With news of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepping down, the key question becomes "who will govern Egypt?" Although Mubarak has handed power over to the military, there is still the possibility that other actors, including the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), could step in to fill the vacuum. The central question is: If the MB comes to power in Egypt or even becomes a major player, what will its position be on the transformation of the political system in Egypt? Is it a force for democracy or a force for authoritarianism? In essence, will the MB foster a conservative Islamic vision for Egypt?
The evidence is mixed, but on balance I predict the MB will be a force for democratic change. What is my evidence? I have two sorts. The first regards the MB itself and the second is the role of religious actors in politics more generally.
We should recall that like any other organization, the MB has gone through changes over the years since its founding, and that those changes, including its core constituency, have depended in some measure on the nature of the regime in power. Although there are elements within the Egyptian MB who advocate a stronger role for Islam in Egyptian politics, in the last decade, the MB's leaders have come to understand that in order to govern, they need to moderate their behavior. We do know that the MB has some popular support, having garnered about 20 percent of the popular vote in the 2005 parliamentary elections (and probably could have won more had it been able to slate more candidates). Even were the MB to become more integral of the political process in Egypt, the numbers indicate that its influence is already quite limited; and although the MB continues to include extremist, more fundamentalist elements (however defined), these represent a small fraction within the organization itself, and an even smaller fraction of Egyptian society.
This is not to deny that the MB was not more extremist in the past (members of an even more extreme Islamist offshoot killed Mubarak's predecessor). Yet over time, they have moderated their political stance and role within Egyptian society, becoming more democratic and representative than the regime itself.
A second key point is that the MB in Egypt is representative of a broader trend. For the past three decades, the world has witnessed an amazing transformation of global politics, the movement away from authoritarianism and towards greater equality and representation for the world's citizens. Since 1970, Freedom House reports that the number of "free" countries in the world has doubled while the number of "not free" countries has declined by half.
Little noticed in this transformation is the role of religious actors, including political parties, in this process. Research reported in my new book, God's Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, (co-authored with Daniel Philpott and Timothy Shah) shows that from 1972-2009, the world witnessed 78 cases of countries that made significant strides towards more free and open political systems. Of those cases, religious actors played a substantial role in 48 of them, or 62 percent. These are the success stories, and they do not include any countries from the Middle East. This, however, does not mean that religious actors did not try. Rather, lack of progress towards greater democratization was due to the nature of the regimes that they were challenging, which were highly repressive and effective in countering this pro-democratic religious activism. Interestingly, Egypt and Tunisia were two of the countries that witnessed this activism, and both are now undergoing remarkable transformations of their political systems.
This is not to say that religious actors always take a pro-democratic role. Over the same period, there were at least ten countries that witnessed religious actors playing a counter-democratizing role, the most infamous of which are Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan. It is fair to say, however, that in a far larger number of cases, it was secular authorities, including Mubarak in Egypt (and now perhaps the military regime that has replaced him), that clamped down and prevented progress toward a more transparent, equitable and just political system.
Time will tell whether the MB continues to adopt a representative and more democratic orientation. But, if the history of democratization and the trends over the last four decades are any guide, the chances are that it will represent the interests of Egyptian society more broadly. In other words, the MB is unlikely to dominate Egyptian politics moving forward, but even if it does play a major role, that role is likely to be more democratic and constructive than many who abjure religious political groups fear.
This article first appeared at Power & Policy, a forum of Harvard's Kennedy School and Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
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Muslim Brotherhood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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BBC News - Profile: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Muslim Brotherhood uncovered | World news | The Guardian
But while such democracy can depose a government, it can't build one. A million protesters can't draft a new constitution for Egypt, or even agree on a ballot of candidates for an interim government. That new government will be created by people who were already powerful under the previous government -- just as America's post-revolution government was created largely by people who had been influential under British rule.
In America we were lucky; the designers of our government were educated, thoughtful, and independent They designed a radical new system designed to prevent despotism, and it worked. I'm not ignorant of the influence of special interests and petty, personal squabbles in their work, but they largely overcame those and produced a masterpiece.
This is how it will happen in Egypt, too. I hope that the Madisons and Hamiltons of Egypt who step up to design their new government have at least a much nobility and altruism as the framers of our Constitution. But I deeply fear that these men will act more like Mahmoud Achmadinejad than John Adams.
I've yet to meet a theist who thinks God is democratic. They describe him as a king, a shepherd, a lord - an unquestionable ruler.
True, many theists support democracy. The vast majority of people are theists, so by definition anything with majority support has strong support from religious people. You should actually be humbled by the statistic you mentioned, that 62% of the world's pro-democracy reforms included substantial contributions by religious actors. Over 90% of people are religious, but 38% of the time nobody leading the reforms was a "religious actor"? That suggests an outright aversion to democracy, not enthusiasm for it.
The only thing religion loves about democracy is that it guarantees religious freedom. Specifically, churches support democracy when they are in the minority and want to be protected from government oppression. But they tend to abandon that support when they become the dominant religion. Then, they oppose religious freedom because it can only detract from their membership and power. And where religions have designed systems of government, have any of them been democracies? How many religions are even democratic in their internal organization? (Some, certainly: most Protestant sects, and (I think) Judaism. But Catholics? Definitely not. Muslims? Maybe in the USA, not in Saudi Arabia.
"The Brotherhood’s program — perhaps sincerely, but certainly shrewdly — strives for rigorous fidelity to Islam’s origins. That is why the Brothers are so popular with the scholars at al-Azhar University, and why they have been embraced for over a half-century by the rulers of Saudi Arabia — custodians of Islam’s holiest cities and sites. Even for a Muslim who privately believes the Brothers are a menace, publicly saying so is fraught with risk. This is especially so when one considers that, for Muslims, treason — sowing discord within the ummah — is considered apostasy, the gravest sin in Islam and one for which the penalty is death."
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259614/secular-muslim-brotherhood-andrew-c-mccarthy
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In the past, however, MB has seen their popular support erode when they employed violent, militaristic means In their pursuit of power. In the Syrian city of Hama in the early 1980's, MB killings and assassinations of regime-friendly officials finally prompted Assad to cordon off and shell the city for a month, killing an estimated 12-15,000 people. Even in the face of this brutal response , not a peep of popular support for the MB was whispered in Syria over the ensuing decades.
It is more likely that the MB has come to understand that in order to get into power they need to moderate their behaviour. They will subsequently un-moderate it, in accordance with Islamic law.
Your opinion of Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood are premised on your hopes, not on factual events happening in Egypt. 30 years ago, the MB engineered the assassination of Pres. Anwar Sadat for one main reason: Pres. Sadat signed peace treaty with Israel.
Do you really think that MB changed its principle of existence in 30 years? You don't know the extreme Muslim psyche if you truly think that.
Do you have knowledge of Egypt's 90 million population composite? That includes 20% Coptic Christians that are being persecuted by the cohorts of the MB to this very day? The problem in your article is the unreality of your assumptions of what truly is going on in Egypt and what's going to happen next. I hope you're right that MB is for true democracy in Egypt.
But it would not surprise me that your hope for a tamed MB's stand of recent years are fed by report written by MB's arms who wear coats and ties. In my opinion MB's appearances have changed, but the core of its life is very much there encroaching naivete of your trust system.
I lived in Egypt for 20 years that's all I can say.
Glad to hear it.
Religions are human institutions and therefore not perfect, and cannot be perfect. They are run by human beings who are prone to hunger for power, wealth, and many excesses. In the history of mankind religions caused man-made sufferings to many others.
We can not equate faith with religion. Faith is a gift and often times beyond our human understanding. But it is real. Religion is a choice to commune with those who are like us in serving a common purpose.
Peace to you.
Exression is everything. What a person or a leader "lives" is what will insire the hearts of their community, not what they say.
This, in my opinion goes beyond religion that has shown itself to be not of Truth, God or the ancient Wisdoms but of manmade interpretations that historically have shown it to be a deceptive, separatist, judgemental institution that relies on its follower to be powerless unless a devotee of "their" religion only.
True religion is lived and does not separate one from another. It meets every person equally and does not impose upon that person. To discuss any religion taking over a country without also considering it has a specific (religious) agenda is naive and not based on fact.
The people have resonded with an awakening from their true heart, many, many gathered togethered feeling they could also have their children with them - that empowerment transends religion and their inviduality as a worhty person has been enriched, together, irrespective of religion, not because of it.