Since all this began in Egypt there have been those pundits (names withheld to protect the morons) who keep pushing the Muslim Brotherhood as some sort of terrorist state in waiting…..thanx to the rhetoric of Mubarak who has painted them as such and along with those on the Right that are concerned with the group and even some respected fellows at the Council of Foreign relations keep pushing a point that is not accurate…..most of their concern is unfounded…..
Bruce Reidel writing in the Daily Beast……offers up a bit of history for those that refuse to see the forest for the trees……
The Muslim Brethren was founded in 1928 by Shaykh Hassan al Banna as an Islamic alternative to weak secular nationalist parties that failed to secure Egypt’s freedom from British colonialism after World War I. Banna preached a fundamentalist Islamism and advocated the creation of an Islamic Egypt, but he was also open to importing techniques of political organization and propaganda from Europe that rapidly made the Brotherhood a fixture in Egyptian politics. Branches of the Brotherhood grew across the Arab world. By World War 2, it became more violent in its opposition to the British and the British-dominated monarchy, sponsoring assassinations and mass violence. After the army seized power in 1952, it briefly flirted with supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government but then moved into opposition. Nasser ruthlessly suppressed it Nasser and his successors, Anwar Sadat and Mubarak, have alternatively repressed and demonized the Brotherhood or tolerated it as an anti-communist and right-wing opposition. Technically illegal, it has an enormous social-welfare infrastructure that provides cheap education and health care.
The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.
It is understandable that we Americans need a good guy and a bad guy, like our old time westerns, but in this case…….the media is misinforming the public….but as has been said….”it is not up to the US”……..
Yes. Good post and all that is true, but as the quote points out, AQ and similar assholes have their roots in the Brotherhood.
The real reason I am worried by such entities as MB is that, however weak or ineffectual a secular government may be, it is (in my opinion) ALWAYS and ENTIRELY preferable to one based around a religion – ANY religion…
In fact, except that I am in favour of the freedom of the individual to believe anything he or she chooses, I would ALMOST regard belief in a deity as being grounds for barring a candidate from political office since their beliefs are likely to colour their judgement on a whole raft of issues.
As I said – “almost” – but when the Palins of this world start spouting creationism and the like… well, maybe such a ban would be the lesser of two evils.
As an aside, the IRA and the Provisional IRA have renounced violence in Northern Ireland, but there are new offshoots of hardliners who have sprung up to continue it – it’s less, but it hasn’t gone away entirely! Equally, the MB will have its radical element ready to distort, kill and maim in the name of their religious beliefs – THAT is fundamentalist religion for you.
Yes all that is correct and most likely the extremists will try to grab the spotlight…..my point was that NO matter what happened in the past…the MB is not the same as it started……I think the Egyptian people are smarter than we in the West give them credit…
Oh, I’m sure the Egyptian people are smarter than we in the west give them credit for – the vast majority of US elite for sure almost invariably thinks that everyone not born white from moneyed parents in America must automatically be a second or third class human being anyway…
“…I think the Egyptian people are smarter than we in the West give them credit…”
We in the west seem to think we know whats best for everyone. If your country is in political turmoil, here we come to save you, even though we suffer from extreme political hatred amongst each other in this country.
Spot on Phillip. Oh, so very true!
Phillip it all goes back to that American exceptionalism…….we are always right…..