Attempts to create a more formal global structure have failed, and the movement instead has taken on various forms. Where it is tolerated, as in Jordan, it functions as a political party; where persecuted, as in Syria, it survives underground; and in the Palestinian territories, it took a peculiar turn and became Hamas.
Though they interact through a network of personal, financial and ideological ties, Brotherhood entities operate independently, and each pursues its goals as it deems appropriate. What binds them is a deep belief in Islam as a way of life that, in the long term, they hope to turn into a political system, using different methods in different places.
The Brotherhood will dominate the new Egypt.
2With most political forces in Egypt today discredited or disorganized, many assume that the Brotherhood’s well-oiled political machine will play a major role in the country’s future.
This is not far-fetched, yet there are reasons to believe that the group will hardly dominate post-Mubarak Egypt. When I interviewed members of the Brotherhood’s Shura Council in 2009, they estimated that about 60 percent of Egyptians supported the group — seeing it as the only viable opposition to Mubarak — but that only 20 percent or so would support it in a hypothetical free election. And even that might have been optimistic: A poll of Egyptians by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy after Mubarak’s fall found that only 15 percent of respondents approved of the Brotherhood, while the group’s leaders received barely 1 percent in a presidential straw vote.
Over the past decade, aging hard-liners and a second generation of 50-somethings have wrestled for leadership of the Brotherhood. Then there are the younger cadres, which took part in the protest movement against Mubarak and deplored their leaders’ late participation in it. How these divisions develop will determine the role of the Brotherhood in Egyptian politics.
The Brotherhood seeks to impose a draconian version
of sharia law.
3All Brotherhood factions will now push to increase the influence of sharia — Islamic law — in Egypt. However, the generational battle will determine what vision of sharia they will pursue.
The old guard’s motto is still “the Koran is our constitution.” The second generation speaks of human rights and compares itself to Europe’s Christian Democrats — embracing democracy but keeping a religious identity. The third generation, especially in urban areas, seems to endorse this approach, even if skeptics contend that younger militants are simply offering a moderate facade to the West.
So far, the old guard is prevailing. The Brotherhood’s first major political platform, released in 2007, paid lip service to democracy and stated that women and non-Muslims could not occupy top government posts, and gave a body of unelected sharia experts veto power over new laws. How long this old guard remains in control will shape the group’s positions on sharia’s most debated aspects, from women’s rights to religious freedoms.
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