The Skeptic الشكاك

143 A Leftist-Islamist Entente?

?Part of the problem,? Ali Abd al-Fatah?a senior figure in the Alexandria branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and as such a prime target for arrest?said last night, ?is that the government is confused. It isn?t speaking with one voice. There?s an internal debate about how to respond to the current crisis?It?s not in our interests to remain quiet now, to let the government come to our houses and arrest us quietly. We?re better off in the streets, in public. It?s in the government?s interests to divide the opposition forces, to have the Brotherhood on one side, and the liberals on the other. We need to show that the national movement is united. Toward that end, we?d welcome support from any group. We support the right to freedom of expression, including the right to assembly and lifting restrictions on forming political parties.? I’m paraphrasing from memory, but I hope I’ve represented his words faithfully.

He was speaking to Ahmed Seif al-Islam, a secular leftist, veteran rights activist, and critic of the government who now heads the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, before a conference drawing together the Muslim Brotherhood, the Al-Shaab Party (whose activities have been suspended since 2000), the Revolutionary Socialists, Youth for Change, and assorted other opposition groups at the Lawyer?s Syndicate in downtown Cairo. In the hours before the conference, members of the Muslim Brotherhood sat in the pleasant garden behind the syndicate, drank tea next to secular opposition activists, and discussed how they could work together to achieve common aims. At various points in the evening, Magdi Hussein, editor of Al-Shaab?s banned party organ, and Abd al-Halim Qandil, a secular nationalist and editor of Al-Ahali, also joined Seif al-Islam and Abd al-Fatah?s table.

There was a lot of discussion about the future of opposition politics in Egypt, particularly now that the Judges? Club is in talks with the minister of justice about their demands (the outcome of those talks should become clear in the next few days). I?ve been predicting that the two parties might reach a compromise since the disciplinary tribunal treated Mekky and al-Bastawissy more lightly than many expected.

At one point, Montasser al-Zayat?a prominent Islamist lawyer who knew Ayman al-Zawahiri years ago, before they split over ideological differences, and who is now engaged in trying to reconcile Islamists with the government by getting them to forswear violence?came in. I would have been very interested to meet him, but he was on his way to pray and was busy receiving greetings from friends and admirers.

Meanwhile, activists who had only been freed in the past days and weeks after spending a month in prison for participating in protests in support of judicial independence and clean elections circulated around the garden, greeting friends and colleagues they hadn?t seen since their imprisonment. Ahmed al-Droubi was there. So were Akram al-Irani, Ahmed Al-Rifaat, and Faris Iskandr.

Shortly before sunset, about a dozen Kifaya activists gathered at the gates of the Syndicate and shouted slogans calling on Mubarak to resign. One young female activist became nervous at this point. She has worked quietly and effectively to get information about the recent crackdown out, but she said she was worried about being arrested, particularly because her final exams were coming up. I escorted her past the riot police and the 40 or so beltagiya, the plainclothes thugs who have been responsible for most of the police violence over the past month, to the metro station around the corner. When I got back, I kept Ahmed al-Droubi, who was hanging around the edges of the protest, engaged in conversation to keep him from participating, though I could see it was killing him not to take part. As the protesters started singing ?Kifaya, kifaya, kifaya,? he couldn?t help but mouth the words quietly in the middle of our conversation.

I spoke with Ashraf Ibrahim?a Revolutionary Socialist imprisoned in 2003 after he emailed photographs of police violence at anti-Iraq-war protests to human rights groups and then detained again for participating in an April 27, 2006, demonstration in support of judicial independence?by phone about an hour after was released from prison. He said that he was coming to the meeting with Malek Mostafa, an Alexandrian blogger imprisoned on April 26 for participating in a similar protest, ?to send a message to State Security. We want to tell them they cannot scare us.?

I asked him if there was anything I could say to convince him not to come. He said there wasn?t, and so I asked him to phone me before he arrived so I could at least be present as he came in. I was worried he?d meet the same fate as Al-Sharqawi, who was arrested, badly beaten, and sexually assaulted for participating in a May 25 protest, days after State Security released him with warnings not to attend any future protests. All the recently released detainees I spoke with said they had received similar warnings on their release.

I spent some nervous hours waiting for Ibrahim to arrive, listening to the speeches broadcast over the loudspeakers from the conference hall inside. Magdi Hussein, who seems like such a teddy bear in person, he?s so soft-spoken and has such a gentle smile, was all thunder and fire on the microphone. It?s like he becomes a different person on the podium. ?You?ll never get the people behind you telling them they need to support the judges because some guy in France called Montesquieu talked about the separation of powers,? he told the crowd. ?You need to give them something they can relate to, like ?Down with Mubarak!??

Other speakers railed against the government control of the professional syndicates, restrictions on registration of political parties, the fixing of elections, ?all the usual problems,? as one veteran protester put it to me. All spoke about the detention and abuse of protesters arrested over the past month. The names Karim al-Sha?er and Mohammed al-Sharqawi were mentioned again and again over the course of the evening. The proceedings were often interrupted by a group of men chanting slogans from the back of the room. I was at first surprised to see the room empty as Al-Qandil spoke. The people leaving, judging from their beards, seemed to be mostly Islamists. It initially looked like a huge dis, until I realized it was time for evening prayers. Al-Qandil continued speaking, never missing a beat, raising his voice still higher.

Hours had passed and I still hadn?t heard from Malek or Ashraf. I was getting concerned they might have been arrested on their way into the Syndicate. People made calls. It turns out Malek had decided to go to a concert instead. ?Good,? I told him, ? I want to see you on the street, not in prison.? But Ashraf was still coming, so I waited. His friends called around to get news of him. Eventually Hossam al-Hamalawy got hold of him at home and learned that he was staying there, no doubt enjoying the luxuries of a proper shower, his family?s company, and sleeping on a bed.

I?d also been worried about Wael Abbas, who has caught police beating and arresting protesters on camera and on video and has posted both on his Web site, Misrdigital.tk. He?s also been talking to the press these days, and has been featured on a recent Al-Jazeera documentary about bloggers in Egypt. I asked him if he had been the subject of any intimidation because of his activities. He said that when he was on the run, after the first week of the crack down, he got a call from a State Security investigator who tried to recruit him as an informer. ?They saw that I was on the run, that I was vulnerable, and took that as their opportunity,? he said. ?After I told them I wouldn?t do it, they stopped calling. But I hear from friends that my name has come up in their investigations. They?ve been asking people if they know me.?

Later that night, sitting on a downtown balcony enjoying the night breeze, I told a political columnist about the evening, particularly what I?d heard from the Brothers about their willingness to work with other groups.

?Well, what are they waiting for?? he asked. ?When they mobilize, they bring out numbers to match Central Security?s. Where are they? The problem is that people in this country don?t trust any of the parties: not the Brothers, not the NDP, and not Kifaya. Where?s the choice? The Brothers are creepy. The NDP is corrupt and is too lazy to change. It?s hoping against hope it can maintain the status quo for another few years, that it can put off the pain of really shaking things up for just a little while longer. And Kifaya? They?re amusing, but they?re not an alternative. The government?s arresting everyone because they?re terrified of what could happen if the people see that it?s alright to come out into the street.?

?Do you think that?s a legitimate concern?? I asked.

?Yes, I do,? he said. ?There?s an enormous amount of discontent right now. People are really angry.?

?What do you think it would take to bring the people out into the streets?? I asked.

He paused then said, ?For the government to be really humiliated somehow.?

[tags]Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Kifaya, Protests, Detentions, human rights[/tags]

11 Comments »

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1. Thanks for the report, Elijah. Let’s hope this Islamist-Leftist entente will be more durable than their feeble cooperation efforts last year.

   It’s sad to hear someone like Magdi Hussein dissing the idea of supporting the judges in some ill-conceived fit of nativism. Who cares if it was Montesqieu and not Abduh who talked about separation of powers, so long as you stand a chance of expanding legal freedoms and potentially getting middle class liberal and bourgeois types on board?

   I am always surprised that people expect a readymade alternative to the NDP in the form of the Brothers or Kefaya or the Left. What the disparate opposition groups can and should agree on is a set of rules and protections for political freedom, and political alternatives will have to emerge through a process of participation and negotiation. Is it realistic to suppose that after decades of repression and emasculation, little hope of actual power, no incentives for and little experience in actual political negotiation, non-regime political forces could come up with a well-oiled shadow cabinet?

   Comment by SP — June 9, 2006 #

2. Surely not, SP. Good points all. Thanks.

   BTW – I don’t think Hussein was dissing support for the judges. I think he was just saying that judicial independence seems a little abstract a concept to attract popular support. I’m not sure if he’s right, but if the judges do strike a compromise, the opposition forces will need some other slogan, and would probably do well to keep it simple.

   Comment by Administrator — June 9, 2006 #

3. What the opposition needs is a crisis. Other than that, I feel like it’s all a holding action to keep the window of protest open until one happens. Since the elections weren’t good enough and terrorism seems to be working to the regime’s advantage, I’m not sure what a crisis would consist of at this point. It would have to be on the level of a war, I should think, or the traditional bread riots.

   Comment by Brian Ulrich — June 10, 2006 #

4. Hi Brian,
   Wars and bread riots? I’m again’ ’em. If that’s what it would take to dislodge the government, maybe it’s not worth dislodging.

   But how ’bout free elections? Do you think that would be enough to dislodge the government?

   Comment by Administrator — June 10, 2006 #

5. Yes, but the trick is getting to the free elections. The Mubarak regime seems a lot stronger that, say, Aliyev’s in Kyrgyzstan.

   Comment by Brian Ulrich — June 10, 2006 #

6. I’ve actually been thinking that what Egypt needs is a Batman, as in the Batman Begins version.

   Comment by Brian Ulrich — June 10, 2006 #

7. Set within Regent’s Park, the Queen Mary’s Garden is home to the world’s largest collection of roses. Today, the garden will serve as the stage for a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the underground and bus services here, in which 52 people died and more than 700 were injured.

   Originally envisaged as a grand event with the queen and government leaders present, the ceremony has been rescripted as “a simple, sober event” to please a multicultural elite gripped by self-loathing. The queen has been advised to stay away, along with Tony Blair and other leading political figures. There will be no mention of the fact that the four suicide bombers involved in the 7/7 tragedy were British-born Muslims. Nor will the grieving families invited to the ceremony be told that their loved ones were victims of a global Islamofascist movement.

   The rose garden is a few hundred yards from Regent’s Park Mosque, Britain’s largest. However, the idea for a 7/7 ceremony at the mosque, aired in January, was dropped when Muslim leaders said such a move could be exploited by “the enemies of Islam.” Some leaders have gone further, calling on their coreligionists not to break their noontime prayer (salat) to observe a two-minute silence on Friday, decreed by the government in remembrance of the 7/7 victims.

   Rather than using the occasion to combat Islamofascism as the enemy of both Western democracies and Muslims everywhere, Muslim leaders and organizations in Britain have been in denial, or else have adopted a posture that could be described as “yes-but-however.” The posture starts with a “yes” — the mass murder of innocent people is, indeed, a horrendous crime. It then proceeds to a “but” — a claim that the terrorists had legitimate grievances ignored by a British government that shares the blame for the tragedy. Finally, it snakes to “however” — unless Britain recasts key aspects of its policies, it could expect more attacks.

   This exercise in ambiguity is reflected in the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which has found that Muslims in Britain hold far more negative views of the West than Islamic minorities anywhere else in Europe. A majority of Britain’s estimated 1.8 million Muslims found Westerners to be “selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral.” Just over half said Westerners were violent. Only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favorable view of Jews; the same figure for French Muslims was 71%. Across the world, the attitudes of Muslims in Britain more resemble those in radical Arab countries than those in the West.

   The Pew survey echoes the results of a YouGov poll last year, which showed that 6% of British Muslims, over 100,000 individuals, believed that the 7/7 attacks had been justified. In the same poll, 24% said they were prepared to help terrorists, if needed, while 56% said they understood the reasons for the attacks. More importantly, 1% — some 16,000 — said they were prepared to join terrorist operations in the name of Islam. That a significant number of would-be terrorists might be present within the Muslim community in Britain is the main hypothesis of the so-called Rich Picture undercover operation launched by British intelligence in the wake of 7/7. According to intelligence sources quoted by the British press, some 8,000 persons, all “British born and bred Muslims,” are under investigation as “al Qaeda sympathizers.”
   * * *

   The overall structure of Islam in Britain resembles the Russian matryushka dolls in which smaller dolls nest within bigger ones. The 8,000 people under investigation represent the smallest, deadliest doll, which nests within a larger one represented by radical groups operating on the farthest edges of legality. These include al-Guraba (the Strangers), which held a seminar on the subject of 7/7 devoted to the claim that Britain deserved the attacks and should expect more. Al-Ghuraba’s “sheikh,” a Syrian adventurer called Omar Bakri Muhammad, told his followers to prepare for “total jihad.” “Western society,” he wrote, “is decadent and immoral and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end.”

   The second doll resides within a third, represented by “mainstream” Muslim organizations such as the Muslim Council of Britain. These came together in May to discuss a strategy vis-?-vis terrorism in the name of Islam. The result was a seminar in London, financed by the World Muslim League: Rather than discuss measures to combat terrorism, it was an orgy of attacks on the West and its “Islamophobic ideologies.”

   The third doll is encased by a fourth — one that represents a number of apparently secular organizations, including Stalinist and other leftist groups, in which radical Muslims provide part of the funding and much of the muscle in the street. And this doll nests within a fifth: the broader Muslim communities in Britain. These are deeply divided on matters of faith. Sunnis never set foot in Shiite mosques, and vice-versa. Salafis regard all other Muslims as heretics, and the latter repay the compliment by labeling the Salafis “deviants.” In their original countries, the various sects often murder one another in the name of the rival boutiques of Islam. Shiites are not allowed to have a mosque in Cairo while Sunnis are denied that right in Tehran.

   “We have more religious freedom in Britain than in any Muslim country,” says Aazam Tamimi, a pro-Hamas British Islamist. “Our grievances against Britain are not religious but political.” And that is the heart of the problem. Convinced that they can never agree on a common understanding of Islam, Muslim sects in Britain have sought unity based on a political program: Islam, in its broadest expression in Britain, is a political movement. It has adopted part of the anticapitalist discourse of communism, adding to it some anti-Semitic and anti-Christian themes of Nazism, and completing the mix with Third-Worldist lamentations against racism and imperialism. This Islam is an ideology masquerading as a religious faith.

   Few sermons delivered at British mosques deal with theology, and none allows God more than a cameo role. Instead, they rage about Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Kashmir. They are designed to portray Muslims as victims of a great “Judeo-Crusader conspiracy” led by the U.S., with Britain, Australia, Denmark and Israel, to name but a few, acting as its minions.

   The fifth Islamic doll often finds a nest within a sixth, and bigger, one, that represents Britain’s multicultural elite. That elite shares political Islam’s triple-hatred of the West: hatred of Christianity, capitalism and democracy. Today some traditional anti-Christian, anticapitalist and antidemocratic forces in the West are seeking a second youth in the energy and passion of political Islam. In calling for Islam to be allocated a separate space in the name of multiculturalism, the anti-West elements of the elite hope to continue their old wars under a new flag.

   This hyperpoliticization is bound to hurt Islam as a religion, even though in the short run it might help influence aspects of British foreign policy. At some point, Islam in Britain — indeed, Islam throughout the world — must decide whether it wants to be a faith or a political movement. The direct relationship between the small, deadly doll and the large, benign-looking one cannot be hidden forever.

   Comment by Anne Olsen — July 9, 2006 #

8. *sigh*
   What, you couldn’t publish this article in a newspaper so published it here?

   Comment by Administrator — July 10, 2006 #

9. I am sorry, but the above post is a spam post abusing my name. Could you please remove it, thank you.

   Comment by Lars A — July 20, 2006 #

10. Done. Comment gone. Only left it there because it used your name.

    Comment by Administrator — July 20, 2006 #

11. […] Back in Cairo, people talk about a leftist-Islamist entente. Out there in Arish, it’s already happened. Or at least, that’s the way Ashraf Ayoub, the local (leftist) Tagammu` Party luminary, told it. He’s a nice guy, but I’d take his account with a grain of salt: he seemed to have a natural inclination to impress. […]

    Pingback by Fear and Loathing in Arish | The Skeptic ?????? — October 1, 2006 #

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