By Jailan Zayan / AFP
CAIRO: A massive show of force by Islamist groups at a rally in the Egyptian capital on Friday may have showcased their organizational skills, but their actual political clout remains limited, analysts say.
Hundreds of thousands of Islamists from across the country packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square to defend what they called “Egypt’s Islamic identity” in the country’s largest protest since a revolt ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.
But while the protest may have been visually dramatic, divisions within the Islamist groups and their lack of nationwide support are bound to restrain their strength, analysts said.
Chants calling for Egypt to “implement the law of God” rang across Tahrir in an impressive display of religious banners and slogans, dotted with Saudi flags.
Hardline Salafis (fundamentalist Muslims) in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood have been organizing the rally for weeks, sparking fears of clashes with secular protesters who have been camped out in the square since July 8.
The sheer size of the protest appeared to have angered, and in some cases intimidated, secular activists.
But analysts say that while Friday’s rally showcased the Islamist groups’ organizational skills and their ability to mobilize members efficiently, its political impact remains limited.
“Friday’s demonstration represents the full capacity of the Islamist forces, there are no more of them,” said Emad Gad, a political analyst with the Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies.
The Islamists who thronged the square “came from all over Egypt. The turnout was a reflexion of their full political power,” said Rabab Al-Mahdi, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.
Egypt has more than 40 million eligible voters, so the hundreds of thousands in Tahrir demanding an Islamist state, while significant, are not representative of the overall population, Mahdi said.
Divisions among the groups also need to be considered, she said.
“Dealing with the Islamists as one homogenous group is wrong,” said Mahdi.
“There are different trends, the Salafis, former militant groups like the Gamaa Islamiya, the Muslim Brotherhood and they all have different ideas on how to conduct politics and what they mean by an Islamic state,” she said.
Ahead of the rally, there was a flurry of meetings between Islamist and secular leaders in a bid to put their differences aside and focus on the common goals of the revolution, in order to avoid confrontations in the square.
Activists told AFP that the groups had agreed to stick to the key demands of the uprising, which include an end to military trials of civilians, the prosecution of former regime members found guilty of abuse, and the redistribution of wealth.
But the rally that was initially entitled the “Friday of unity and closing ranks” quickly turned into an Islamist event that saw the secular groups withdraw in protest.
The rally “will have a negative impact (for Islamists) because it showed that they are not able to cooperate with other groups,” said Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayyed, a professor of political science at Cairo University.
“They are powerful and organized, but they represent a… minority of the public opinion,” he said.
Others see the Islamist turnout as proof that the revolution had succeeded in putting democracy into practice.
“We have to appreciate that politics in Egypt are now real and we have to deal with the fact that people have different opinions,” said long-time secular activist Wael Khalil.
He says that under Mubarak – when there was little tolerance for dissent – the banned Islamist groups “relied on people escaping politics through religion. But now they have to compete with other political forces.”
Khalil said Friday’s rally did little to increase the Islamists’ influence in the country.
“We always knew that there are Islamists… They didn’t convince anyone new,” he said.
