{"id":3884,"date":"2011-12-01T15:31:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T15:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/12\/egypt%e2%80%99s-muslim-brotherhood-has-its-moment-arrived\/"},"modified":"2011-12-01T15:31:04","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T15:31:04","slug":"egypts-muslim-brotherhood-has-its-moment-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/01\/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-has-its-moment-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood: Has its moment arrived?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>They were outside every polling station I visited in Cairo: earnest young men bent over laptops on rickety tables, checking names and ID numbers against voting lists, explaining to people where they were supposed to vote, and, in light of Egypt\u2019s wildly complicated electoral system, how to vote.<\/p>\n

Scattered around the tables between the laptops were pamphlets and fliers for candidates of the Freedom and Justice Party, the newly established political wing of the once banned but now free and unfettered Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho doesn\u2019t want freedom and justice?\u201d a middle-aged man asked me approvingly as I leafed through a pamphlet over at one of the tables in the working class Cairo neighbourhood of Sayida Zaynab.<\/p>\n

The \u201chelp\u201d at the polls was just the tip of an organizational iceberg that may well ensure the movement emerges victorious from the first, critical round in Egypt\u2019s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

Both the movement\u2019s leaders and rank-and-file are now quietly confident their moment is fast approaching. They have, after all, been working \u2014 methodically and patiently \u2014 to achieve it since the movement\u2019s founding in 1928 in the city of Ismailia, on the Suez Canal.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve come a long way since then \u2014 occasionally operating openly, other times hounded by the police. Shortly after Hosni Mubarak was ousted, the movement was legalized. Journalists can now jettison the tired old phrase \u201cbanned but tolerated.\u201d The Brotherhood is unbound.<\/p>\n

The movement is well entrenched in mainstream Egyptian politics. Its leaders do not appear to be wild-eyed fanatics. Most are highly educated \u2014 doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, and businessmen \u2014 and come from solidly middle-class backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Some western observers see the Brotherhood as a sinister, secretive society, feigning moderation and democracy in public while in private embracing an extremist, totalitarian, anti-western agenda. The movement\u2019s Egyptian opponents frequently describe the Brotherhood as sheep in wolves\u2019 clothing.<\/p>\n

Its members endured decades of persecution by the authorities, going back to the days of the monarchy. In the 1930s and 1940s the Brothers were accused of assassinations and bombings \u2013 although the Brothers always publicly rejected violence as a means to political ends. The secrecy that alarms some Egyptians may have simply been a necessity to function in an environment where the secret police, the mukhabarat, and their army of informers were watching everyone. But who knows.<\/p>\n

Whatever one thinks of the group, it is skilled at building broad popular support through its extensive network of charities and social services, and stepping forward in emergencies when the state has failed.<\/p>\n

In 1992 when an earthquake in Cairo left hundreds of the city\u2019s poor homeless, it was the Brotherhood who quickly mobilized to provide food, blankets and medical care. The government\u2019s reaction was criticized as slow, late, and clumsy. In 2006, when a ferry sank between Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea port of Safaga carrying more than 1,000 workers from Upper Egypt, the Brotherhood rushed relief supplies, only to have them blocked by the government. The first official reaction to the ship\u2019s sinking, as I saw myself, was to send hundreds of riot police to Safaga. Government relief supplies arrived three days later.<\/p>\n

In a country where the sheer mass of people sometimes overwhelms creaking government services, the Brotherhood has won praise for its ability to create order out of chaos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with good organisation?\u201d said Abdel Aziz Zaid, production manager at an industrial printing press in Cairo and Brotherhood member. He was keeping an eye on the turnout at the Mohamed Ali School in Sayida Zaynab. He smiled confidently as a steady flow of voters \u2014 women to the left, men to the right-walked past him to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people see that we are well-organised now and were well-organised in the past, they will know we can use that organisation to achieve prosperity in the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What men like Abdel Aziz Zaid call public service, critics shrug off as cynical, opportunistic stunts to win popular support. For Egypt\u2019s impoverished millions, however, motives don\u2019t matter. They need all the help they can get.<\/p>\n

The Brotherhood is often accused of opportunism, but, if that\u2019s the case, it\u2019s chosen its opportunities wisely. During this year\u2019s uprising, the Brotherhood kept a low profile, letting secular and leftist youth take the lead. When it became clear Mubarak\u2019s days were numbered, the Brotherhood\u2019s presence in Tahrir Square increased steadily. The group\u2019s leaders cheered the fall of Mubarak but never took credit for it.<\/p>\n

During the recent protests against the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces<\/a>, the Brotherhood stayed on the sidelines. They condemned what they called police brutality, but also rejected calls for them to join the protests. They were bitterly criticized by the activists in Tahrir Square, who warned they would be punished at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

But the people in Tahrir, not for the first time, misread the public mood. Many Egyptians I spoke with outside the Square said they were tired of demonstrations and clashes, wanted the elections to proceed, and wanted the country to settle down.<\/p>\n

The large turnout for the first two days of voting, and the dwindling numbers in Tahrir Square, suggest that the Brotherhood once more played its cards well. Call it opportunism, call it clever politics. The result is the same.<\/p>\n

I met 29-year-old Amna Abdel Aziz as she was going up to the stairs of a school to vote in Sayida Zaynab. \u201cI\u2019m going to vote for the Freedom and Justice Party!\u201d she proclaimed loudly.<\/p>\n

An office worker and mother of three, she listed her reasons for voting for the Brotherhood\u2019s Party: \u201cIf the Muslim Brotherhood run the country, they\u2019ll fix everything \u2013 health, housing, jobs, girls who walk around with their hair uncovered, girls who walk around in the wrong clothing. God willing, they\u2019ll fix everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amna was wearing a headscarf, hijab, not the full face-covering niqab favoured by the ultra-conservatives, so I was a bit taken aback.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean,\u201d I asked, \u201cthe Brotherhood will force women to wear the hijab?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no,\u201d she responded. \u201cThey\u2019ll just convince them it\u2019s better for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that seems to be the attitude of many members and supporters of the Brotherhood \u2014 that they\u2019ll bring people over not by compulsion but rather by conviction and example.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an attitude 27-year-old interior decorator Hind Mohamed vehemently rejects.<\/p>\n

The Muslim Brothers, said the unveiled Hind, \u201care just liars. They don\u2019t do what they say. They use religion to convince people to vote for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously they hadn\u2019t convinced her. She was waiting in line to vote \u201cagainst the Muslim Brotherhood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The movement\u2019s leaders are well aware that many Egyptians, especially Christians, liberals, leftists and others, are wary of their growing power. Senior Brotherhood leader Issam Al-Arian is quick to reassure them they are all partners in a new democratic Egypt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are our friends, our neighbours, our citizens, they are Egyptians as we [are], and they have the same rights and duties, and nobody can deny that,\u201d he told me on the second day of voting. \u201cIf they oppose us, they are participating in building this country, and are correcting our mistakes, if we commit a mistake. And this is very important for a democratic system.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years ago I interviewed Mahdi Akif, then the leader, or Supreme Guide, of the Muslim Brotherhood. Akif, a doctor, had worked in Germany but had also spent many years behind bars under Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. \u201cA long-term guest of the government,\u201d is how he described it with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

Like so many Egyptians he had a sharp sense of humor. But the smile evaporated when he told me, \u201cWe are a religion, a mission, a programme. I don\u2019t care what the government thinks. What concerns me is that God is satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rifaat Said, the wizened old leader of the leftist, secular Agama\u2019s Party shared with me his concerns about the Brotherhood. \u201cSo, if you are not with them, the Brotherhood, with God\u2019s party, are you with the devil\u2019s party?\u201d<\/p>\n

Said spent time in prison with the Brotherhood\u2019s Akif, and knows him well. He doesn\u2019t trust the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf God\u2019s party reaches power,\u201d he asked me, \u201cwho can move them away?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod\u2019s party\u201d is closer today to power in Egypt than it\u2019s ever been.<\/p>\n

CNN<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They were outside every polling station I visited in Cairo: earnest young men bent over laptops on rickety tables, checking names and ID numbers against voting lists, explaining to people where they were supposed to vote, and, in light of Egypt\u2019s wildly complicated electoral system, how to vote. Scattered around the tables between the laptops were pamphlets and fliers for candidates of the Freedom and Justice Party, the newly established political wing of the once banned but now free and unfettered Muslim Brotherhood. \u201cWho doesn\u2019t want freedom and justice?\u201d a middle-aged man asked me approvingly as I leafed through a pamphlet over at one of the tables in the working class Cairo neighbourhood of Sayida Zaynab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nEgypt\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood: Has its moment arrived? - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/01\/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-has-its-moment-arrived\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Egypt\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood: Has its moment arrived? - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"They were outside every polling station I visited in Cairo: earnest young men bent over laptops on rickety tables, checking names and ID numbers against voting lists, explaining to people where they were supposed to vote, and, in light of Egypt\u2019s wildly complicated electoral system, how to vote. 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