The House of Representatives has been working to amend the laws that govern the dissemination of “propaganda” materials in the U.S.  What seemed like a good idea to me and others–one long overdue–is being spun by some observers as a dark effort by the DoD and State Department who want authorization to brainwash Americans.

Last night Buzzfeed posted an article claiming that the changes were being quietly inserted into a defense authorization bill. However, as Matt Armstrong reported, the changes were also part of a stand-alone bill (H.R. 5736) introduced last week.  I confess I am no expert on the arcania of legislative machinery, but the fact that this bill was introduced a week ago and published by the Library of Congress–then later attached to the defense bill–strikes me as more of a procedural move than an effort to sneak something through.

In a further effort to build a sinister narrative, Buzzfeed frets that this is some sort of effort to enable unfettered psychological operations by the military and government on the U.S. population.  Assorted quotes from the article:

The bill’s supporters say the informational material used overseas to influence foreign audiences is too good to not use at home, and that new techniques are needed to help fight Al-Qaeda, a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches Americans online.

The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public.

“Senior public affairs” officers within the Department of Defense want to “get rid” of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am not a legal expert, and I suppose changes could have these kinds of consequences if not made carefully.  But I doubt these these are the intended outcomes.

People in the strategic communication and public diplomacy arena (including me) have agreed for some time that changes to Smith-Mundt are needed.  Nobody I know wants changes so they can–MWAHAAHAAHAA!–run propaganda ops on Americans.  It’s more of an effort to recognize the reality of the modern situation.

The law in question was passed after World War II and the intent of the sections under review was originally indeed to prevent State Department communication from influencing the U.S. government.  But since then an interpretation has evolved that the law forbids propaganda destined for foreign audiences from being disseminated domestically, that it applies to the military as well, and that it applies to the most innocuous kind of information.  As Matt points out, “legally, the American public is not supposed to know what Michelle Kwon, for example, does when she is traveling abroad on behalf of the State Department as that is a public diplomacy trip.”

Maintaining a firewall between foreign and domestic audiences was perhaps more feasible when the Internet hadn’t even been conceived.  Today it is impossible.  Any communication by the U.S. government or military anywhere can make it back to the United States in a matter of seconds.  Changes in law are needed to recognize reality and prevent our strategic communication agencies from spending time/resources trying to stop the inevitable.  Not only is this a waste of resources but it inhibits our ability to respond to events in a timely manner when communication plans have to be reviewed by teams of lawyers in an effort to comply with an archaic law (I have been told this is something that happens regularly).

Unintentional domestic dissemination is one thing, but what about more intentional efforts critics are claiming this legislation would enable?  The language in the House bill seems clear enough that it only applies to “materials prepared for dissemination abroad” and does not in any way authorize expenditures for targeted influence of domestic audiences.

Update May 20

Other posts on this topic:

• Jonathan Turley
• Juan Cole

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The Arab Spring showed the world how social media can help organize mass political dissent. In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, single issues coalesced online into far broader and diverse campaigns that toppled ruling regimes. Recently, outside of the Arab world, discriminatory government policies  in Iran against Afghans have come to light. Decried by critics as overt state-backed racism, it is a scandalous hot-button issue that the rulers of the “Islamic Republic” have little chance of defending.  Already a nascent but growing social media campaign has emerged to condemn it and may soon tap into broader popular grievances against the entire regime.

“We are all Afghans” is the new rally cry among Iranian and Afghan social media users, shocked by recent discriminatory Iranian government policies against the over two million Afghans living in Iran. A Facebook page with over 20,000 members now exists. And yes, there are protests planned. Iran’s recent Oscar-winning filmmaker, Asghar Farhadi, is speaking out too.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hardly dispelled these growing charges of racism either. On the contrary, his recent speeches have contained overt declarations of Persian supremacy. The regime of the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” whose clerical leadership claims the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad (an Arab) and his family, is baring an increasing resemblance to the resurgent Neo-Fascist parties of Europe. And it is ironic that the hated Shah Reza Pahlavi regime, overthrown by the 1979 Revolution, was once fiercely condemned by Shiite clerics for emphasizing a Persian identity for Iran instead of an Islamic one.

The BBC reports that the deputy governor-general of Iran’s northern Mazandaran Province announced late last month that all Afghans must leave the province  irrespective of their legal status by July 2 (meaning it’s not an illegal immigration issue). The deputy governor has further warned the public that offering employment or any kind of assistance to Afghans is a crime “punishable by the full force of the law.” He also asserted the validity of a law passed in 2006 that made marriage between Iranian women and Afghan men illegal. Meanwhile, last month in Isfahan, Afghans were banned by officials from attending Nowruz (Persian New Year) celebrations in a public park because they “caused insecurity.”

One Iranian blogger, suggesting a more pervasive racism beyond Iranian government institutions, recently posted photos of signs in Iran that ban the use of facilities by Afghans or dictate segregated facilities for Afghans. Still another Iranian blogger compared recent events to the rise of Le Pen’s anti-immigrant Front National  party in France and lamented the racism in Iran by stating: “[We tell Westerners that] we are from the land of Cyrus the Great, but we think Afghans are murderers, Arabs are savages, Turks are naive and Blacks smell.”

Responses to the controversy from officials in Iran’s “Islamic” government have ranged from silence and denial to speeches glorifying the supremacy of the Persian people among the nations of the earth. Take, for instance, a recent speech (broadcast on state television) by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 11, 2012, in the province of Hormozgan. In the speech, he states:

Inside Iran, some ask me why I always speak about Iran. They say this is, I do not know, nationalism, ethnic racism, and so forth. Such talk is baseless. Iran is not an ethnos. Iran is a culture, vision, ethics, and ideology. . . . You look for people similar to our people in other countries. Look around the borders and compare with neighbors, and you will see the difference. There is a huge difference. This difference does not mean arrogance and vanity. It is first of all a divine gift, the glorification of the divine gift. It points to a mission [for our people].

Ahmadinejad goes onto boldly claim that: If you take away the share of the Iranian nation from human civilization, nothing will be left. In support of his ethnocentric narrative, Ahmadinejad sprinkles his speech with a range of anecdotal stories. In one instance, he recounts how extensively he has traveled, visiting more places in Iran than anyone else. Thanks to his travels, he claims, he has seen firsthand that “the best people of the world are living in Iran today.” He also lists some recent achievements of Iran, claiming in the vaguest terms that Iran has improved “nanotechnologies and biotechnologies,” making it “among the few top countries in the world.” And finally he recounts a story that seems to be a hadith from the Prophet Muhammad (again, an Arab), although I am personally unfamiliar with it. It relates that the Prophet once told his followers that “Iranians will [one day] guide and lead, and introduce the truth of Islam to the world.” This, Ahmadinejad says, proves that Iranians have a divinely decreed mission to lead the world (and they must act on it).

This rhetoric of racial or ethnic pride and supremacy goes entirely against Islamic ideals about the equality and universal brotherhood of all Muslims as a single ummah. And yes, I do mean ideals. On an everyday level, one can find examples of racism and prejudice in every Muslim country in the world, just as one can find it in any other country, including the United States of America. But what makes this case so peculiar is that most countries don’t claim to be an “Islamic Republic” or a righteous state representing God’s Mahdi on earth. Moral condemnation aside, it is a tremendous blunder for the theocratic regime to indulge in this sort of racist rhetoric and behavior. And I cannot see how the “Great Satan” or the “Zionist entity” can be blamed for this one. At the very least, Iran’s treatment of its Afghans, many of whom arrived as refugees during the Soviet invasion, will only further alienate its Sunni neighbors and produce further international isolation.

More importantly though, recent events in mind, I have to wonder if the “We are All Afghans” movement might coalesce into something much more. After all,  there is no shortage of grievances among the Iranian populace. Iran’s nuclear program has yet to produce anything but international tensions and sanctions. And the tragic martyrdom of Neda Agha Soltan amidst the 2009 election scandal has yet to be forgotten, despite the regime’s best efforts. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but who would have thought that a fatal case of police brutality in Alexandria, Egypt, would have led to the “We are all Khaled Saeed” campaign that grew into a popular revolution that overthrew the US-backed Mubarak regime? Perhaps there’s a “Persian Spring” on the horizon after all.

Related posts:

1. Putting the Islamist “win” in Tunisia in Context by Jeffry R. Halverson Put him in power and see...
2. Ten Years Later, Our Narrative Remains Murky to Afghans by Steven R. Corman Last Friday the always-excellent PBS Newshour...
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Indonesian extremists continue to portray Ambonese Christians as engaged in separatist rebellion against Indonesia, and a crusade against Muslims. This isn’t true, but raises the question: where on earth did they get this idea?

The adage that if a lie gets repeated enough times it becomes true is, apparently, applicable in Indonesia’s Ambon region. It was home to a brief separatist insurgency following the Indonesian revolution (1945-49).  Following their defeat in 1950, the separatists (who were Dutch loyalists and both Christian and Muslim) fled the region for asylum in Holland.  There they have carried the torch for an independent Republic of the Southern Moluccas (RMS) ever since.

A strange thing happened with the case of the RMS over time, however: It came to be perceived as a Christian movement that is anti-Islam in nature. Islamist sources in Indonesia repeated this claim Tuesday as the 25 April anniversary of the declaration of the RMS approaches:

History shows that the formation of the RMS is a kind of rebellion among a number of Christian Moluccans opposed to the Jakarta Charter (that would impose Shariah law as state law) as the foundation for the state… This proves that the Moluccan Christian Community has the spirit of separatism, where the church protects these separatist movements.

Nevermind that Islamist extremists aren’t particularly fond of the Indonesian state and its newfound democracy, and that some of them want the state dissolved into a pan-Southeast Asian caliphate that include Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, and southern Philippines.

Scholars – notably Richard Chauvel – have noted that the RMS movement was supported by both Christians and Muslims, especially those who gained by their associations with the Dutch. This included village-level and higher Muslim authorities. They were supported by the Dutch and felt that they would lose the prestige and financial rewards – and be punished by the Indonesians – for this association with the former colonizer.

Because much of the fighting that occurred was between the Ambonese Dutch colonial soldiers (who were predominantly Christian and trusted by the Dutch) and the predominantly Muslim nascent Indonesian military, the perception that it was a war of Christians versus Muslims emerged and spread. This is despite the fact that Indonesia’s first president had Christian Moluccans among some of his most trusted (and rewarded) advisers.

While it is true that most Christians, including Moluccans (such as Johannes Leimena, co-founder of the Christian political party Parkindo and member of both Sukarno’s and Suharto’s cabinets) opposed the Jakarta Charter and lobbied against it, so did many Muslims. Opposing the Jakarta Charter did not make one a separatist, but rather merely one who disagreed with Sharia as the foundation of the state. But among some of today’s Islamist thinkers in in Indonesia, opposing sharia as state law makes one a separatist.

After the debate over the Jakarta Charter, many of the Muslims who supported it, such as Muslim cleric, scholar and prolific writer Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, essentially conceded their loss and accepted the desire of the majority. The country had more pressing problems to overcome. In the early years of Indonesian independence, Sukarno made repeated overtures to reassure the Moluccan Christians (and Christians elsewhere) that they would be welcome in the Indonesian fold, even while the smoldering remnants of the RMS waged a low-intensity guerrilla war on nearby Ceram Island (the main RMS rebellion was put down within a year or so).

When Suharto came to power, however, things changed. Following a bloody purge of communist and left-leaning Indonesians, Suharto imposed a security state based on fear to create stability. Despite the lack of danger from the extinguished RMS, Suharto treated the Ambon region as a threat, built up a strong military presence there, and continued to cite it (along with West Papua, Aceh, and after its 1975 invasion, East Timor) as a threat to the unity of the Indonesian state. He planned to ease population density on Java and elsewhere and to “water down” Christian communities perceived as supporting separatism. So Suharto ordered forced and voluntary transmigration to Ambon and other regions. This sparked resentment.

In 1998, the East Asian Economic Crisis caused chaos that crippled Indonesia’s economy and led to the abdication of Suharto. Violence between Christians and Muslims broke out in Ambon and nearby regions. Scholarship has shown that political competition and jockeying for power in a newly democratizing Indonesia was a major factor in the violence in Ambon. The violence started between Christian Ambonese and non-Ambonese Muslim immigrants.

But the government – and Islamists – blamed the RMS. Muslim senior military officials were implicated in programs to send arms and armed groups to the region, which swung the advantage clearly to the Muslims fighting the Christians. A nervous peace emerged in the region following the conflict’s cessation.

It was shattered last September and December as Muslims once again battled Christians (see COMOPS blog post here). Again, Islamists blamed the RMS.

In my experience interviewing Christian Ambonese in Java and the Ambon region, they, and the vast majority of Christian Ambonese, remain frustrated but loyal Indonesians. No matter what they do or how vehemently they refute the accusation that they are separatists, they continue to be framed as such by Islamists and by some in the Indonesian government.

This legacy, dating back to the Suharto era, is based on lies and fear. It goes to show, however, that state-sponsored strategic communication – albeit with dubious goals – can come back to haunt. The nominal enemies of the state – in this case, Indonesia’s Islamist extremist community –  use these arguments to support their calls for violent jihad among a predominantly peaceful and loyal Ambonese Christian community.

Despite the tremendous positive changes Indonesia has made since beginning its transition to democracy, it continues to struggle in some regions that have or are currently experiencing conflict. Ambon is one such region. If the Indonesian government actively worked to dispel the myth that separatism was somehow tied to Christianity in the region and more actively promoted the role of patriotic Christian Ambonese (such as Leimena, who was declared a national hero), it would help to deflate the argument that the Indonesian state’s enemies – the Islamist extremists – are making. It could also deescalate some of the tensions that lead to spasms of violence, and eliminate some of the resentment among Christian Ambonese, many of whom are frustrated with being portrayed as a threat to the state. A more peaceful Ambon is in everyone’s interest – except the Islamist extremists.

Related posts:

1. Extremists Stoking Religious Violence in Indonesia by Chris Lundry Violence between Muslims and Christians broke out...
2. Another Bombing in Indonesia, Another Struggle over Framing by Chris Lundry On Sunday, September 25, a lone suicide...
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“If a group of people feels that it has been humiliated and that its honor has been trampled underfoot, it will want to express its identity.”                                                                                                                       – Abdolkarim Soroush

In a recent NY Times Op-Ed, Professor John W. Owen of the University of Virginia argues that the electoral success of Islamists after the Arab Spring is due to Islamism’s longstanding role as the dominant voice of political dissent. He writes: “Islamism is winning out because it is the deepest and widest channel into which today’s Arab discontent can flow.” It’s an interesting perspective, but I think it misses the mark. Islamism is not about dissent, it’s about identity.

I explored the electoral success of Ennahda in Tunisia and the future of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt previously on COMOPS. If you haven’t read those blog entries, I encourage you to do so. I won’t repeat that material here. Rather, I want to look at the broader issue of identity, which I think lies at the heart of Islamism’s current popularity.

As readers know, Tunisia and Egypt are the only two countries of the historic Arab Spring to hold democratic elections so far. These countries are commonly designated as Arab states. However, there was a time when the “Arab world” was restricted to the Arabian Peninsula and the southern Levant. It was only after the rise of Islam in the seventh century and the subsequent conquest of North Africa that the lands we know today as Egypt and Tunisia started a gradual shift toward “Arabness.”

‘Who is an Arab’ is a far more complex question than you might guess. The simple answer (my apologies Arabist scholars) is twofold: An Arab is someone who speaks Arabic (there’s even a saying by the Prophet Muhammad that ‘Arabness’ is conferred by the tongue) and/or shares a genealogical or cultural-historical heritage with an Arabic speaking people. Despite certain stereotypical images about what an ‘Arab’ looks like, I assure you that Arabs come in every shade and color of the human family. The Arabic language (including its enormous variety of dialects) is the real root of Arab identity. But what does this have to do with Islamist parties?

The Arabic language arrived with the Muslim expansion across North Africa in the seventh century. Arabic gradually became the dominant language of the peoples in those lands over time. This means that Islam is irrevocably bound to Arab identity, despite the fact that millions of Arabs are Christians. The Qur’an is actually the foundation of literary Arabic as we know it. The Arab tribes of the Peninsula were an oral culture and largely illiterate, and the rise of Islam transformed those conditions.

When you add in the fact that national identities (e.g. American, Iraqi) are a modern innovation developed in the West and largely imposed in North Africa by Western colonial powers, we are left with the fact that Islam served as the primary reference point for identity formation for centuries before that time, along with tribal and ancestral ties.

Jump forward to the independence movements in the Arab world of the mid-twentieth century. The British are ousted in Egypt and the French are ousted in Tunisia. The two young nation-states are independent and can choose a system of governance, including a legal system, for themselves. The dominant trend in the twentieth century was to try to ‘catch up’ to the powers of the age and borrow or adopt European systems and ideologies; not only nationalism, but socialism, communism, even fascism. This sort of borrowing extended into culture (even the way people dressed), technology and education as well. The most radical example in the region was Turkey, a non-Arab state, but still a neighbor with strong cultural ties. Among the Arabs, Tunisia came closest to following Turkey’s radical example. As we know, the post-colonial ‘experiments’ in the Arab states of Tunisia and Egypt ultimately produced the authoritarian regimes that would fall during the Arab Spring.

When Tunisians and Egyptians went to cast their votes this past year, they weren’t too concerned with particular candidates (nor were the election systems set up as such). The elections were about people expressing identities and aspirations freely, perhaps for the first time. Judging by the election results, a large segment of Tunisians and Egyptians who cast votes (note the qualifier) believe that it is important to retain or affirm an Arab-Muslim identity. So far these elections have been about asserting that sense of identity more so than caliphates or a desire to implement medieval penal codes or ban wine.

These elections also come at a time when the United States (its military might aside) is a cultural superpower across the globe. People in many parts of the world, not only in Arab states (note the NY Times recent piece on China), fear the loss of ‘who they are’ in the face of American (or Western) cultural or socioeconomic hegemony.  In my home state of Arizona, we have witnessed the strange, sometimes militant, response of Anglo-Americans who fear Hispanic cultural encroachment and cast votes accordingly. Those are identity votes too. I see little difference between them and those people in Egypt or Tunisia who vote for parties that champion longstanding identities rooted in Islam.

_____________________________

* Jeffry R. Halverson is an Islamic studies scholar and an Assistant Research Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. He is the author of Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), Searching for a King: Muslim Nonviolence and the Future of Islam (Potomac 2012), and co-author of Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism (Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

Related posts:

1. Putting the Islamist “win” in Tunisia in Context by Jeffry R. Halverson Put him in power and see...
2. Extremism and Contested Tunisian Identity in Kairouan by Jeffry R. Halverson I recently traveled to Tunisia where...
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In an apparent budget cutting move, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy was cut from the recently passed budget, and has ceased to exist. The move eliminates an organization over 60 years old.

The Commission was established under the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 as the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information.  It was merged with an educational exchange commission in 1977 to produce the current name and configuration.

According to its website, the Commission had only one permanent staffer (its Executive Director) and a budget of just $135,000.  I can attest that the activities of the Commission were valuable.  In a recent post I recounted some events from one of their meetings.  That meeting also led to a connection between our group and a group in Afghanistan working on narrative issues there.  It doesn’t take too many such connections to justify a budget that basically amounts to a rounding error in the Federal balance sheet.

The now-former Executive Director of the Commission is Matt Armstrong, whose mountainrunner blog went into hibernation while he had the gig.  Matt is restarting the blog and I welcome him back to the PD/SC blogoshopere, though I wish it were under different circumstances.

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Put him in power and see how wise he is.

- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying Islamist ideologues and their ideas during my relatively short lifetime. I’ve never read War and Peace, but I have read Milestones and The Neglected Duty. In recent months, the Tunisian Islamist and leader of Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, has occupied a good deal of my attention. And as regular readers of the Comops Journal may know, I recently returned from traveling around Tunisia. The election results have since been tallied there, and Ghannouchi’s party, Ennahda, won the most seats of any party in the 217 seat constituent assembly. The victory has resulted in a lot of talk about what the old Islamist will do now, and how his party will shape the future of the new Tunisia. In my view, Ennahda’s electoral victory is best understood as a reassertion of a long-marginalized Arab-Muslim identity, and should not be treated as a call for a so-called “Islamic state.” Indeed, I see Ennahda’s rise as a temporary one, and it will quickly return to the ranks of the other parties in future elections. For those interested, I previously wrote about the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in post-revolutionary Egypt.

If you have yet to review the results of the October 23rd election, Ennahda took 90 seats (42% of all seats), while the Congress for the Republic took 30 seats, Ettakatol took 21, Aridha Chaabia took 19 (currently disputed), and 17 seats went to the PDP. No other party won more than 5 seats. For all you Cold War enthusiasts, Tunisia’s Communist party took 3 seats. Overall, twenty-six parties total (including independent lists) won at least 1 seat (my thanks to Tunisia Live for great coverage).

Tunisia’s election, the first of the Arab Spring revolutions, went remarkably well (the Aridha Chaabia issue aside), and it will undoubtedly serve as a model for others in the Arab world, especially Egypt and Libya. These were not parliamentary or presidential elections though. They chose members of the assembly that will craft a new constitution and select a new interim president until the next round of elections (in a year or so). Voters chose from an enormous number (over 100) of “lists,” and based on the number of votes achieved for these lists, a certain number of seats were awarded. Due to this system, it was a given that a coalition would have to emerge and no single party could dominate via absolute majority. Nevertheless, Ennahda’s victory exceeded expectations.

During my time in Tunisia, my peers there thought that Ennahda would win no more than 30% of the seats. The numbers suggest that my colleagues may have been out-of-touch with the extent to which Tunisians profess an Arab-Muslim identity. Ennahda led in nearly every district, but only won an outright majority in the districts of Gabés (Ghannouchi’s hometown) and Tataouine, as well as among the expat community in Italy. Ennahda also had a particularly strong showing in Tunisia’s “second city,” Sfax.

Rachid Ghannouchi, now in his 70s, has not chosen to pursue a political office (as of yet). He appears content to serve as the leader and guide of Ennahda, but his political influence will still hold tremendous sway. History has provided numerous examples of terrible Islamist regimes that rise to political power, most obviously the Taliban. Those examples fail to tell the whole story however. Ghannouchi is certainly at the opposite end of the Islamist spectrum from Mullah Omar. He is definitely a social conservative and quick to condemn anything he deems offensive to his vision of Islam, but he has also repeatedly demonstrated a surprising degree of flexibility, pragmatism, and revision in his viewpoints throughout his lifetime. He is far closer to the teachings of Malik Bennabi (d. 1973) than he is to Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328). His party’s willingness to participate in the democratic process and engage secular parties alone has put him at odds with the most hardline Islamists.

Islamism, I often tell students, thrives in abstraction, but it quickly shows its weaknesses and inadequacies when it comes to the dirty details of governance. It is one thing to tell the crowds that Islam is the solution to a country’s economic woes, and quite another thing to find people jobs and lead them out of poverty. Furthermore, pledges of support for “sharia” are often little more than populist fluff, albeit with potentially disastrous results. Even if one accepts the eternal applicability of the legal content scattered throughout Islam’s most sacred texts, the fact remains that those texts leave much to be desired when governing a 21st century nation-state. This fact generally presents a great dilemma for Islamists and it has even motivated some groups to drag their countries back to a more primitive time to try and resolve it.

Ghannouchi (center) greets Erdogan (right) in Tunis during a recent visit

Ghannouchi has repeatedly said that Turkey’s ruling AKP is the model that Ennahda will follow, and I have no reason, at this time, to doubt the sincerity of his words. Indeed, Turkey and Tunisia, despite the ethno-cultural distinctions, share a fair deal in common with regards to their modern histories. Former Tunisian President, Habib Bourguiba, has often been described as an “Arab Atatürk.” The AKP in Turkey has essentially been a reassertion of Turkey’s Muslim identity and heritage in the public sphere after it was forcefully cloistered away by Kemalists for decades. I see Ghannouchi and Ennahda in this same framework. The electoral success of Ennahda reflects the desire to reassert an Arab-Muslim identity in Tunisia after decades of being pushed into the private sphere by the secularist powers of the Neo-Destour/RCD. Ennahda’s rise has little or nothing to do with a desire to see headscarves forced onto women or hands of thieves amputated.

On a more mundane level, Ennahda’s victory also reflects the simple fact that the party has strong anti-RCD credentials, it was well organized, and it was widely known among the people. There were many new parties in the wake of the revolution (over 130 lists at one point) and few people knew anything about their platforms. Furthermore, many of the parties shared a center-left ideology, splitting those votes among multiple parties, while Ennahda essentially monopolized the religious identity vote.

Now that Ennahda has been granted political power, the people will expect them to resolve their problems and concerns, which are numerous. The economy in particular will loom large in the years ahead. It remains to be seen whether Ennahda can offer solutions beyond pious slogans and public displays of religiosity. In fact, I see a steady decrease in support for Ennahda over ensuing elections, barring a miraculous economic revival (pun intended).

Lastly, I wish to convey the idea that there is an important positive dimension to the election victory of Ennahda, as well as the earlier victories of the AKP in Turkey. Admittedly, I write this as someone who does not have to live under such parties, so keep that in mind. The silver lining here is that these parties offer a viable alternative for peoples who seek a greater public role for Islam in their societies, in contrast to the militant reactionary movements we are all too familiar with.

When Islamists point to Erdogan and the AKP as a model to follow, rather than Ayman al-Zawahiri or Mullah Omar and the “Islamic emirate” of Taliban-era Afghanistan, this is most certainly a positive. Dialogue and cooperation with such parties should be encouraged, not dismissed on the grounds of ideological allegiances. Indeed, if Western countries were to suddenly turn away from Tunisia on the basis of an Islamist party’s electoral success, it would only help the hardliners and further support the erroneous view that militancy and anti-Western sentiment is the best strategy for contemporary Muslim societies. Furthermore, power means responsibility and accountability, and Tunisians will now “see how wise” the old Islamist from Gabés really is.

* Jeffry R. Halverson is an Islamic studies scholar and an Assistant Research Professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. He is the author of Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), Searching for a King: Muslim Nonviolence and the Future of Islam (Potomac 2012), and co-author of Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism (Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

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2. Extremism and Contested Tunisian Identity in Kairouan by Jeffry R. Halverson I recently traveled to Tunisia where...
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Last year, my colleagues Steven Corman, Jeffrey Halverson and I wrote a series of blog posts exploring Islamist reactions to anti-Islam and anti-Muslim events in the US, including the debate over the Park51 Islamic Center and an American pastor’s proposal to burn a Qur’an on 9/11, among others. One of the points we made in our final post was that these events fuel the extremist narrative that the US and its allies are at war with Islam, rather than counter the extremists’ messages. We also argued that the State Department could play a more proactive role in refuting the acts and rhetoric that damages the American message abroad, especially since the acts and rhetoric were mainly coming from private citizens, and not the government. What to do, however, when it is the government itself that is making the gaffes?

Last week a story about an FBI trainer gained a lot of traction in both the American mainstream media as well as various online outlets including blogs and news sites. William Gawthrop, who is an instructor at the American Military University and has held several positions in national security and intelligence, also trains law enforcement officials in counterterrorism. On June 8 he was discovered to have been continuing to conduct law enforcement training lectures that repeat messages about Islam and Muslims, even though the FBI claimed that the presentation was a one time affair that ended in April after fierce criticism of its content. Gawthrop’s analysis, which essentially states that the problem isn’t radical Muslims but Islam itself, was spread to a room full of law enforcement officials who likely trusted that their source of information was not only better informed that they were, but well informed. Gawthrop violated this trust, however, and delivered a lecture that demonized Islam.

Counterterrorism experts have widely criticized Gawthrop, yet he continues to misinform law enforcement. From a Wired article (with a video clip of the presentation), here is Aki Peritz, a former analyst with the National Counterterrorism Center:

This is mind-numbingly stupid and dangerous. If we were to follow his idea to a logical extension, that means we have individuals in every single government agency, at top levels, from CIA to the Defense Department to members of Congress, that are part of this cabal to destroy Western civilization. If you truly believe that, then this is McCarthyism on steroids.

Not only did this story spread through US media, but it spread to extremists sites where it was touted as evidence that the US was actually at war with Islam; Gawthrop’s plays right into the terrorists’ narrative. First, some of what Gawthrop said.

Gawthrop’s assertion that Islam was 17 percent religion and 83 percent ideology might have seemed charitable when compared to Dutch Islamophobe Geert Wilder’s assertion that the proportion are more like 5 percent and 95 percent, respectively. Both comments cry out for an explanation, however; how in the world did Gawthrop come up with that number? He doesn’t say. Most offensive, however, is his general demonization of Islam, comparing Muslims to iron filings and stating that Islam is like a magnet determining their movement, and whose “force is exerted against you” — a room full of New York City police officers. Most dangerous is his claim that instead of focusing our counterterrorism efforts on groups such as al Qaeda, we should instead focus them on the “ideology” of Islam. Gawthrop cites Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, which has been widely criticized for its lack of depth and understanding and broad generalizations of the “civilizations” that Huntington purports are destined to fight each other.

This kind of disinformation about Islam is unfortunate because it spreads incorrect and dangerous ideas to American law enforcement, and increases tension between them and the American Muslim community. This tension causes distrust, and makes law enforcement more difficult. Yet it is not simply a domestic problem.

Not only did this story spread through US media, but it spread to extremists sites where it was touted as evidence that the US was actually at war with Islam; Gawthrop’s ideas are consistent with Islamist extremists’ narrative. It plays directly into the hands of Islamist extremists the world over, and bolsters their message that America’s desire to end Islamist terrorism is really a war on the religion of Islam itself. This message could be effective at drawing recruits to terrorism. But is the message really spreading? Is the Muslim world paying attention?

The answer is a definite yes. In Southeast Asia, Islamist extremists have picked up the story about Gawthrop and spread it, including on social media cites such as Facebook. Posted Wednesday, September 21, the ar Rahmah story on Gawthrop’s lecture had nearly 3000 hits by Thursday afternoon, and the link was recommended by 811 people on Facebook. On their Facebook posting of the same story, it was “liked” by 101 people, and 30 comments. Comments range from the hope that non-believers will find one day find Islam to agreeing that this is proof that the United States is at war with Islam. Some of these comments include violent rhetoric. Does this mean everyone who posted comments will take up arms against the United States? Of course not. But will they spread the message that Americans are admitting that they are at war with Islam? Almost certainly, and this can lead to radicalization. In the Arab-speaking world, the story spread as well; Islamist Ansar al Jihad, for example, has posted it. The story has also been reported in mainstream news outlets in the Muslim world.

This is similar to a flap that occured last week, when an FBI manual was found to contain similar anti-Islam sentiments. In one graph, the manual argued that the more devout a Muslim was, the more likely the Muslim was to be violent. This story was also reported in the Muslim world, for example here on al Jazeera (this is the English language version), an here on Islamist site Islamic Awakening.

The United States Government has repeatedly acknowledged that it needs to work on its message to the Muslim world. This latest flap shows that it also needs to work on its message to Americans, because the wider Muslim world continues to pay attention.

 UPDATE, January 26, 2012

In another example of a messaging gaffe on the part of the American law enforcement, the film “The Third Jihad,” an anti-Muslim film that purports to show the threat to the United States from American Muslims, continued to be shown to law enforcement oficers despite widespread condemnation and statements that it was no longer shown, according to the New York Times and other sources.

The film is another example of anti-Muslim scare tactics that do not reflect reality, but rather complement the Islamist extremists’ messages that the US is at war with Islam. “This is the true agenda of much of Muslim leadership here in America… A strategy to infliltrate and dominate America… This is the war you don’t know about,” warns a narrator. Using this kind of misinformation to train law enforcement is not only mind boggling, but it creates clear difficulties and mistrust between law enforcement and the Muslim community.

The New York city Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly is featured in the film, but a police spokesman initially denied that he participated, stating that his presence in the film was based on old interviews. The film’s website, however, contradicts that claim and states that the Commissioner sat for an exclusive 90-minute interview. Yesterday the New York Times printed a story describing Kelly’s acknowledgement and regret at having participated in the film.

The film shows inflammatory images such as an Islamic flag flying over the White House. Images such as these are easily obtained from Islamist extremist sites, but to portray them as common ideas among American Muslims is grossly misleading. Furthermore, in a statement defending the film, its producer Raphael Shore argues that it is based on information provided by terrorism experts, including Kelly and Rudolph Giuliani. These two may have tactical knowledge regarding how to deal with terrorism, but I question the depth of their knowledge of Islam as a religion, or even Islamist movements in general, based on their statements. And despite what the Islamist extremists and the anti-Islam propagandists want us to believe, the two are very different subjects.

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Unlike the protests of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, the campaigns underway against the Assad regime in Syria have a distinctly sectarian character. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawites, a little-known esoteric Shi‘ite sect. However, the majority of Syria’s population is Sunni Muslim (approx. 75%). And caught in the middle of the conflict are Syria’s Christians (10% of the pop.), Druze, Twelver Shi‘ites, and others, including a small number of Jews. In July of 2011 alone, at least 30 people were killed in violent clashes between pro-regime Alawites and anti-regime Sunnis in the city of Homs.

Conflict between the two religious communities is nothing new. During the reign of Hafez Assad (d. 2000), the Alawite regime perpetrated an infamous massacre of Sunni Muslims in the city of Hama, just north of Homs, that claimed between ten thousand to forty thousand lives. And back during the reign of the Sunni Ottoman Empire in Syria, Alawites were not recognized as Muslims or People of the Book, but rather as heretics with no legal status. The history of conflict and tense relations between the Alawites and Sunnis in Syria is obviously long and complex. Yet, these complexities aside, the sectarian dimension of the Syrian conflict reveals much about the significance and power of narrative.

For those interested in politics, democratization, and international relations, looking at the role of narrative in the Syrian uprising is particularly informative. Indeed, by framing the conflict in Syria in sectarian terms (as I did above), we see the belligerents through their religious affiliations and the differences that exist between them and little else. The Alawites have different doctrines, rituals, practices, institutions, and so on, than do the Sunni Muslims. The variety of differences in the area of religion can be distracting and misleading though.

These differences, and the broader implications they have had, are actually all symptoms of a conflict of narratives, albeit profoundly shaped by the accidents and currents of world history. Without narrative, all of the doctrines, rituals, or institutions would be nothing beyond what is observed by a person that does not know the narratives involved, and they would carry no substantive meaning or significance. For example, without narrative, the act of wudhu or ritual ablutions by a Sunni Muslim becomes simply a hygienic act of washing.

To illustrate the conflicting narratives that exist between the Sunnis and the Alawites, I have radically paraphrased and structurally simplified the core underlying narratives at play in both sects.

Sunni Muslims: The One Deity revealed His Will to His Final Prophet and humanity must follow that revealed knowledge to select wise leaders, create a just and righteous society, and earn salvation after death in Heaven through steadfast effort and intention.

Alawites: The Triune Deity (think “Holy Trinity”), incarnated during the time of the Prophet, revealed esoteric knowledge of the true religion through the Family of the Prophet and select initiates, and, through this secret esoteric knowledge, initiates can attain salvation and their souls will transmigrate into more perfect forms.

[Note: Alawites historically practice taqiyya and avoid exposing their beliefs and practices to outsiders, thus scholars debate the actual tenants of the Alawites]

These serve as starting points for notions of identity, institutions, worldviews, and customs. Due to the particularly insular nature of the Alawite narrative,  and the Sunni rejection of them as fellow Muslims, the Alawites have existed as a minority in Syria (indeed, a more precarious minority than Christians, who are at least “People of the Book” as an Abrahamic pre-Islamic religion) and the Alawites have acted in ways  that support their interests, such as serving the French colonialists or supporting Baathism and crushing Sunni Islamism.

Religion, at its most skeletal level, is narrative. More specifically, I mean to say (tipping my hat to Bruce Lincoln) that “religion,” at its core, is a particular, communally-shared narrative (or narratives) attributed to a transcendent source (e.g. deity, ancestor, totem etc). This makes these particular narratives qualitatively different than those attributed to a mundane human author or folk culture (where anonymity may rule the day). Practices, community and institutions all start and take shape from there. Due to this exceptional attribution (“Allah revealed these stories to our leader on the mountain”), the narrative(s), and the beliefs or rituals or institutions that the narrative(s) supports, carries transcendent authority.

These two qualities distinguish religion, or (for the sake of convenience) a “religious narrative,” from all other narratives. This is one of the principal reasons why older religions, such as Judaism or Christianity, are privileged in our society over younger religions, such as Mormonism (LDS). The narratives of the older religions are protected by the ambiguities and gaps of the past, lost in history (as well as longstanding communities and institutions), and the rhetorical tricks that these obscurities of the past have allowed contemporary adherents and institutions to enjoy. But how does this business of religion and narrative relate to Syria?

When we look at the conflict between the Alawites and the Sunnis in Syria through the lens of narrative , we can see people following different or conflicting narratives. There is no empirical verifiable evidence to support the religious claims of either group (or any other religious sect for that matter); there are only the narratives (and that is what matters) that they tell to relate a certain depiction of the past, explain the origin and meaning of their communal identity, or rituals, or extol the authority of their texts and traditions and the ongoing authority of those texts and traditions in the 21^st century, et cetera. The rival conceptions of authority and identity that the Alawites and Sunnis profess put them at odds with each other and delineate them as two factions, consisting of individual human beings, engaged in hostilities throughout the years.

When we see the conflict through the lens of narrative, we can also see certain solutions. Namely, a narrative lens suggests that the key to a vibrant democratic-nationalist society in Syria, where citizenship displaces sect, is the formation and adoption of a resonant narrative that offers an alternative reference point for the formation of Syrian identity. As an example of one such successful narrative, one that has largely displaced religious (or sectarian) or ethnic narratives and fostered a democratic society, we can look to the United States of America. That said, the success of that narrative (as we know) in the United States has not been a simple or bloodless process at all, nor will that process be so in Syria (nor should we expect it to be). It is, however, an effort worth supporting.

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There are a lot of questions and speculation about the Ikhwan al-Muslimun (The Muslim Brotherhood, or MB) and their role in the future of Egypt. The coverage of the organization in the U.S. media has been better than expected. However, I am still struck by some of the more ominous rhetoric emanating from select corners. This rhetoric seems to focus on two main points of concern: 1) MB ties to violence, and 2) the implementation of “undemocratic” Islamic law (sharia). In the following analysis, I discuss why I think these points of concern are flawed or unwarranted when given some broader perspective.

As many know by now, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was established in Egypt, specifically the town of Ismailia, in 1928, during British colonial rule (1882-1952). It’s founder and Supreme Guide (Murshid) was a primary school teacher named Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949). The history of the MB is long, complex, and deeply intertwined with modern Egyptian history. I will not recount that long story here, although I have discussed it in some detail in my book Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam, as well as the “Muslim Brotherhood” entry I wrote for a recently published encyclopedia, Religion and Violence. In essence, the MB is a conservative (albeit reformist) and hierarchical Sunni Muslim social movement that envisions Islam as a complete system of life and sees the differentiation of religion from the state as a foreign (and “unIslamic”) innovation. Their primary aspiration is the implementation or alignment of the state’s law with sharia (or an interpretation thereof).

Umar al-Tilmisani

Analysts warning about the threat the MB poses typically condense time, eighty years of history, to formulate attitudes about the contemporary Muslim Brothers. This is a serious error. To help explain the historical evolution (or variations) of the MB, I think it is helpful to think of the MB in terms of five main periods. I have broken down those five periods below, along with woefully abbreviated summaries relating the MB’s orientation and some important events in each period:

1. Anti-Colonial Social Activism: Founded in 1928, Neo-Sufi (reformist) oriented and centered on the person of Hasan al-Banna as Murshid; devoted to missionary (or counter-missionary) activities. The MB registers as a charitable organization providing social services, including education. The MB enjoys rapid popular growth and increased activity in Egyptian politics with outspoken opposition to British rule.

2. Anti-Colonial Political Engagement: WWII heightens anti-British sentiment and there is increased disorder in Egypt. All major political factions create militia wings. By 1943, MB leadership bows to younger zealous members and establishes its militia, al-Nizam al-Khass (Special Order). At the same time, the British crack down on Egyptian dissent (as they did in other colonies, such as India). By end of WWII, MB pursues greater political role and runs in parliamentary elections, but British intervene and all MB candidates lose despite support. When partition occurs in the British Mandate of Palestine, members of the MB’s militia serves in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war under the authority of the Arab League. Defeat of the nationalist Arab forces by Israel results in increased discontent and opposition to the British and the Egyptian monarchy in Egypt, resulting in further crackdowns and orders to dissolve the MB. Mass arrests follow and a 23 year-old MB member assassinates Egypt’s Prime Minister in 1948. A failed bomb plot follows in January 1949. Shortly thereafter, MB Murshid Hasan al-Banna is assassinated in the streets of Cairo by Egyptian secret services.  MB is forced underground, but by now regional branches have emerged in most other Arab countries.

President Nasser with Castro

3. Repression under Nasser:  Egyptian courts rule that coup allegations against MB are “without foundation” and the MB is legally reconstituted. The second Murshid, Hasan al-Hudaybi is selected to lead the MB. He repudiates violence and orders the Special Order militia officially disbanded. At this time, demonstrations for independence from Britain are nationwide. That same year, Egyptian writer and educator, Sayyid Qutb, returns from study abroad in the U.S.A. and joins the MB. In January 1952, a military coup takes place by “The Free Officers.” It overthrows the monarchy and asserts Egyptian independence from Britain. The Officers have ties to the MB, but quickly grow apart and establish a one-party autocratic Pan-Arab socialist regime (e.g. Nasserism). Gamal Abdel-Nasser emerges as President of Egypt. Relations between MB and the Officers deteriorate and the MB is officially dissolved. A member of the MB allegedly tries to assassinate Nasser. It serves as pretext for the regime to destroy the MB.  Hudaybi, Qutb, and hundreds of others, are imprisoned and MB headquarters is burned. Six MB leaders are executed. Twenty-one are murdered in their prison cells in 1957. In response, Qutb writes increasingly extremist texts, such as Milestones (1965), that are smuggled out and published. Qutb is later executed for his writings in 1966. The following year, Nasser’s army is crushed by Israel in the Six-Day War and his revolutionary movement is discredited. Nasser dies in 1970.

4. Neo-Muslim Brotherhood of Tilmisani: Nasser is succeeded by centrist Anwar Sadat who brands himself as “the Believing President” and works against Leftist factions in Egypt. He later courts the USA and the MB to counter Leftist and Soviet influence. MB leader (Murshid) Hudaybi survives Nasser’s prisons but dies in 1973. He is succeeded by early member, Umar al-Tilmisani, as the third Murshid. After Nasser’s destruction, Tilmisani rebuilds the MB and reasserts its rejection of violence, including the extremist writings of Sayyid Qutb. Tilmisani asserts that Sayyid Qutb represented no one but himself. Some academics describe Tilmisani’s rebuilt MB as the “Neo-Muslim Brotherhood.” Tilmisani brings greater participation in party-politics and creates alliances to run in parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, tensions exist between MB and Sadat, and Tilmisani is imprisoned for his criticism of the regime, along with many others. Extremist Islamists, especially the Gamaat Islamiyyah and Tanzim al-Jihad, reject the MB’s strategies and call for revolutionary violence, and grow among the youth on university campuses. Extremists of al-Jihad infiltrate army and assassinate Sadat on Oct. 6 1981. Sadat is succeeded by his Vice-President, Hosni Mubarak, and relations between the regime and MB remain tense but sporadically tolerant – the MB remains officially outlawed.

Dr. Mohammed Badie, MB Murshid

5. Opposition and Reform: After Tilmisani’s death in 1986 (the first Murshid permitted to have a public funeral), the MB continues to be led by the “old guard,” privileging seniority over skill or charisma. In 2004, a member of the successor generation, Muhammad Mahdi Akef (b. 1928), is selected as Murshid, more commonly referred to as “Chairman” now. The MB acts as a leading opposition movement to Mubarak’s autocratic regime and it is critical of its relationship with the USA and Israel. Frequently the MB uses the language of human rights and cooperates with other non-Islamist opposition groups. In 2005, the MB fields a list of candidates as independents in parliamentary elections and wins 88 seats, despite voting irregularities, making it second only to Mubarak’s NDP (330 seats). However, failed promises of reform and repeated government crackdowns lead to a MB boycott of the 2010 elections, and only 1 seat is won. The NDP wins 420 seats. In January 2010, Akef stepped down (the first time a Murshid has done so) as Chairman of the MB. He is replaced by Dr. Mohammed Badie (b. 1943), a professor and specialist in veterinary medicine, as the eighth Murshid.

Given the historical complexities, it is an error to refer to an act of violence in the 1940s or the existence of the “Special Order,” dating from period #2, when speaking of the post-Nasser “Neo-Muslim Brotherhood” and the subsequent period. It is an error to take Sayyid Qutb’s extremist prison treatises as representative of the MB organization. It is also an error to conflate the Egyptian MB with all the various MB branches that sprung up in other Arab countries, most of which broke official ties to the Egyptian “parent organization” and exist completely independent of the MB. For instance, Hamas originated within a branch of the MB in the Gaza Strip as a religious alternative to Arafat’s secular-nationalist PLO, but it developed into a movement unto itself and it does not answer to Dr. Badie.  Admittedly, the MB has demonstrated great hesitation when it comes to criticizing Hamas and makes apologies for acts of terror as “legitimate resistance” to Israeli occupation. Then again, one would also find many outside of the MB who demonstrate the exact same tendencies in the Arab world.

Critics of the MB  seem to isolate negative or inflammatory comments by the organization’s current membership in order to collectively indict the Muslim Brothers. However, I find this no more persuasive than taking sound bites or statements from certain members of the Democratic and Republican parties and attributing a controversial view to all Democrats or Republicans. As NY Times columnist Scott Shane recently noted: “As the Roman Catholic Church encompasses leftist liberation theology and conservative anti-abortion advocacy, so the Brotherhood includes both practical reformers and firebrand ideologues.” In other cases, a text or statement dating from another period is cited as something reflective of the “true nature” of the MB, such as one of their traditional slogans (e.g. “The Qur’an is our constitution”). But this is equally unpersuasive, and has little relevance to the contemporary Muslim Brothers.

A recent column by Barry Rubin in the Israeli centrist-right English-language daily, The Jerusalem Post, provocatively entitled “Egypt’s Crisis Worst Disaster Since Iran’s Revolution,” warns that an anti-Israel and anti-American Islamist government allied with Iran may emerge in Egypt if Mubarak falls and the MB rises. Rubin cites “anti-Israel” and “anti-Semitic” comments made by MB members, such as parliamentarian Abdel Wahhab al-Messiri. But the fact is that the anti-Israel (or anti-Zionist) views that many in the West see as anti-Semitic are certainly not exclusive to certain MB members. These unfortunate views are widespread throughout the Arab world and Egyptian society, including secular-nationalists and communists. The “cold peace” preserved by Mubarak and the ruling NDP is not “pro-Israeli.” In fact, as of February 3, the NDP claimed that “pro-opposition” foreign journalists are actually “Israeli agents” (resulting in increased violence against journalists). The NDP takes a pragmatic stance designed to avert further war and facilitate economic prosperity backed by conditional U.S. aid that is dependent on the continuity of that peace, especially for the NDP elite. There will be no “pro-Israeli” government in Egypt, no matter who emerges in control. And in terms of U.S. relations, the MB is far less hostile to America, especially if America’s backing for Mubarak ends, and, most especially, if an Israeli-Palestinian peace were ever successful. Their issues with the U.S. generally stem from widely held political grievances, not from a cosmic conception of “fighting the infidels” as leaders of extremists like al-Qaeda see it. It is noteworthy to mention that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian ideologue of al-Qaeda (previously of Tanzim al-Jihad), has always been fiercely critical of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Likewise, the revolutionary Twelver Shi’ite leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini (d. 1989), once denounced Tilmisani and the MB as “CIA agents.”

Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey

Regarding the question of another disastrous Arab-Israeli war, the MB is no more inclined to another war than the NDP or the Nasserists or any other. After all, it was the secular Pan-Arab nationalist-socialists (i.e. Nasserists) that led Egypt into the conflicts of 1956 and 1967. It was the pro-American centrist, Anwar Sadat, who went to war in 1973. The MB is no more likely to begin a new war because of its Islamist politics than the socialists or nationalists. I do not see a MB government going to war with a nuclear-armed Israel anymore than I do Saudi Arabia, which has never signed a peace treaty with Israel. However, Israel would most certainly find itself without the same negotiating and strategic partner it has enjoyed under Mubarak. That period is simply over. As an example of the sort of relationship that might emerge with increased MB participation in Egypt’s government, I suggest one look to Turkish-Israeli relations under “Islamist” Erdogan and the AK Parti; however, the Arab nationalist context will act as a significant modifier absent from the Turkish context. Indeed, the MB has always had a strong Arab nationalist element – which again is indicative of its history and its anti-colonial origins.

If the prospects of an Egypt under sharia concerns Americans most, we should know that the Egyptian constitution (largely suspended by Mubarak’s ‘emergency measures’ for three decades) was amended by Anwar Sadat to state that sharia is the principal source of law for Egypt (it previously stated “a principal source”). Family law, such as marriage and divorce, are already governed by sharia in Egypt (yes, restricted polygamy is legal). Furthermore, if horrific images of the hands of thieves coming off, “heretics” being imprisoned and condemned to death, or adulterers being stoned, concerns us, then why is Saudi Arabia a close partner of the U.S.? The most rigid and disturbing interpretations of sharia have been implemented in Saudi Arabia throughout the Wahhabite kingdom’s history. The American government and U.S. businesses continue a close relationship to the kingdom unabated.  Many popular American brands, such as Apple, are owned in part by members of the ruling family. It seems hypocritical to condemn the MB on the grounds of sharia. Additionally, unlike the Saudi-backed Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the MB is not a group of uneducated tribesmen; they are medical doctors, lawyers, businessmen, professors and professionals, who are hardly averse to the modern world and they articulate a far more sophisticated and rich understanding of Sunni Islam than the Saudis or their “clients” abroad.

Overall, if the Muslim Brotherhood were to assume a leading role in the government of a post-Mubarak Egypt, I do not think it would result in a new “enemy state” or Iranian-style theocracy. Indeed, the Egyptian context is fundamentally different than the Iranian – perhaps that debate deserves a separate blog post. While concerns that the MB might curb democratic channels once in power are warranted, their base of support is not large enough to place them in such a position, nor has the current leadership demonstrated any such ambitions.  The MB will act as a conservative religious party within a coalition government, not unlike religious conservatives in the U.S. Congress.

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More than a decade ago hundreds of thousands of Indonesians, most of them young people, came to the streets demanding the end to a dictatorial regime that had lasted for more than three decades. Today we see much the same in Egypt. We see also see the same reaction in Western media, the fear that protests may lead to the rise of an Islamist regime.

There are few signs that this may happen in Egypt just as there were few signs that the so called New Order would lead to an Islamist “take over” in Indonesia. The implication seems clear. When long term and apparently stable dictatorships in majority Muslim countries start to collapse, the western press and governments begin to fear that Islamists will come to power. This is what Islamists hope for.

I was in the streets of Jakarta shortly after the old regime there collapsed. People there were thrilled that the dictatorship was gone. A decade later Indonesia is a flawed but consolidated democracy. We can only hope that a similar transition will occur in Egypt.

Are Islam and democracy possible? Of course they are. It is time that the US wakes up to this and stops fearing that the fall of secular dictatorships necessarily leads to the rise of Islamist dictatorships.

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