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THE BROTHERHOOD, ERDOGAN AND ISIS
Al Ahram, Egypt
Nov 7 2014
Political Islam has nothing to offer the region except bad choices
and worse, writes Galal Nassar
It is an old strategy to present two grim alternatives and force people
to choose the lesser of two evils. This was how the Muslim Brotherhood
presented itself in Egypt, regionally and internationally through their
international organisation. They were the model of moderate, tolerant
Islam, capable of restraining the hardliners. In assuming power, they
would be in a position to serve regional and international interests
by keeping the rank and file of extremist groups in check because with
them in the limelight they would put paid to the extremists' claims
and pretexts that Islamic rule had to prevail in countries that had
majority Muslim populations. The Muslim Brothers have succeeded in
marketing this notion in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world even
among some liberal and leftist leaders who advocate accommodating the
Muslim Brotherhood as a means to halt the violence and end terrorism,
and who argue that to fight the Muslim Brothers, in spite of the fact
that they have taken up arms against the state, aggravates tensions,
violence and bloodshed. In other words, once again we are to choose
between the lesser of two evils: by embracing the Muslim Brothers we
avert the dangers of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis and ISIS.
The line of argument ignores the well-known fact that the Muslim
Brotherhood has always been the official sponsor of takfiri thought.
The ideas of Hassan Al-Banna, Sayed Qotb and other Brotherhood
ideologues are brimming with intolerance, discrimination, hatred of
the other (among fellow Muslims if they are Shia) and vilification of
all who disagree with their thinking. The Muslim Brotherhood version
of Islam is a far cry in form and substance from moderate Islam as
epitomised by the outlook and attitudes of Al-Azhar and by the ideas
of famous Islamic scholars such as the illustrious reformist the Imam
Mohamed Abdu.
This brings us to another pair to compare and contrast: Abu Bakr
Al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed caliph over the self-proclaimed Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, newly elected
president of Turkey seen by an Islamist current in Egypt and elsewhere
in the region as the Muslim who most merits the caliphate.
So argues that Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, the Egyptian/
Qatari Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi who points out that Turkey was
the seat of the caliphate. The rise of the Muslim Brothers in most
countries of the Arab region following the Arab Spring revolutions was
to be the step that preceded Erdogan's rise to that throne. Erdogan and
his clique couched this in different terms to his friends in Washington
and other Western capitals. By means of the Muslim Brotherhood regimes
in the Arab region he would be able to keep this region under control,
curb the reach of the Iranian ogre, promote democratic transformation
in a way that would not harm Western interests and that would draw
Islamist extremists back from European countries.
When confronted with the Baghdadi image next to the Erdogan one,
the observer abroad and the citizen at home is certain to leap
for the latter as the lesser of two evils if not as the model for
spearheading development, the fight against corruption and the drive
for economic growth. When faced with a choice like that, how easy
it becomes to turn a blind eye to Erdogan's dictatorial tendencies,
to his repression of civic freedoms and suppression of all opposing
voices, to the corruption of his family and political party, to his
designs to craft the law and the constitution in ways to augment his
personal powers and promote his neo-Ottoman imperial project.
It is difficult to find any difference between the logic of the
pro-Erdogan camp and the argument espoused by some Egyptian elites
in favour of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood as a way of checking
Islamist extremists in spite of the fact that the Muslim Brothers have
proven their incompetence in political office and have demonstrated
how their way of thought and behaviour is inappropriate for those
at the helm of a society that has long been plagued by corruption
and repression under many glorious sounding banners and emblems
and that must now free itself of subjugation to all authorities,
even to authorities that fly the pennants of religion, the imam,
the supreme guide or the guardian of the faith.
With regard to Erdogan's neo-Ottoman imperial project, no major
Turkish obstacles stand in its way theoretically due to the nature
of the radical changes brought by the ruling Justice and Development
Party (JDP) during its decade in government. Economically, the per
capita income tripled and the Turkish economy soared to the 15th
strongest in the world and Erdogan has pledged to bring it up to tenth
before another decade is out. Politically, the JDP has succeeded in
eliminating the army from politics and breaking long established
taboos with regard to the Kurdish and Armenian problems (without
having gone so far as to offer viable solutions to either). Along
with such inroads, the Erdogan-led governments have decimated all
opposition and ruthlessly repressed protest demonstrations, an
approach consistent with his thinking that he made explicit when he
was mayor of Istanbul to which he was elected in 1994. At the time,
Erdogan was a member of the Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party headed by
Necmettin Erbakan. In December 1997, during a rally in Siirt, he chose
to recite a poem that included verses by an Islamist and pan-Turkish
nationalist poet that have been translated as: "The mosques are our
barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets... " He
was arraigned and found guilty on charges of incitement to criminal
offences and incitement to religious or racial hatred, and stripped
of his mayoral position. After serving a 10-month prison sentence
he was released and soon became head of the Refah Party's successor,
the JDP, and then prime minister.
Like his policies towards the Armenians and the Kurds, Erdogan's
expressed desire to push his country's EU accession bid is something
of a smokescreen. Realising how slim his chances have become, he
is set on what may have been his original grand design, which is to
re-establish Turkey (under his leadership) at the head of the Arab
and Islamic world under the banner of a resurrected caliphate or any
other sign that ensures Turkey's place as the uncontested commercial,
economic and political gateway to the Middle East.
If parties of whatever ideological trend in this region support or
feel they can live with Erdogan's mighty political ambitions they
are fooling themselves, for they are overlooking four centuries of
history during which Arab capitals such as Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus
steadily declined from being beacons of civilisation, prosperity and
enlightenment to rural wastelands and cultural backwaters by the end
of Ottoman hegemony.
Political and intellectual elites in the Arab region should also
bear in mind that the most important weapon in the propaganda and
military arsenal of the countries that are targeting this region is the
Islamist trend. In large measure, the danger of this weapon resides
in the considerable amount of wool that blinds large segments of the
intelligentsia and the general public to the true nature of this trend
that continually reproduces its ideas and roles. It is sufficient
here to conclude with the words of the eminent thinker, geographer
and historian Gamal Hamdan: "Extremist Islamist groups are a recurrent
plague that periodically infests the Islamic world... Political Islam
is a manifestation of a psychological and mental illness... "
We do not approve the harsher judgement of this man who was one of
the most vehement opponents to the Egyptian peace accord with Israel:
"The condition for the progress of Egypt, the Arabs and the Islamic
world is to hang every member of every last Islamist group by the
intestines of every last Israeli." However, to all who are running
after the Erdogan sultanate or the Al-Baghdadi caliphate we will
echo the cruel truth that Gamal Hamdan reached in his research:
"The Islamic world is a geographic fact but it is a political myth."
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/7663/21/The-Brotherhood,-Erdogan-and-ISIS.aspx
Al Ahram, Egypt
Nov 7 2014
Political Islam has nothing to offer the region except bad choices
and worse, writes Galal Nassar
It is an old strategy to present two grim alternatives and force people
to choose the lesser of two evils. This was how the Muslim Brotherhood
presented itself in Egypt, regionally and internationally through their
international organisation. They were the model of moderate, tolerant
Islam, capable of restraining the hardliners. In assuming power, they
would be in a position to serve regional and international interests
by keeping the rank and file of extremist groups in check because with
them in the limelight they would put paid to the extremists' claims
and pretexts that Islamic rule had to prevail in countries that had
majority Muslim populations. The Muslim Brothers have succeeded in
marketing this notion in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world even
among some liberal and leftist leaders who advocate accommodating the
Muslim Brotherhood as a means to halt the violence and end terrorism,
and who argue that to fight the Muslim Brothers, in spite of the fact
that they have taken up arms against the state, aggravates tensions,
violence and bloodshed. In other words, once again we are to choose
between the lesser of two evils: by embracing the Muslim Brothers we
avert the dangers of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis and ISIS.
The line of argument ignores the well-known fact that the Muslim
Brotherhood has always been the official sponsor of takfiri thought.
The ideas of Hassan Al-Banna, Sayed Qotb and other Brotherhood
ideologues are brimming with intolerance, discrimination, hatred of
the other (among fellow Muslims if they are Shia) and vilification of
all who disagree with their thinking. The Muslim Brotherhood version
of Islam is a far cry in form and substance from moderate Islam as
epitomised by the outlook and attitudes of Al-Azhar and by the ideas
of famous Islamic scholars such as the illustrious reformist the Imam
Mohamed Abdu.
This brings us to another pair to compare and contrast: Abu Bakr
Al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed caliph over the self-proclaimed Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, newly elected
president of Turkey seen by an Islamist current in Egypt and elsewhere
in the region as the Muslim who most merits the caliphate.
So argues that Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, the Egyptian/
Qatari Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi who points out that Turkey was
the seat of the caliphate. The rise of the Muslim Brothers in most
countries of the Arab region following the Arab Spring revolutions was
to be the step that preceded Erdogan's rise to that throne. Erdogan and
his clique couched this in different terms to his friends in Washington
and other Western capitals. By means of the Muslim Brotherhood regimes
in the Arab region he would be able to keep this region under control,
curb the reach of the Iranian ogre, promote democratic transformation
in a way that would not harm Western interests and that would draw
Islamist extremists back from European countries.
When confronted with the Baghdadi image next to the Erdogan one,
the observer abroad and the citizen at home is certain to leap
for the latter as the lesser of two evils if not as the model for
spearheading development, the fight against corruption and the drive
for economic growth. When faced with a choice like that, how easy
it becomes to turn a blind eye to Erdogan's dictatorial tendencies,
to his repression of civic freedoms and suppression of all opposing
voices, to the corruption of his family and political party, to his
designs to craft the law and the constitution in ways to augment his
personal powers and promote his neo-Ottoman imperial project.
It is difficult to find any difference between the logic of the
pro-Erdogan camp and the argument espoused by some Egyptian elites
in favour of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood as a way of checking
Islamist extremists in spite of the fact that the Muslim Brothers have
proven their incompetence in political office and have demonstrated
how their way of thought and behaviour is inappropriate for those
at the helm of a society that has long been plagued by corruption
and repression under many glorious sounding banners and emblems
and that must now free itself of subjugation to all authorities,
even to authorities that fly the pennants of religion, the imam,
the supreme guide or the guardian of the faith.
With regard to Erdogan's neo-Ottoman imperial project, no major
Turkish obstacles stand in its way theoretically due to the nature
of the radical changes brought by the ruling Justice and Development
Party (JDP) during its decade in government. Economically, the per
capita income tripled and the Turkish economy soared to the 15th
strongest in the world and Erdogan has pledged to bring it up to tenth
before another decade is out. Politically, the JDP has succeeded in
eliminating the army from politics and breaking long established
taboos with regard to the Kurdish and Armenian problems (without
having gone so far as to offer viable solutions to either). Along
with such inroads, the Erdogan-led governments have decimated all
opposition and ruthlessly repressed protest demonstrations, an
approach consistent with his thinking that he made explicit when he
was mayor of Istanbul to which he was elected in 1994. At the time,
Erdogan was a member of the Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party headed by
Necmettin Erbakan. In December 1997, during a rally in Siirt, he chose
to recite a poem that included verses by an Islamist and pan-Turkish
nationalist poet that have been translated as: "The mosques are our
barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets... " He
was arraigned and found guilty on charges of incitement to criminal
offences and incitement to religious or racial hatred, and stripped
of his mayoral position. After serving a 10-month prison sentence
he was released and soon became head of the Refah Party's successor,
the JDP, and then prime minister.
Like his policies towards the Armenians and the Kurds, Erdogan's
expressed desire to push his country's EU accession bid is something
of a smokescreen. Realising how slim his chances have become, he
is set on what may have been his original grand design, which is to
re-establish Turkey (under his leadership) at the head of the Arab
and Islamic world under the banner of a resurrected caliphate or any
other sign that ensures Turkey's place as the uncontested commercial,
economic and political gateway to the Middle East.
If parties of whatever ideological trend in this region support or
feel they can live with Erdogan's mighty political ambitions they
are fooling themselves, for they are overlooking four centuries of
history during which Arab capitals such as Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus
steadily declined from being beacons of civilisation, prosperity and
enlightenment to rural wastelands and cultural backwaters by the end
of Ottoman hegemony.
Political and intellectual elites in the Arab region should also
bear in mind that the most important weapon in the propaganda and
military arsenal of the countries that are targeting this region is the
Islamist trend. In large measure, the danger of this weapon resides
in the considerable amount of wool that blinds large segments of the
intelligentsia and the general public to the true nature of this trend
that continually reproduces its ideas and roles. It is sufficient
here to conclude with the words of the eminent thinker, geographer
and historian Gamal Hamdan: "Extremist Islamist groups are a recurrent
plague that periodically infests the Islamic world... Political Islam
is a manifestation of a psychological and mental illness... "
We do not approve the harsher judgement of this man who was one of
the most vehement opponents to the Egyptian peace accord with Israel:
"The condition for the progress of Egypt, the Arabs and the Islamic
world is to hang every member of every last Islamist group by the
intestines of every last Israeli." However, to all who are running
after the Erdogan sultanate or the Al-Baghdadi caliphate we will
echo the cruel truth that Gamal Hamdan reached in his research:
"The Islamic world is a geographic fact but it is a political myth."
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/7663/21/The-Brotherhood,-Erdogan-and-ISIS.aspx