| The Daily Star |
Through its role in the Egyptian Revolution of January 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood once again demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt its behavior and discourse to new circumstances. Indeed, the movement has managed to cooperate with other opposition blocs despite well-established ideological differences, and now it is actively seeking to portray itself as the centrist political force capable of pulling together the new Egyptian polity.
However, the revolution has also created new challenges for the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly, an emboldened group of Muslim Brotherhood insiders who strongly oppose what they have characterized as the organization’s extremely timid agenda when it comes to reform. And although dissension within the ranks is not a recent phenomenon for the Muslim Brotherhood, it has assumed unprecedented relevance as many the predictions of many observers that reformers would break from the more conservative leadership of the organization has come to fruition.
The reformists (as a term relevant to the Muslim Brotherhood) emerged around 2004, and the Egyptian media initially used it as a relatively hazy category to refer to those who were disgruntled with the authoritarianism of the organization’s guidance bureau. The Muslim Brotherhood’s reformists demanded greater freedom of debate and accountability within the movement, greater participation for women and the young, and the establishment of a set of transparent guidelines to guide decision-making.
Since that time, the term has only gotten hazier and the reformists in the Muslim Brotherhood are known to come from all walks of life: The term now embraces a group diverse in age (those from 20 to 50 years old), profession (political pundits, student leaders, activists, social media entrepreneurs, etc.), socio-economic status, and place of residence (hailing both from small towns and big cities).
These reformers advocate for more creative approaches to Islamic texts, and they insist on the necessity of justifying the values of democracy and citizenship in Islamic terms. Crucially, they also advocate far-reaching doctrinal and organizational restructuring of the Muslim Brotherhood that would separate the party’s networks of political participation from its mission of proselytism.
These reformist members were some of the most active in the mobilization of youths in the lead-up to the January 2011 uprising; they pushed senior leaders to join the revolution when the Muslim Brotherhood was initially indecisive over how to respond. In debates with party conservatives, the reformists argued that “youth passion” could be successfully assimilated into a modern Islamist party, and to that end, they held a two-day conference in Cairo in April 2011 to articulate their agenda. The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party boycotted the conference.
In fact, the conservative leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood has refused to internalize any of these criticisms. Their fear is that internal reform will alienate the organization’s more conservative constituency and push them instead toward the Salafists. This inflexibility has prompted a number of prominent figures to resign, such as Ibrahim al-Houdaiby, the grandson of the sixth General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mamoun al-Houdaiby.
More disappointingly, Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh (the most well-known figure among the reformers) left the organization’s guidance bureau during the last internal elections before the revolution. He was eventually suspended from the organization in May 2011 when he announced his intention to run for president in defiance of the official Muslim Brotherhood stance not to field a presidential candidate.
Similar official positions taken by the leadership throughout the transition have alienated reformists and pushed them over the edge. They have criticized the Freedom and Justice Party’s limited commitment to state reform and have emphasized the need to restructure the Egyptian police and judiciary, liquidate the former regime’s political networks and resources. They also have supported the rights of workers to demand better working conditions. Additionally, reformists have censured the Freedom and Justice Party’s decision not to pressure the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as well as its failure not to join the dissatisfied secular revolutionary forces that took to the streets again last April.
The “we-did-it” euphoria has pushed disaffected reformists to search for or create alternative political forums. Many of them have resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood, while many others have been fired by its guidance bureau following an official investigation into their “violations of group regulations.”
Among the alternative parties created by former Muslim Brotherhood members is the Egyptian Current Party (Al-Tayar al-Masry), founded in June by Islam Lotfy and Mohammad al-Qassas, which is the largest of the new parties. It includes two other prominent members, Ahmad Nazily and Ammar al-Beltagy who is particularly noteworthy because his father, Mohammad al-Beltagy, is a key and very visible leader in the Freedom and Justice Party. Some members of the Egyptian Current Party like Mohammad Osman, Mohammad Afan, and Ali al-Meshad, also defied warnings from the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership by joining Aboul Fotouh’s presidential campaign.
Two smaller political forums are in the process of establishing legalized parties: Al-Nahda and Al-Reyada. Their membership is generally older than that of the Egyptian Current Party, as most of the Muslim Brotherhood youth active during the revolution largely prefer the latter. Al-Nahda is headed by the veteran reformers Ibrahim al-Zafarani and Mohamed Habib, who is a former deputy guide who resigned amid an alleged character-assassination campaign during the 2010 guidance bureau elections.
Al-Reyada’s constituency is centered in the port city of Alexandria and is headed by Khaled Daoud. The forum includes renowned ex- Muslim Brotherhood civil society pundits like Haitham Abu Khalil, Amr Abu-Khalil and Khalid al-Zafarani. Although both Al-Nahda and Al-Reyada are still in the initial phase of political development, they seem to have very similar outlooks. The separation of the two is mainly based on personal antagonism among supporters. As Haitham Abu Khalil has noted, most members of Al-Reyada disagree with the “authoritarian leadership style” of Al-Nahda’s Ibrahim al-Zafarani.
These new parties are working hard to emulate Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, and have focused especially on the separation of its political and proselytizing missions while also promulgating a conciliatory social message. The Egyptian Current Party, for example, notes that Islam is only one element of contemporary Egyptian society’s multiplicity of cultural identities. Members are attempting to tap the socio-economic demands of the relatively deprived middle class yuppies and youthful labor force at the heart of the Jan. 25 uprising. Their platforms call for human rights and community development rather than engaging in the meta-politics of establishing an Islamic state.
The differences among these breakaway factions and the Muslim Brotherhood are so deep that today many ex-Brothers find those in non-Islamist movements more appealing partners than their Islamist counterparts. In fact, the new reformist parties have debated the viability of shifting toward a center-left position in alliance with Egypt’s non-Islamist liberal and leftist political actors.
The Egyptian Current party and members of the Al-Nahda forum have already done so. Last October they entered into the “Completing the Revolution” Alliance with socialist groups such as the Socialist Popular Alliance Party and the Equality and Development Party, as well as moderate liberal parties such as the Egypt Freedom Party. This alliance has fielded 306 candidates in 33 electoral districts: 280 on unified electoral lists (out of a possible 332) and 26 (out of a possible 166) for independent seats to the 508-member lower house of Parliament. Of these candidates, 32 belong to the Egyptian Current party (including Lotfy and Qassas).
Despite these developments, given the lack of financial clout and organizational resources, Muslim Brotherhood reformists still appear to be electorally insignificant. So far, they have not been able to win a single seat in the first round of the parliamentary elections (though other parties in the Completing the Revolution Alliance have won 10 seats). The fragmentation among them is also problematic, and they have a long way to go to catch up with the electoral competence of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party and reproduce its extraordinary party structures.
But despite poor performance in these elections, their presence in Egypt’s transition cannot be ignored. Though not yet apparent on the ballot, they have tapped into a generation of Islamist activists and young middle class professionals whose aspirations for socio-economic development is not fulfilled by the discourse of the Freedom and Justice Party. They are in the process of reshaping a new Islamist discourse on good governance, democracy and development. In doing so, the reformists are undermining the polarization between Islamists and secularists that long inhibited the development of policy-oriented (rather than identity-based) party politics.
Ashraf El Sherif, who teaches at the American University in Cairo, is a specialist on political Islam. This commentary first appeared at Sada, an online journal published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2012/Jan-20/160474-muslim-brotherhood-reformers-tap-into-a-generation-of-young-activists.ashx#ixzz1k1UrfPRw
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