The Future of the Arab World and Islamism – Part 2

Posted on | February 24, 2012 | No Comments

 by Nina Kontevska

Also, Islamists won over 75% of seats in Egypt’s first lower house parliamentary elections since the fall of former president Mubarak; with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood-led coalition winning 47% of all seats. The ultraconservative Islamist Al-Nour party came up second, winning 25% of seats. Barry Rubin, writing for IDC Herzliya’s GLORIA Center, noted that in Egypt, many parties portray themselves as liberals, but are in fact radicals:

The Wafd is a “liberal” “moderate” Egyptian party, right? It is the biggest non-Islamist party in Egypt’s parliament with 7.6 percent (pretty pitiful, huh?) of the seats. So if you are a Western reporter, policymaker, or “expert” you would say that it is one of the great hopes—perhaps the greatest—for moderate liberal Egyptian democracy, right? And the same people, of course, explain that revolutionary Islamism isn’t really a threat because they are really just all greedy people who’d rather have U.S. aid than Allah.

Rubin continues:

So, in short, the Islamists are not “moderate” and many of the alleged moderates are not moderate. Hence, the hope for moderation and real democracy is limited by the small numbers of those who hold them. We were told not so long ago that the young, social-media using kids who made Egypt’s revolution would dominate the country thereafter.

Question: What percentage of the vote in parliamentary elections did the young, social-media using kids who made Egypt’s revolution get?

Answer: 1.3 percent.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood’s role was for the most part unknown to the general public, mainstream media sources have recently started centering more on the Islamist dimension and pretensions to the revolution in their reporting of Arab protests. A Huffington Post article on the turnout of Egypt’s parliamentary elections states –

The Islamist domination of Egypt’s parliament has worried liberals and even some conservatives about the religious tone of the new legislature, which will be tasked with forming a committee to write a new constitution. Overseeing the process will be the country’s Mubarak-era military generals, who are still in charge.

Analysts believe that poverty has had much to do with the revolution in Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s great rise in popularity who have been promising jobs and better lives to the Egyptians. And I believe that poverty has had much to do with their enjoying wide public popularity across the Arab, and Muslim, world. In fact, at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, experts, including intelligence professionals, said they are worried that the widening gap between rich and poor globally, and economic crisis, are threats to global security.

In Egypt, the revolution is still underway, and violence has erupted again following last week’s deadly soccer riot and aftermath in Port Said, Egypt. On Tuesday, Egypt’s military – that is, Egypt’s interim ruler – announced that presidential elections would take place in either April or May of 2012, earlier than expected, responding to renewed violence, and calls for the generals to step down.

More than a year after the breakout of the so-called Arab Spring, protests and violence are still being waged in several other places as well. In Syria, despite Arab League monitoring, killing and violence continue to escalate. The death toll in Syria has risen to over 7000 dead since the onset of hostilities in mid-March 2011. A recent initiative – called for by many activists – to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have imposed various sanctions on Syria, addressing the humanitarian situation in Syria and the regime’s bloody repression of the upheaval, failed to pass on Saturday, thwarted by both Russia’s and China’s use of their veto power in the UN Security Council.

The Turkish connection

Perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood would not have been able to achieve their success, and coordinate the joint effort in the Arab Spring, if not for the current Turkish regime. Turkey, previously a Western-oriented nation, changed course in the wake of the EU’s rejection of the country, and started looking to the East, and its Eastern neighbors, for political and economic partnerships. Turkey today, still selling most of its exports to Europe, but with greatly improved relations with Asia, is a country vacillating between Europe and the East, between economic progress and preservation of tradition. Current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan (and his AKP party – the Justice and Development Party) a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been pushing his Islamist agenda since he stepped to office.

In addition, in an attempt to re-establish Turkey as an influential global economic and political actor, Erdogan and his regime are said to be vigorously seeking to re-establish Turkish economic, political, and cultural influence in former Ottoman areas – including in the Middle East and the Balkans. Most notably, in May 2010, the Turkish government organized and dispatched the controversial flotilla to Gaza, through its Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (the IHH). The IHH is a known supporter of Hamas, financially and in other ways. Erdogan found political and economic opportunities amid the crisis, partnering with his local ideological counterparts across the Arab world. For instance, in October 2011, he led Turkish business people on a tour to Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

The current Turkish regime has been actively supporting the various Islamist factions fighting for power across the Arab world since the onset of the Arab Spring.

What about the women?

The Muslim Brotherhood is bad news for all people who envision true democracy, but for the women, the stakes are even higher. A prominent Muslim Brotherhood thinker, Ghazali, wrote on the subject that [their] Islam sees women as equal to men, however that men are one step above women. The irony here seems to escape them. According to Ghazali, it is a scientifically-proven fact that men posses larger doses of mental and emotional stability, and are thus naturally suited for leadership roles. They claim that women’s primary place is in the home. They see women’s ‘natural’ role in terms of child-bearing, care-giving and sensuality.

Education is permitted for women and encouraged, but should be aimed at refining the woman’s primary role as a mother and wife. Working is possible only if they have extra time after their job in the home has been finished. And even at that, they only encourage professions such as medicine and teaching for women. They describe western women as devoid of honor and dignity, who have only been granted the right of ‘recklessness’ by the West. Still on a propagating note, they claim that in raising children and taking care of the home, a woman is the future creator of the nation. More ambiguously, they claim that women may not be given any political rights until society is purified of corruption and starts abiding by religion.

The Muslim Brotherhood has detailed proscriptions on the separation between the sexes in public, restricting where and how men and women are allowed to meet, and even the kinds of public transportation a woman is allowed to use. Of course, they stress the importance of modest clothing for women in accordance with the Islamic [Salafi] standard. If the Brotherhood is to have a significant role in shaping the future codes of the Arab world, it is safe to assume that there will be serious legal restrictions and setbacks to the way Arab women will live their lives – ranging from the most private matters to their professional lives and everything in-between.

In Lebanon, a country of modern and highly educated women, a country that was once a pioneer for women’s rights in the Arab world, representation of women in politics has already regressed painfully behind since Hezbollah took over the country – and seriously threatened the fragile Lebanese peace accommodation at that. The Islamist political party and terrorist organization Hezbollah effectively took control of Lebanon and its political institutions in early 2011 when it toppled the Lebanese government. In the new (now current) government that was formed last June by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mitaki – whose cabinet consists mostly of Hezbollah-led March 8 Alliance coalition members – there isn’t a single woman. Although a Shiite movement, Hezbollah has also often been associated with the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn follows the radical stream, and the two movements have concluded at least one cooperation agreement in 2008.

In Tunisia, An Nahda’s victory in the elections was met with protests, and in early November, women held a protest in the capital, Tunis, fearing that the rights of women and all those who are not religious would be seriously infringed by the Islamists. “’We’re here to denounce all forms of extremism and bans on women’s liberties,’” said one of the protesters, Madiha Bel Haj. ‘We want a constitution that respects women’s rights and doesn’t roll back the advances we’ve made.’”

Women’s advocates in Egypt, too, worry about what the Islamists’ victory will mean for women’s rights in the country. Egyptian Islamists – according to WIIS director Jolynn Shoemaker – themselves, haven’t been clear as to their policies on women and women’s rights; but, not many women are expected to be included among the new majority-Islamist government in Egypt. She continues:

The very real danger now is that women’s voices in Egypt will be silenced in the current government and that powerful political forces will claim to speak for women but will manipulate and distort women’s needs or interests for their own agendas. A constitution-making process that is neither transparent nor inclusive will set up the foundation for legal rights and civic participation for years to come.

In Libya, where parliamentary elections are set to take place in June, with the NTC (read: part 1) acting as interim leader, and where Islamists are beginning to impose their strict codes, community by community (for more on this, read my friend Steve’s report and accounts from Tripoli, Libya), there are also worries about women’s rights in the constitution that will be drawn up and adopted by the new parliament following June 2012, and about women’s representation in the new government and parliament. A couple of weeks ago it was revealed that a proposal posted for survey by the NTC earlier to set a 10% quota for women (20 seats out of 200) in Libya’s new parliament failed – in addition to other changes related to the expected elections announced by interim NTC – and was supposedly ill-received by the public (according to the NTC, and emails they supposedly received from the general public). A Reuters article reports that Libyan women’s groups still supported the quota or asked for it to be increased to over 50%, which is the more accurate women-to-men ratio in Libya.

There are some basic tenets which define a democracy, they are not matters of personal opinion, are not up for debate, are not issues of left or right; the separation between religion and state is among these. Democracy is about a few other things besides free elections. The term “Islamic democracy” itself, as the so-called “moderates” refer to their vision, is a contradiction. This is a critical and watershed moment for the Arab world, but the upheaval is being used by Muslim Brotherhood – and other Islamist – groups and a few leaders. The people of the MENA region, and Western leaders in particular, should recognize the Muslim Brotherhood for what it really is, and should focus on partnering with the true voices of democracy, before the Arab Spring turns into a revolution that will resemble more the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran, rather than an upheaval for true democracy. The stakes are very high, but at this point, unfortunately, the odds are in the Islamists’ favor.

 by Nina Kontevska, WIIS Israel

 

 

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