Epilogue: Prohibiting the Muslim Brotherhood Won´t Bring Peace to the Country
Terrorism and propaganda. These two notions represent a dialectical symbiosis, which paved the way to prohibiting the Muslim Brotherhood and pushing it out of the public arena after the military coup led by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Part III of our Series on the Muslim Brotherhood
Propaganda is used by the new regime as a means of “information” to misrepresent and actually demonize the Brotherhood. It is being depicted as terrorist organization willing to kill fellow Egyptians to empower its vision. The accusation of terrorism meanwhile serves the strong man in charge as legitimizing element. In this case, as it is in many other orchestrated propaganda- campaigns, the accusation of terrorism is stripped bare of any historical, social or political facts. It stands alone in an ocean of “truth” fabricated by the new regime. Governments often think that their people are stupid, naive or do not see the facts behind the lies. But this equation only rarely adds up.
The brutal campaign of the Egyptian military which followed the coup against Mohammed Morsi put a bloody end to the Brotherhood´s reign, and proved impressively the lack of political culture in Egypt. What followed were arrests, prosecution and the killing of more than 1000 peacefully demonstrating supporters of the Brotherhood in an unprecedented massacre.The campaign eventually culminated – for the moment – in September 2013 with a decree prohibiting the Muslim Brotherhood and all its activities. This was followed in December by putting the organization on the terror list and prohibiting any kind of organized activities, even demonstrations. Almost its whole leadership was put in jail while one of the processes against Mubarak was halted.
Prosecution members of the Brotherhood undergo these days resemble the one they had to suffer under Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s and is a screaming example of the army´s ruthlessness. It also joins many other attempts of governments across the world to crush a social movement by force. The most prominent cases are Israel trying to crush the PLO in Lebanon in 1982, ort he Colombian governments trying to crush the FARC rebels for many decades. But as in the former examples, it is likely that it won´t work this time, too. To the contrary, repression of the movement might lead to the break-off and formation of armed splinter-groups, who are determined to fight the government, as it happened in the 1970s in Egypt.32
Egypt has hardly seen a calm day since Morsi was ousted and arrested. Several bombings and armed attacks on police and ongoing demonstrations of Brotherhood supporters are a clear sign of a lack of legitimacy. Only a civilized face-to-face encounter and the acknowledgement of the movement as legitimate player in the political arena will bring peace and calm to the country. On the other hand the Brotherhood must understand, that it must open up for broader segments of the Egyptian society. In order to do that it must rethink crucial parts of its ideology, namely its neoliberal agenda, its puritan approach to organising society, as well as its ideological nexus between nationalism and religion.
PostScriptum
Call it what you will: betrayed hopes, political blindness or class struggle. Or maybe a mixture of all of these components. There were multiple reasons for the supporters of Tamarrod to take to the streets on June 30th, 2013. But today, six months after the coup only political romantics still believe al-Sisi´s claim of serving the nation and fighting terrorism. It became increasingly obvious that the coup was only aimed at restoring the old order, which in fact never ceased to exist. The Prosecution media and opposition figures from all political camps undergo are worse than it has ever been under the reign of Hosni Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood virtually ceased to exist and the political and social transformation process is restricted to acclaim General al-Sisi´s measures.
Yet another constitution was drafted and approved by 98.1% of the electorate on January 15th. Shame to him who thinks evil of it. It is most likely now, that al-Sisi will run for presidency in spring and, of course, become next Egyptian president. Surprisingly enough, many Egyptians who did not support him last July, do so now. The poison of fear and intimidation is doing its job and after three years of unrest, violence and prosecution most Egyptians only wish to live in peace and dignity.
And the West? It sings the song of “stability” -i.e. support of General al-Sisi-the way it always has when its interests were at stake. Too important is Egypt for the West´s geo-strategic architecture, too dangerous the possibility of another Arab country in civil conflict-even if this conflict is only a chimera in the minds of the old forces and their propaganda.
The revolutionary uprising of 2011 remains apromise of what´s possible if the people uses its strength for its own sake, not for that of a minority misusing the state to fill its pockets.
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32 See: Roy, Olivier: The Failure of Political Islam, London, I.B. Tauris Publishers, Chapter 5, 1994.
