“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).

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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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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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Events rapidly accelerated in Egypt on Friday, January 28, as expected. On Thursday night, the regime shut down internet access. This startling graphic by Craig Labovitz shows the precipitous drop in online traffic. Over the course of the day, the U.S. government repeatedly modified its official stance after making questionable remarks during the two days prior. Meanwhile, a Time Magazine article quoted a member of Netanyahu’s government in Israel expressing support for Mubarak and stating: “I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process.”

By late Friday night – after the Egyptian military asserted its presence in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities – Hosni Mubarak finally appeared on state television. Mubarak warned about the threat of chaos and nominally acknowledged the concerns of the protesters. But he claimed that a plot was underway to destabilize the country and that time was needed to “fix” the economy and to help the poor and he would appoint a new government to do so. Of course, he (Mubarak) would appoint and lead this new government. As one might guess, the protesters on the streets were not satisfied and they continued with renewed energy into the weekend.

On Saturday, January 29, Mubarak appointed Omar Suleiman as his Vice-President. This marked the first time in Mubarak’s rule that he has appointed a Vice-President, which is the office that Mubarak previously held under Anwar Sadat. It is rumored that Egypt’s First Lady, Suzanne Mubarak, played a role in preventing the appointment of a Vice-President prior to this, in order to position her son, Gamal, as the one to succeed his father. Obviously, that is no longer a possibility, and it is appears (so far) that Suleiman will likely be the one who leads a transitional military government until national elections can occur (scheduled for September). This appointment has not satisfied the protesters though. As Mohamed ElBaradei astutely put it: “This is a mere change of people, and we are talking about a change of regime. The Egyptian people are saying one word: ‘The Egyptian president has to leave’.”

Throughout the “chaos” (as so many news outlets have called it) the UK daily, The Guardian, has had among the most outstanding coverage of developments in Egypt all week. And on Friday afternoon, The Guardian noted the sudden increased U.S. media interest in the protests, as it became the story of the moment, and commented that:

The exception has been Fox News, where coverage has been more muted. ‘You probably don’t give a lot of time thinking about Egypt,’ a Fox News presenter suggested about an hour ago, before explaining that ‘groups linked to al-Qaida’ were in danger of taking over the government in Cairo.

This is the narrative that I warned about in my previous entry. Portraying the protests as an “Islamist uprising” or “revolution,” especially one associated with al-Qaeda, is exactly the sort of narrative Mubarak’s regime and other anti-democracy forces want to promote.

In a statement made on Sunday night, Mubarak claimed that: “Their demonstrations have been infiltrated by a group of people who use the name of religion who don’t take into consideration the constitution rights and citizenship values.” This message seems designed to unsettle the West and to divide the protesters into factions that will weaken opposition to the ruling regime. The threat of Islamist extremists on a global scale is certainly real, but the threat is constantly exploited by regimes in the Arab world in order to curb U.S. pressure for democratic reform and win substantial aid, especially military aid, that helps compensate for corrupt and incompetent economic policies.

Thus far, the Egyptian protests have maintained a distinctly nationalist and patriotic character. Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei joined the protests in Cairo after participating in Friday prayers and faced a confrontation with security forces. He was arrested and placed under house arrest, giving Egypt the dubious distinction of joining China in the group of countries imprisoning their Nobel Peace Prize winners. ElBaradei later issued the statement that:

The Egyptian people will be the ones who will make the change – we are not waiting for help or assistance from the outside world. But what I expect from the outside world, is to practice what you preach – is to defend the rights of the Egyptians for the universal values.

But by Sunday, the regime had pulled police forces from the city and ElBaradei was free to rejoin the protesters. He arrived in Tahrir Square and addressed the crowd – some cheered him, others jeered him as a political opportunist. Either way, it was a significant moment. He has since been appointed as the chief negotiator or representative of the various opposition parties and factions, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera satellite TV was taken off the air in Egypt, but Egyptian state television continued. The state coverage appeared to focus on images of chaos and disorder, promoting a climate of fear that gangs of armed thugs were roaming the city. This is likely a tactic to keep citizens off the streets, or more ominously a strategic attempt to promote the idea of the necessity of the despot to control the chaos. Indeed, the regime ordered the police off the streets prior to this outbreak.

The U.S. government, as the primary Western patron of Mubarak’s regime, is in a difficult position.  Will we practice what we preach and support democratic transformation in Egypt? Or will our (and/or Israel’s) strategic interests override those ideals, widening that say-do gap in the Middle East?

One final note: As many news outlets have reported, the tear gas being used on the protesters in Egypt is American-made, and the words “Made in the U.S.A.” appear on the canisters. Not a good message in an environment where many people already blame the U.S. for propping up a dictatorial regime.

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The protests in Egypt that began on January 25 are the culmination of a long simmering struggle between the police state of Hosni Mubarak and the common people it seeks to control. The state claims that its longstanding “security measures” protect the country from the ever-present threat of Islamist extremists, such as those that murdered Anwar Sadat in 1981 or massacred 58 foreign tourists and 4 Egyptians in Luxor in 1997. But the heavy hand of the state run by Hosni Mubarak for 30 years is felt by every Egyptian, save for members of an elite oligarchy that operates by its own set of rules.

It didn’t take long for me to see this reality first hand when I lived in Cairo ten years ago. Egyptian troops armed with AK-47s were stationed on the corner of my neighborhood in Zamalek around the clock. The blind shaykh at the mosque around the corner, I was told, had been arrested numerous times for criticizing the government in his Friday sermons. I could see and hear the frustration and apathy among the unemployed men and day laborers in the smoke-filled cafes across the street. I listened to young men tell me how they were afraid to grow a beard (as an act of piety) for fear that the state would imprison them for being “Islamists.” I heard the stories of the nepotism, the bribes, and the rampant corruption in the woefully inefficient and confusing state institutions, such as the notorious Mugamma. And as I follow the protests going on in Egypt this week, I recognize the places in the photographs and the cell phone videos appearing online. And I wonder about the safety and circumstances of the people I knew.

In Tunisia, the protests that led to the quick downfall of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were sparked by an act of self-immolation by a 26-year-old merchant, Mohamed Bouazizi. In recent weeks, no less than six Egyptians have performed acts of self-immolation as an act of protest against Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. But the symbol of the Egyptian protests has been Khaled Said, a young blogger who was dragged from an internet café in Alexandria and beaten to death by police in the summer of 2010.  An online group called “We are all Khaled Said” was formed on Facebook shortly thereafter. As the Daily Beast has reported: “The group has organized demonstrations in honor of Said, and today its membership is approaching 380,000, which makes it the country’s largest and most active online human-rights activist group.” Like 2009’s election protests in Iran, social media has played a major role in the sequence of events underway in Egypt. The UK newspaper, The Guardian, reports that Egypt’s government has recognized this fact and tried to block Twitter, YouTube, Hotmail, Google, and the Chinese search engine Baidu.

Thus far, Egypt’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has remained on the periphery, preventing the regime from casting the protests as an “Islamist uprising” or “revolution.” Nevertheless, the Egyptian government, as well as the Israeli government, has publicly attempted to blame the protests on the organization. The truth is the protests represent a broad swath of the Egyptian populace (including members of the MB). And the protests have, thus far, managed to avoid exclusionary associations with one political or sectarian faction. The Muslim Brotherhood must therefore tread carefully as it chooses to participate. If the narrative of the Egyptian protests is successfully cast as an Islamist uprising against the state, it will undermine the message of broad popular resistance to Mubarak’s regime.

The Muslim Brotherhood has already made numerous announcements concerning the protests. A statement from the Chairman’s office reported: “[Muslim Brotherhood Chairman Dr. Mohamed] Badie confirmed that the group insists on joining in solidarity with the other political trends demonstrating that the MB will not be intimidated and will never bow to dictatorship and fully rejects the security’s threats instigated by the ruling regime.” Addressing the events in Egypt is obviously inescapable, but the MB must avoid taking the reigns of the protests or it will risk destroying the political momentum underway. There is no doubt that some within the massive organization, particularly youth, think the MB, as the foremost opposition group, should assume that role and position itself as power fluctuates in the weeks and months ahead. But all political preferences aside, that would be a grave error for all  involved. The recent arrival of Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei in Cairo will undoubtedly help protect the nationalist narrative of the protests from being situated in the polarizing discourses over Islamism though. At a minimum, his presence ensures a watchful eye by the international community. Although there are substantial differences between Tunisia and Egypt, just as the Tunisian protests have been driven by the tragic story of Mohamed Bouazizi, so should Egypt’s protesters hold onto the story of the blogger Khaled Said. The events of Friday, January 28, will strongly indicate which course the narrative will take.

Editor’s Note: This blog entry comments on ongoing events in Egypt through January 27, 2011. We will update or provide additional posts as events warrant.

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The CSC has released a new white paper by Jeffry Halverson entitled A Counter-Narrative for Iranian Tyranny.  The executive summary is below, and you can find the full paper here.

The ruling regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran is increasingly known for a militant foreign policy posture, abuse of the human rights of its citizens, and a suspected nuclear weapons program that threatens to destabilize the Middle East region. It is in the interests of all parties involved, save for the Iranian regime itself, to bring about the radical reform of Iran’s political system, especially in light of its increasing militarization. Any military effort to bring about such change would however be fraught with risks and extremely dangerous. Accordingly, soft power achieved through strategic communication is a much more attractive alternative.

An effective counter-narrative to further delegitimize Iran’s regime among its remaining supporters in Iran and abroad–especially among Shi’ite Muslim communities–may be a highly effective tool of “soft power” for promoting such change. The revolutionary Twelver Shi’ism articulated by Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) forms the basis of the regime in Iran. It contains a set of legitimizing narratives. In particular, the powerful Karbala master narrative provides a useful reservoir for antigovernment sentiment, opposition to tyranny, and religious mobilization that can be redirected at the leaders of the regime.

The Karbala narrative conveys an archetypal struggle between good and evil.  The hero, Imam Husayn, sacrificed his life in battle against the army of the evil tyrant, the Caliph Yazid. Through his sacrifice, Husayn teaches his followers that it is better to die for freedom than to live under tyranny. In Shi’ite tradition, nearly all of the Twelve Imams were martyred at the hands of tyrannical rulers, most by poisoning. The Shah of Iran was identified with Yazid prior to his overthrow in 1979. The authoritarianism of the current Iranian regime has left it equally susceptible to the Karbala narrative, despite its explicit efforts to co-opt Islam as an instrument of the state.

The late Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Shirazi (d. 2001), revered by some as Imam, was an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and its conception of the Islamic state. Shirazi, his family, and followers were actively persecuted. When he died in 2001, many of his followers accused the regime of his murder, perhaps by poisoning. These accusations were bolstered by the conduct of the regime after his death, when soldiers stormed the funeral procession and stole his body. The events fit into the narrative structure and archetypes of the Karbala narrative. As such, Shirazi could occupy the pious role of Imam Husayn in the mobilization of a narrative against the Iranian regime of the tyrant Ali Khamenei.

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