The Brotherhood Enters its Empowerment Phase
22 March 2013
By Osman Mirghani
It is no secret that there has recently been extensive
coordination between the various movements that
originated from the womb of the Muslim Brotherhood,
and adopted the thought and ideology of the group's
founder Hassan Al-Banna. For a long time, the
international Muslim Brotherhood organization was
ambiguous and shrouded in total secrecy, with the aim
of avoiding the eyes of the security apparatus.
Perhaps, this sense of mystery was also due to the
conspiratorial nature of some of the Brotherhood's
plans against the political regimes in power at the
time, prompting leaders at certain points to even deny
the existence of their organization. However,
relations between various Brotherhood branches always
remained strong despite the fact that they took on
different forms and adopted different slogans, in
order to acclimatize to the organizational and
intellectual transformations they were experiencing.
Following the Arab Spring, which was hijacked by
Brotherhood movements as a means to seize power, the
scope of coordination between these movements has
begun to increase. The Brotherhood and its affiliates
believe that the Arab Spring has offered them an
opportunity that may not come again to seize power and
fulfill their overt, as well as covert, agendas. To
this end, numerous meetings and conferences have been
held with the aim of ensuring greater coordination and
exchanging opinions between various Brotherhood
leaderships, some of which have been openly declared,
whereas others have remained secret.
In Egypt, for example, the Brotherhood's leadership
seems to have merged entirely with its political
façade, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), as well
as with the presidency of the country. It is striking
that official political delegations from outside Egypt
have met with the Brotherhood's General Guide Mohammed
Badie, as well as with other Brotherhood leaders.
Furthermore, Egyptian Brotherhood representatives have
traveled abroad on diplomatic missions in order to
make contacts, coordinate policies, obtain aid, or
reassure foreign powers, such as the US, about their
intentions. As a result of such entwinement between
the Brotherhood and the Egyptian state, it sometimes
appears as though the country is being run from
Mokattam, the headquarters of the Brotherhood's
Guidance Bureau. Hence, critical voices have emerged
in the opposition ranks objecting to what they believe
to be "the rule of the General Guide". There have also
been criticisms of Qatari and Turkish support to
empower the Brotherhood's rule. Furthermore, others
have accused Hamas elements of participating in
efforts to quell anti-Mursi protests, as well as
participating in the attack on Egyptian troops in
Rafah that resulted in the deaths of 19 troops. Mursi
later exploited this incident to oust senior leaders
of the Egyptian army and carry out significant
amendments to the military establishment.
Sudan has also been a major arena for Brotherhood
activity following the Arab Spring, especially as it
was the first Arab state to fall into the clutches of
a political Islam movement, which in turn had branched
out from the Brotherhood's ideology. This occurred
when the National Islamic Front (NIF) staged a
military coup in 1989, whereby it imposed an
autocratic system of governance that continues to
exist today by virtue of oppression and maneuvering,
and in spite of consecutive internal crises. The NIF's
control over the reins of power in Sudan over the
years has made the country a place of refuge for
fugitive Islamist leaders. The NIF has also hosted
several conferences and meetings for political Islam
movements, coming from a range of Arab and Muslim
states, such as the ‘Popular Arab and Islamic
Congress', which was established after the first Gulf
war under the chairmanship of Hassan Al-Turabi.
Although this conference in particular concluded
without an official declaration, the Sudanese regime
continued to uphold its country's role as an Islamist
refuge and meeting place. In view of such support and
coordination, it was not odd to see Muslim Brotherhood
leaders, or those affiliated with the group's
ideology, flowing into Khartoum in November 2012 to
attend the eighth Islamic Movement General Conference
in Sudan. However, what was strange was the official
statement issued at the end of the conference,
circulated by official Sudanese news agencies and
other websites. The statement referred to Mohammed
Badie, not in his capacity as General Guide of the
Brotherhood in Egypt, but rather as the General Guide
of the Brotherhood across the world. It is still
unclear as to whether this was just a mistake, or an
allusion to something else. During his speech to the
conference, Badie gave a pep talk to the Islamists in
attendance, calling on them to pool their resources
and create a torrential force. Dubai police chief Dahi
Khalfan considered this rhetoric to be an act of
provocation against all states, including those in the
Gulf.
Whatever the intentions of Badie's speech, one cannot
deny that there is now active coordination between
variant Brotherhood movements, whether overtly or
covertly. For further evidence, consider the protocol
agreement signed last week in Khartoum between the
ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan and the
Egyptian FJP. The agreement was not simply a means to
ensure the mutual exchange of expertise, rather it
went further and touched upon regional and
international cooperation, as well as external
economic and political ties between the two countries.
According to Saad El-Katatni, chairman of the FJP,
this cooperation is based on the fact that both
parties share the same visions, ideas, trends, and
objectives.
The protocol agreement also addressed the security
situation between Egypt and Sudan. Nafei Ali Nafei,
vice president of the NCP, has previously alluded to
the existence of Sudanese political opposition groups
in Egypt, claiming that the Egyptian opposition is
exploiting them in order to damage relationships
between the two countries.
The maneuvers, contacts, and meetings taking place
these days give clear signals that the Brotherhood is
now plotting a stage of empowerment, having come to
power on the back of the Arab Spring revolutions.
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EsinIslam.Com
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