By Sarah Tonsy
Despite being on the political platform since 1929, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) managed to fulfill every prophecy of the Mubarak regime regarding Islamic movements in Egypt.
First, the fact that there is no difference between moderate and extremist Islamic movements in Egypt, which was also pointed to in John Esposito’s book, “Political Islam.” The MB right after the January 25 Revolution in Egypt started claiming that they are the ones who “gathered the masses.” They also said that they will not be forming a political party and will stay as a movement and that may be some of the MB as independent citizens will form a political party, and they did.
A political party called Freedom and Justice was formed but only since the party started, the leader of the MB Mohamed Badie’a started to appear on every picture in the papers regarding the recently found party. Also, it appeared that the claim of the party being separate turned out to be false since he jumped to head the party as well as the movement. This attitude is close to the Mubarak regime attitude of the one-man show!
Second, the MB was not satisfied with jumping on heading the political party illegitimately, since there are many members of the MB who want the political party to be independent as a conservative and not a religious party.
Also the MB started a dialogue with Pope Shenouda as if they were the main Islamic figure in Egypt and the moderate one, ignoring the presence and coordination with Al-Azhar, which is the only moderate Islamic legal institution in Egypt and has been for centuries.
Third, the MB’s leader ordered the members to refrain from joining any other political party other than the Freedom and Justice Party, thus reinforcing the Mubarak prophecy that the MB is in fact extreme and aged in terms of its view of politics and democracy.
Also, the MB verified that they are more extreme than they claim because of the failure to comply with the legitimate and profound internal demands for re-electing a new leader and changing several of the old ideologies within the MB.
The MB proved itself incapable of any political involvement during the past couple of months. They seized every chance to make themselves appear to have more power than they actually do.
The main problem with this is that the MB are stealing the spotlight from other moderate Islamic bodies like Al-Azhar, which is currently re-electing the Grand Sheikh according to Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb. Also, Dr. Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, who is a member of the MB but demonstrated many differences between his political ideologies and the MB’s ideologies, said in several occasions that Islam is a religion; it belongs to everyone and should not be monopolized by the MB or any other group of people for that matter.
