The Real Face of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Delusions of Its Supporters
And as for women? In his own words: “Blows are not effective with every woman, but they are helpful with some.” I wonder if al-Qaradawi agrees with the recent verdict by the upstate New York jury which found the American Muslim man who beheaded his wife guilty, even though he pleaded that he was innocent, arguing that she had violated the dictates of Sharia law. As the Der Spiegel writer notes, the Muslim scholar explained to him that “a woman does not have to ask her husband’s permission to blow herself up in an Israeli café.” I guess that anti-Western radical feminists will be delighted to hear this.
It also appears, readers learn, that a Danish researcher believes that he was the man responsible for instigating the protests against the cartoonist in Denmark who drew the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. These protests led to the Danish embassy being set on fire in Beirut, as well as threats against the cartoonist, who recently was almost killed in his home.
For those like Prof. Carrie Wickham, who believes, as I wrote earlier, that the Brotherhood was changed by events and now favors “public freedoms, democracy and respect for human rights,” the words of al-Qaradawi are rather chastening. As the Der Spiegel article explains, critics such as Christoph Spielberger cite the Muslim tradition of Taqiyya, or “misrepresentation to achieve a higher goal.” What this means is that those who trust the words of MB spokesmen to Westerners should think carefully before believing what they are told.
The article quotes pledges of adherence to democracy and a pledge not to demand any ideological line on Egypt by an MB spokesman, Mohammed Mursi. This sounds good, but as Smoltczyk writes, quoting Tariq Ramadan — the self-proclaimed moderate who is beloved by many in the West — its leaders know that “now is not the time to expose itself.”
As I argued on these pages, the group’s leaders are savvy, and hope that time is on their side That is why the United States should urge that elections be held as late as possible, and that in the interim, our country and others in the West should give the kind of aid the Reagan administration gave to Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s. Democratic activists both religious and secular should be given access to computers, printers, cell phones and whatever they need to spread their word. They should be given funds that enable them to organize their own parties and to establish headquarters throughout Egypt. Such aid can be given through the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as through groups like the Republican and Democratic Party institutes that work to help the creation of democratic groups where they do not at present exist.
Only when alternatives to the Muslim Brotherhood are built up and gain participants will a real level playing field exist. In such conditions, the Muslim Brotherhood, a minority group in Egypt, has a chance of remaining a minority in a new democratic Egypt.
Within fundamentalist Islam, a woman’s right to commit suicide is probably considered a somewhat progressive stance.
If the Nazi Party can be banned in many parts of Europe in various forms and those polities survive as democracies, there is no reason the Muslim Brotherhood cannot continue to be banned in Egypt as it builds its hopes towards a form of democracy.
There is no doubt that the MB gives different messages at different times to different people in different languages. I wonder if they even know what the hell their true agenda is.
At present, one could argue that it is the MB itself that is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the formation of a truly representative government in Egypt since it is the military that is in the driver’s seat and I don’t think they trust them.
I think that the agenda of the MB, as well as that of Al Qaeda, is and must remain, ‘virtual’; that is, purely rhetorical, ideological, divorced from reality. After all, the agenda is, as they both state, a Return to an assumed Pure State of Being as a Society – which Pure State is assumed to be within a fundamentalist and primitive Islamism totally incapable of interacting with the modern world.
And their method of achieving this utopian state is by Force. They will impose their virtual ideology on the people – and it has to be all the people, it has to be universal for even one dissident will pollute The Purity – they will impose their Will by force: of emotional and psychological fear or actual physical violence.
Does a state have the right and the duty to protect its people from such an agenda? I think that freedom of speech is a primary right and as long as these ideologies remain in rhetoric I’d have to say that, since I value that First Amendment, that we have to allow the verbiage.
But, only within a constitutional democracy with an open communication system where the people can listen to other views and make up their own minds. And, the focus has to be on improving the economic infrastructure of the nation so that people will not be drawn to ‘magical utopian solutions’ to their economic and societal problems.
One of the greatest books I’ve read is “Seth Speaks” by Jane Roberts. Seth is an entity channeled by Jane Roberts. Before you laugh read the book. Seth’s prime lesson is that thought creates reality. Most of us believe otherwise. Now armed with that simple understanding it is quite easy to realize why Islamics behave the way they do. They are not “Divorced” from reality. They are merely creating their reality just like we do, however their reality vastly differs from ours. Just as my reality is created from some interior place inside my consciousness or some lessons learned from grade school theirs is created by their upbringing. The Islamic Brotherhood regardless of what Jimmy Carter thinks hasn’t changed one iota. Circumstances may allow them to gain popular support. That should not be allowed to happen. The vast majority of Eyptians already want to dismantle the Camp David accord so you know where the psyche of the common Egyptian resides. America’s goal of true Democracy lies in some far off horizon for the Middle East because America must reach into each and every Middle Easterner’s mind and instill our principles. We are only fooling ourselves when we believe they are like us. Outside of a good job a roof over our heads and foot on the table they are different. Education is the most important aspect of getting modern Egyptians to alter their beliefs. Right now America must guide Egypt away from Islamic fundamentalism. That must be America’s prime directive but with the liberal loonies in gov’t and the Jimmy Carter’s well…. good luck. After 50 years of foisting money on these people and getting nowhere (OK we kept the peace for a while) we need to realize that it is thought that rules reality not the other way around. We must alter these people’s thoughts into those like ours. Education is the key. It’s going to take a long time.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful towards this book, really I don’t – but the idea that ones thoughts create ones future reality is something one knows at 6 years of age; some dream the mundane and imagine going out and getting a job and get one – some dream of climbing live volcanos and do that.
One also learns that there is a limit to this as one cannot fly by flapping your arms. Dream hard and well and yes dreams will come true but the dream of the Muslim Brotherhood is madness plain and simple. Its cultural bigotry is the only reality within its grasp and it’s greatest enemy.
The Muslim Brotherhood is in fact divorced from reality. A worst case scenario with the MB is absolute control of Egypt would see that country’s destruction and utter humiliation as it is presently constituted.
Any military adventurism against Israel is simply impossible with American tanks and jets the U.S. will not re-supply or give spare parts to. Re-tooling the entire army would bankrupt Egypt given the presumed cold shoulder from the International Monetary Fund, the drying up of foreign investment and disappearance of tourism which would throw thousands out of work with billions more in revenue lost. Egypt has no oil to finance fundamentalism like Iran and China or Russia is not going to fill the financial void and start another Cold War.
Trying to use the Suez Canal to extort the West might result in the internationalization of the Canal by a consortium of China, Europe, America and Russia; more revenues lost. Even a re-tooled army going up against Israel would risk the loss of the Sinai once again, this time maybe permanently.
To the south, the new anti-muslim country in Southern Sudan could have a dam built with Western funds whose sole purpose would be to divert the flow of the Nile which even now is only just sufficient to meet Egypt’s needs. Once again, that dam could be protected by foreign troops and Egypt blackmailed at will.
If the MB took over Egypt and wanted to play as tough as their rhetoric suggests, they would only succeed in having Egyptians pine for the good old days under Mubarak. And throw in Egypt’s greatest current problem which is it’s growing population and you have a recipe for disaster.
Sharia doesn’t work in a modern world it chooses to conflict with since it is divorced from reality by many centuries of human social evolution and simply cannot compete. In the case of Malaysia for example, which has a fairly strict version of Sharia but does not agitate against it’s neighbors, Sharia is workable as long as the people in charge keep a weather eye on economic reality.
The Muslim Brotherhood and less ardent Egyptian muslims don’t need to have their thinking altered by us – reality will intrude its naked hand and an Islamist Egypt will wreck itself on its shores.
Waaal,Jimmah Cawtah is saying the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing to worry about…so that should be the last word on the subject
Ronnie: Glad to see you’ve condensed some of the real objectionable (putting it mildly) aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood. Do the names Ayman al Zahwari, Said Qutb, and Mohammed Atta bring forth any associations? They should.
Hank
the cartoonist in Denmark who drew the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. These protests led to the Danish embassy being set on fire in Beirut, as well as threats against the cartoonist
THE cartoonist?
I give Mr. Radosh much credit for understanding the history of the US vs communism. But if he doesn’t even know that Jyllands-Posten solicited and published cartoons from twelve different cartoonists, I withdraw much of my confidence from his reporting on the US vs Muslim question.
Sorry! I really thought this article was about Obama and his following. Sounds the same.
They assassinated Anwar Sadat for the unpardonable sin of signing a peace treaty with Israel.
A small, but telling, fact about the Muslim Brotherhood I haven’t noticed anyone recalling lately.
Anyway Der Spiegel is always Der Spiegel: so you have to learn that al-Qaradawi and Pope Benedict XVI are more or less the same thing (even if the latter is, admittedly, a bit more ‘enlightened’). The reason? Easy:
“Qaradawi and the pope were born within the same six months from each other, both in rural areas, one in Lower Egypt and the other in Upper Bavaria. Both feel that the Western world is godforsaken. Both have written enough to fill an entire theological library. And both are determined not to be what they are perceived to be: stern teachers. Qaradawi says that he merely wants to offer “alleviation” in a world of confusion. Benedict XVI says more or less the same thing.”
I love especially the parallel between Lower Egypt and Upper Bavaria: you have to reflect that Der Spiegel is actually German!
Ron,
The Brotherhood once linked to a post I wrote. They must have liked the title: “I Found A Moderate Muslim”. Of course the post was about Muslim immoderation. I immediately e-mailed Michael Totten for advice. He said they were just using me for propaganda purposes.
Here is my post with Michael’s response and a link to the post that started it all off:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/01/muslim-brotherhood-liked-me.html
These guys need to joing that worthless group of teachers in Wisconsin…getting students to protest with them..and the students naive enough to go alond..AND not know why they’re protesting…
.A muslim brotherhood open invitation of stupidity, the USA is ripe for the pickin.
You might be right, but by using Stephens (former editor, Jerusalem Post and Zionist hack) and Muravchik (neocon hack) as authorities, you’ve lost me. Neither has any credibility when it comes to issues of Islam and Middle Eastern politics. The axes they are grinding are just too big.
The most worrying fact is that the Egyptian Army is bringing in the MB to help write the new Egyptian constitution, hoping to use them just like they and Nasser did when they kicked out the monarchy in 1952. How can anyone not think that the MB learned the lesson about letting the Army use them.
Then there is the other part of the equation: You got the Useful Idiots playing up the angle that the MB has said they won’t run a Presidential candidate. Whoopee! That would count for something as long as the power were still held in the office of president as it is under the old constitution which the Army has now abrogated and are now in the process of throwing out. What alot of Americans don’t understand is that, just because a country has a president it does not mean that office is like the office of the US President. In the US the President is both the Head of State and the Head of Government. In other countries the President could be a figurehead in the role of Head of State while all the power is in the hands of the Prime Minister, the Head of Government. An example of this is the Italian government where the President is someone just about no one in the US has heard of, but we all have heard about the Prime Minister Berlusconi. What does that all mean? Well, if the MB gets the power transfered from the office of the President to the Prime Minister under the constitution they are writing, it won’t amount to a hill of beans that they don’t have a candidate running for President.
As long as they are the majority party, or at least the majority parity in a ruling coalition, in their version of Parliament they pick who the Prime Minister is and that person wields the power after that.
Oh and to counter the whole the MB only has 25% to 30% support, those people need to go back and look at how much of the total vote Hitler and the Nazi’s got when he became Chancellor (Prime Minister under a different name)in 1932: 33%. That’s right the Nazi’s never had a majority of any election and look how that turned out. So letting the MB anywhere near the constitutional process is stupid in the extreme, it would have been like the Continental Congress asking King of England to help write the US Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation.
I don’t have much of an opinion on Bret Stephens (haven’t read enough of him), but your friend’s dismissal of anything he has to say on account of his being “partisan” is very much par for the course.
As an educator who has lived among conservatives but worked among liberals, I always used to try to be non-partisan. I’ve had lots of discussions with a lot of people. The general trend, I realized some years ago, was that I could get conservatives to discuss ideas, but liberals would only discuss perspectives. Even if I didn’t agree with the conservatives, they still tried to discuss larger ideas. Liberals only wanted to talk about “who said it”, and if it wasn’t from an acceptable source, it wasn’t valid.
I still find this to be the case. Every time I have a discussion with a liberal, their radar is up. If any point can ever be attributed to a “conservative source” (generally anything even loosely connected to Rupert Murdoch), they completely shut down. Conversation over. Past that point, it is impossible to get them to actually discuss larger ideas. That ain’t thinkin’.
The constant and repeated experience goes a long way to explaining why I’m now off the fence as an actual conservative. Oops, I guess that makes me “partisan”. Now you can ignore me.
If your a fence setter, the muslim have a package they want you to deliver. They will even strap it to your body and give you a cell phone or a button to push! Happy trails to you!
You aren’t a very good reader, are you?
Bret Stephens is currently a journalist at the WSJ and got his schooling at Chicago University and the London School of Economics (very “liberal”) so maybe the guy just has a point of view worth considering outside the partisan political mud trap.
Ah, but see here… You have said the magic words. “WSJ” equals Rupert Murdoch, which means that your point is invalid.
I endure this game all the time. It’s too much work to debate ideas, so Lefties just dismiss sources.
One of my few conservative teacher friends had a big one awhile back with a 9/11 truther (why do we still try? We are masochists). He made the tactical error of citing Popular Mechanics, which apparently is off the approved ownership list.
And the best way to get off the approved ownership list? Disagree with the Left!
And no, I’m not saying all truthers are leftists, but it is where they nest. Every single one I’ve met is a lefty. Truth relativism will do that to you.
There may be moderate muslims, but there is no moderate islam. The muslim brotherhood lies a lot. After all, the deceit and brutality were inspired by islam’s founder, the pedophile mohamad.
And so the sheeple fall for another one.
When the muslim brotherhood sets off a dirty bomb or chemicals, maybe then you bleeding heart a-sholes will realize the brotherhood has been in America for years! I am still taking bets on which US city gets hit first, in case of 2 cities on the same day, the first bomb wins!
The solution to the Muslim Brotherhood would be to elect Pat Condell Secretary General of the United Nations. Every MB head would instantly explode.
Good article. We must all wake up to the insidious nature of the Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood, as they are authorized by this religion to lie. We have a DVD about a lady who lived in Egypt and finally was able to escape and emigrate to the US, and is speaking out regarding the political aspect of Islam, which she says is the major part. We have spread this DVD far and wide and hope in our small way to alert our friends and neighbors to what we may be facing in the future.
What I am most terrifed of is that MOsque they are building in N.Y. A perfect opportunity to train “our kids” and carry on their carnage – make no mistake about it — it is not a “learning center” for Muslims, it is a ploy to do more harm here, God knows there is enough of them here already, and I am talking about the radical Islamists and Muslims! Good luck New York
Janig , what do you think is being taught at the muslim mosques all over our country now. You get the English version pamphlet which is different than their arabic pamphlet. So every time you fill up your car with gas or diesel we are actually helping the terrori9st fight and kill our troops. All because we are not allowed to use our own natural resources. WHY!!