accept Western rationalism. According to them, every generation has a right to interpret Quran due to its own experience, having based more upon its spirit, rather than letter.

“Muslim Brotherhood” was found in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna who became its General leader. He proclaimed the basic principles of his organization:

— Denial of any efforts and ideas, contradicting Quran

— Extending Islam to every aspect of human life

— Nurture of the “Brothers’” mutual love throughout purification of their hearts

— Civil activity

— Care for the physical health

— Improvement of Islam knowledge

— Creation of economic infrastructure, necessary for the self-sufficient functioning of “Brotherhood”

— Creation of the fraternal bonds between “Brothers”.

Al-Banna along with the first six “brothers” has built a mosque, along with a school and a club. This model soon became exemplary for every local “Brotherhood” branch. Afterwards it was supplemented with outpatients’ clinics, sport clubs and the social aid organizations. Strong side of the “Brotherhood” was the direct application of Islamic principles in the public life and flexible federative structure of the organization, which granted local branches greater independence. That, in turn, allowed the latter to attract various social groups. Besides that, three-step membership in the “Brotherhood” was stipulated — this promoted the involvement of less ideologically-trained members in order to bring them up according to the “Brotherhood” ideas later. This thought-out strategy largely contributed to the effective “Brotherhood” expansion in the Egyptian society. In 1930 there were 5 cells of this society, in 1932 — 15, in 1938 — 300, in 1949 — 2000 of them that used to unify up to 600.000 members. In November of 1946 al-Banna proclaimed jihad against the British Empire. Campaign of terror followed after that — it eventually caused the de-legalization of the “Brotherhood” on the 8^th of October, 1948. Al-Banna tried to bargain a compromise but the extremist wing of “Brotherhood” got out of his control: on the 28^th of December, 1948 members of “Brotherhood” killed Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nukrashi. Authorities responded with murder of al-Banna himself that was committed on the 12^th of February, 1949.

Military coup of 1952 should have seemingly created new prospects for al-Banna’s brainchild. Indeed, at first „Brootherhood” was coperating with the „Free Officers” regime but subsequently „Brotherhood” attempt to Islamize Egypt faced Naser’s secular nationalism — the latter acted under the slogan „Religion is for God, state is for everyone”. In these conditions „Brotherhood” split into moderate and extremist wings. On the 15^th of 1954 President Naser once again outlawed the „Brothergood” and purged army of its followers. On the 26^th of October, 1954 extremist wing of this organization responded with the failed attempt at the President. Tough mass repressions have started once again — they’ve nearly destroyed the „Brotherhood”.

After Naser’s death his successor Anwar Sadat decided to change policy regarding Islam. In 1972 “Brotherhood” was allowed to restore the Muslim students’ organizations, which subdued all the Egyptian universities in some five years. Monthly “Ad-Dawa” magazine publication was also revived. However, internal split inside of “Brotherhood” continued. In the middle of 80s notorious Al-Jama’a al-Islamiya appeared — it committed terrible act of terrorism, having murdered 58 tourists in Luxor on the 17^th of November, 1999. Egyptian government responded with tough counter-measures, and as a result in March of 1999 al-Jama’a called for armistice and afterwards, in June of 2000 — proclaimed the end of jihad.

Jihadism fiasco brought the moderate wing of “Brotherhood” to the foreground. Weird as it may seem, Iranian Islamic revolution also contributed to that. At first, “Brothers” sympathized it but later condemned Khomeini’s regime for extremism. When “Brothers” condemned occupation of American embassy in Tehran, Khomeini dubbed Egyptians the U.S. agents. After establishment of alliance between Iran and Syria, paths of “Brotherhood” and Khomeini parted completely. Hafez Asad, executioner of the Syrian branch of “Brotherhood” was an intolerable person for them. As a result, project of Islamic revolution has seemingly lost its topicality to the “Muslim Brotherhood” and for long.  

Even being de-legalized, movement still features broad public support for its attractive program, stipulating the creation of alternative Islam-based civil society. Numerous social programs, Islamic banks and enterprises, Islamic labor unions and active media coverage are the essential components of that program. While “Brothers” got their support of Egyptian poor via the social aid programs, they’ve used the above-mentioned tools to infiltrate the circles of engineers, doctors, traders, pharmaceutists, university teachers and lawyers, i.e. became popular among the middle class. All that quite naturally was reflected in the results of parliamentary elections. In 2005 “Muslim Brotherhood” put forth 114 “independent” candidates who got 20.7% of the votes. Ruling National Democratic Party of President Mubarak gained 69.7% and the tame “secular” opposition got 4.8%. This result was achieved due to the publication of “Reform Initiative” movement policy document on the 3^rd of 2004. It stipulated that aim of the “Brotherhood” is the “republican, parliamentary, constitutional and democratic political system within the Islamic framework”.

If we’d formulate the program of “Muslim Brotherhood” as briefly as possible, it would look like that:

Domestic policy:

—    Reach balance between organizational, educational, political and social activity of the movement.

—    Turn the emotional support of public opinion into productive participation in political and social activity.

—    Consolidate all the spiritually similar political and intellectual groups.

Foreign Policy:

—    Cooperation with the opponents of “American-Zionist project”.

—    Mobilization of Arabian and Muslim public opinion against the “hegemony of barbarian civilization”.

—    Creation of the forces, capable of resisting the Western hegemony. They are to be based on the national solidarity and the need for political and economic reforms.

—    Start an equal-right dialogue with the USA in order to achieve the withdrawal of American troops out of the region.

—    Start a dialogue with Europe in order to convince it to stop the “export of Zionist project”.

Despite an obvious fact that the “Muslim Brotherhood” is a much more sophisticated social-political phenomenon that it is commonly considered to be and the fact that it’s not a terrorist movement, its coming to power may substantially change not just the situation in Egypt but rather an entire Middle-Eastern political layout. This actually follows from the cited program of the “Brothers” and their history. Numerous analysts and experts all over the world have already started to draw apocalyptic pictures of the new Israeli-Egyptian war, forecast the cessation of Egyptian touristic paradise, blame the USA and dub Barack Obama the man who would make his way into history textbooks as a man who had lost Egypt. RBC (Russian Business Consulting) agency even spread the interview with Rashad al-Bayumi — one of the “Muslim Brotherhood” leaders — who allegedly promised to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel that “undermined the Egyptian sense of national dignity”. Ubiquitous Yulia Latynina has prophesied the third world war between Islam and the rest of the world on the pages of “Novaya Gazeta” (New Gazette). All of that simultaneously bothers and inspires distrust. Why is that? Well, because there’s actually a certain drop of truth in that “truth”. I’d tell about percentage ratio of truth and journalist hoaxes, about authoritative experts who are unfamiliar with the subject of their studies and about the development of situation in Egypt in the next article.