Is “based on their actions, not their doctrine” too complicated a concept for you to understand?
No, I recognize the intellectual dishonesty and obvious nonsense that you’re using to avoid admitting you were wrong. It’s cute, though, that you think I can’t object to your bullshit argument without a failure to understand it.
One group has, as its official policy, the murder of apostates and adulterers, and the persecution of gay people. You deliberately choose to avoid that and pretend that a group calling for the deaths of people and the official persecution of gays is less “violent” and “bigoted” than one that doesn’t.
This is the same Muslim Brotherhood which endorsed suicide bombing(which they call “martyrdom operations”) directed at Bat Mitzvah’s, commuter buses and pizzerias.
This is the same Muslim Brotherhood which proudly lists the fact that Hamas is one of their offshoots.
Here is Yusuf Al Qaradawi who is generally considered to be one of the more moderate spiritual leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood giving his opinion about Hitler and “the Jews.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HStliOnVl6Q
Now, since you have insisted that the religious right in America is “more bigoted” and feel that the Muslim Brotherhood is no different than the Christian Democratic parties in Europe, please give me the names of major figures of the Religious Right who’s influence and popularity is comparable to that of Qaradawi who praise Hitler and claim that their greatest wish is to kill Jews.
Similarly, if the Muslim Brotherhood really is comparable to the Christian Democrats of Europe, please list some Christian Democrats who’ve made such comments.
You’re using the fact that so many of their members are “highly educated” as if Muslims who are highly educated are less likely to be radical than their poorer, less educated counterparts.
That’s not true at all. In Egypt, radical Islam, ever since the days of Qutb has always drawn it’s leaders from the well-educated upper class and middle class. Most of the leaders of Sunni radical groups didn’t train to be clerics, but were instead trained to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, or some similar profession and wound up becoming radicalized. Most even studied in the West.
For example, Qutb, who made the MB into a force to be reckoned with was an engineer who went to college in Colorado and became radicalized at that time. Hamas at times has been led by pediatricians and meetings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have rarely been attended by semi-literate common laborers, but by college-educated professionals. Ahmadinejad actually has a PhD.
The rural and urban poor of the Arab Middle East aren’t the ones who’ve flocked to radical Islam, but it’s usually the frustrated, well-educated middle class.
In fact, a study amongst the Palestinians found that illiterate Palestinians were more likely to oppose suicide bombings than college-educated Palestinians. Similarly, students at Bir Zeit University tend to be far more radical than those Palestinians who work as day laborers.
There’s a reason the 9/11 hijackers were all engineers and architects who spoke multiple languages rather than semi-literate farmers.
That said, I doubt the Muslim Brotherhood will take over, but to try and make them into something they’re not is utterly silly.
There are a **number **of reasons, which make your implied conclusion either wrong or not relevant to my point.
Most important among these “9/11 reasons” is the fact that you want someone capable of operating in a foreign environment, with the intellectual power to execute a complex plan, and who is a quick study on technical matters, e.g., like flying a plane or demolishing a building. Things an illiterate fisherman might struggle with, regardless of the fervour of his religious and political ideology.
But of course that has nothing specifically to do with the Brotherhood. I already pointed out the problem of repressive regimes routing political discourse into religious forums, something that never works well. What we see in the case of the Brotherhood, however, certainly looks like a softening in stance.
Rabid fundamentalists generally do not issue public assurances that (if they were to take power) women would not need to cover up. Radical Islamists and jihadists virulently condemn the Brotherhood for being moderate and for not pursuing extremist goals. The (secular) military somehow saw fit to appoint a Brotherhood member to the constitutional panel charged with revising the Egyptian constitution and pave the way for a new government: Sobhi Saleh. He’s a well respected moderate and a member of the reformist camp in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Yes, there are reformists in the party. It’s not all dire news.
I was trying to allay popular fears of unwashed illiterate tribal masses calling for Jihad. My bad. There’s so many factors at work here that I doubt the matter can be settled easily. One has to be reasonably educated to get ahead in Egyptian society, whether as a civil servant or politician or cleric, and that does cause overlap between the groups of people who are well educated and extremist exponents.
There’s also the issue of technology, not easily available outside of urban areas, as well as “loci of opportunity” typically found in urban areas which do not so much attract extremists as create them.
Would you suggest that well educated equals extremist? Or do you accept that there are well educated members of the MB who are not extremist (including several liberals funnelled into the only real opposition group by Mubarek’s policies)?
Well educated young officers who imported skills and knowledge acquired in places like West Point were crucial to the Egyptian revolution we just witnessed. Better trained, the “youngsters” provided an absolutely crucial counter balance to the old guard, which was more traditionally educated to exercise power rather than strategically restrain it.
Something similar has been happening to the MB, which has significant internal pressure to reform. Not just because of the influx of liberals (who had nowhere else to go) in the party, but also because after more than 80 years of trying, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has managed to accomplish precious little by hardline. It commands maybe 20% of popular support and has perhaps 100,000 members. The management is starting to understand that their agenda may be less than ideal. Does that make them a desirable political element? Of course not, their policies remain problematic at best. But let’s not make things look worse than they are.
A lot of things are unclear and I don’t presume to be able to account for all of them. We see popular statistics flung around like 84% of Egyptians support stoning as punishment for adultery, and I fear that the BM may have seized on them. That would explain the vague USA Today quote provided by FinnAgain of Ali Abdel Fattah who was reported as saying that “The Brotherhood would seek “the preservation of honor” by stoning adulterers, punishing gays, requiring Muslim women to cover their heads and shoulders in public and killing Muslims who leave their faith”.
Aside from the fact that the BM has already specified that it would not push such policies, Ali Abdel fattah **might **be pandering to polls in a misguided attempt to gain more popular support, since even Islamic authorities have a hard time agreeing on exactly what is supposedly mandated by the Koran and Sharia and there is disagreement within the party itself as to what is reasonable and what is not. The above quote is a rather hardline interpretation of the worst fundametalist Islamist issues. Such extremist positions would be contested within the MB itself, unless all its moderates, reformists, and liberals magically disappeared (mind you that may happen if Egypt will achieve a free and open political forum, which would only further weaken the MB). There’s very litle chance that seculars in Egyptian society (not to mention the military) would allow such draconic religious policies to become reality anyway.
I’m a bit surprised by your assumption that the Muslim Brotherhood wouldn’t try and have apostates punished when they very specifically pushed the Mubarak government to have the word “Ex-Muslim” stamped on the IDs of Muslims who converted to Christianity.
Also, I’m not sure you understand what the “secular” military thinks since they have also advocated for all sorts of morality laws and religious education.
Finally, since you’re so certain that the Muslim Brotherhood has “reformers” and “liberals” within it, though you decline to name any of them, let’s take a look at the most prominent “moderate” and “liberal” within the Muslim Brotherhood.
Here he is on Hitler and what should be done with “the Jews”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HStliOnVl6Q
Here he is on female masturbation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPXmNXLbuxY&feature=related
Here is his legal opinion on apostates.
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1178724001992&pagename=Zone-English-Living_Shariah/LSELayout
Um… no. I’m simply making the point that anyone familiar with the genesis and spread of radical Islam knows that it’s been far more prevalent among the well-educated than the poorly educated and not for the reasons you’re suggesting.
I’d recommend read Gille Kepel The Prophet and the Pharaoh for an in-depth look at it’s genesis and growth in Egypt.
You’re trying to make the Muslim Brotherhood into something they’re not because you find it comforting. I see where you’re coming from, but if you want to really understand what it going on, you’ll need to jettison the comfortable beliefs and scratch below the surface.
All of this discussion though ignores the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has little chance of taking over.
I’m a bit surprised at some of **your ** assumptions. Motes and beams! Let’s take a closer, rather more accurate look, shall we? The quote in question, provided by a rather vague article that gave no deeper information, consisted of one spokesman allegedly saying (not even by direct quote) that the MB would pursue the following:
“the preservation of honor” by stoning adulterers, punishing gays, requiring Muslim women to cover their heads and shoulders in public and killing Muslims who leave their faith
People have (predictably) had a field day with that quote while completely ignoring other (more moderate) output from the MB, which prompted me to say this: “the BM has already specified that it would not push such policies” (to which you expressed your surprise).
The reason I pointed this out was to counter the fixation on small tidbits of information that often (and sadly) characterizes discussion on these topics, where posters try to score points against each other while regaling the audience with the rugged assertiveness of their prose. How about you try a slightly wider angle?
Here is one Muslim Brotherhood proclamation that some may find surprisingly mild:
Sounds fairly moderate, no?
I would also like to note that you are making a gigantic leap from identification of ex Muslims to automatic punishment of apostates. Joke: the USA requires you to declare your ethnicity! OMFG! Racist murderers want to identify and kill us!
I’ve already mentioned how even within Egyptian religious forums (never mind the larger Islamic world) there is no ultimate consensus on apostasy or what the punishment for apostasy should be. People disagree freely on this subject, and as there is no Koranic basis for apostasy laws, they are likely to continue to disagree.
Said that, apostasy in cultures where Islam is dominant tends to be a big deal and has been a huge source of discussion. Consider contraception and abortion in Catholic cultures and the responses such topics elicit. It is simply not reasonable to expect parity across cultures on all issues. Many consider original sin to be a ridiculous concept and a psychologically harmful handicap, and yet it’s one of the pillars of many Christian sects and an accepted item of culture across various countries.
I will agree with you and everyone else that the idea that there is such a thing as apostate sin is philosophically and morally vile and needs to be wiped out in any society. But that is neither the point nor a fair cultural consideration for countries where apostasy has been identified in certain ways for over a thousand years.
Are Muslims who genuinely believe that apostasy is bad supposed to magically come to their senses? That’s going to take time and education. And maybe an Enlightment, which the Muslim world could really use right about now.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, apostasy will remain a popular topic. But it is rather unfair and hardly worthy of Great Debates to repeatedly attempt to exclude other dialogue that provides a more nuanced picture than the facile conclusion you are trying to hammer through.
Gee. Perhaps I understand just fine and realize that there are degrees of difference for concepts and labels that vary according to different cultures? Take a European conservative and he looks like a centrist or even a liberal in US politics. I would certainly expect that secularism in environments where irreligion is virtually non-existent would hardly be identical to secularism in environments where irreligion is a normal part of life.
Gee, I am deeply sorry for “declining” to name people like Sobhi Saleh, the guy I already talked about in the very post you are responding to.
Yes, this is the same guy who once proposed banning public kissing in certain places. I agree that may not sound terribly moderate, but then again that’s an assessment informed by our own standards and cultures, and I don’t actually know details of that particular effort beyond the “e-z quote” I just gave. He is not likely to exactly match the Western concept of a liberal reformist, but that is hardly a surprise since we’re not talking about a Western society.
As far as reformers there was a whole group of them - the Islahiyoun party-within-the-party – though I am not sure what they are up to since the revolution.
That is nice cherry-picking. Don’t you think a more even-handed analysis (showing a man who has also issued “sensible” and compassionate rulings) would have been more fair?
For example, pronouncements about Jews from *before *he became senile and politically enraged by Israeli policies? I know he has frequently advocated dialogue, friendship, and non-violence especially towards Jews.
Please tell me exactly what is NOT moderate about his views on female masturbation. What I am getting is this:
- Female masturbation is “riskier” than male masturbation because insertion of fingers or objects could damage the rather delicate hymen
- Damage to the hymen would automatically be assumed to have resulted from fornication
- This would result in discrimination, injury, or even death to the female as a result of wrong-headed behaviour by men, relatives, or society.
If anything, that looks quite progressive to me (given the source). I’d say this is a fairly moderate view about female masturbation. What do you think?
But anyway. We know that the MB has a conservative leadership core which emphasizes conservative values - this is precisely the problem of the old guard and the new I already raised in the previous post. You see the old guard and assume that’s all there is – this is a mistake. (A mistake on top of the other mistake of painting a target entirely monochrome, that is).
The MB in recent times has been surprisingly moderate, certainly by the standards of conservative society and Islamist movements. The reasons are many (a softening of stance, influence of non-extremists, attempt to achieve wider popular appeal, seeking international legitimacy, etc.) but the result is that here we have a supposedly extremist party declaring that they do NOT intend to pursue the very power for which the West fears it.
Trustworthy? Perhaps, perhaps not. But that does speak directly against the fear that this party, if it comes to power, will start killing homosexuals, fornicators, apostates, etc.
Spare me the cheap psychoanalysis. The MB does make me uncomfortable, but the picture you attempt to present about it (a fanatical, fundamentalist, uncompromising party) is simply not accurate. Does the MB talk to various ideological bases? Sure. Do some of its reps appear to be confused over some issues? Yes. Is some of their dialogue moderate and some of it extreme? Absolutely. Do they sometimes serve different audiences? Yes.
I am simply pointing to a more nuanced picture than the foolish binary ones (plural) some people would like to see swallowed wholesale.
A nuanced picture such as that presented here, for instance:
Imagine that. Or what about this, an outcome prognosticated by a Christian female professor who is part of the Trustees of the January 25 Revolution and NOT a member (now or at any time) of the MB:
A point that (I think) was raised by BrainGlutton, though perhaps somewhat too strongly. Nonetheless, we see that people who are actually in the know, in Egypt, and involved in these historical events are rather less terrified by the MB than you’d expect from a not-that-highly-relevant political party that some people keep trying to make into a raging bugbear.
That “ignored” fact has already been asserted by both of us three or four times, so it is hardly fair to continue presenting it as ignored.
It’s almost as if the MB has put out some propaganda to try to assuage the fears of Westerners who will fall for it, and even when they explicitly say that, yeah, they’re actually going to do what they’ve claimed they wouldn’t, people will still try to argue that they’re not serious/it’s not a good enough quote/it doesn’t count and no backseez
Much like their ‘moderate’ objection to violence, except while supporting suicide bombings targeted at civilians. Some people also repeat the whole “The MB has renounced violence” canard, too.
Of course, because all we have is their official spokesman saying that they’ll kill adulterers and apostates and “punish” homosexuals. And who listens to a party’s official spokesperson when trying to find out the party’s official position?