RUTHFULLY YOURS

It would seem churlish to sneer at what has happened. The people of Egypt have got together to overthrow a tyrant, and Western media Munchkins are singing along to the refrain of “Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead…” But what has been won? The Egyptian people’s revolution has removed the corrupt and self-serving autocrat who has tampered with the democratic processes to only allow his approved candidates. But beyond that, what has been achieved?

The revolution could not have happened without the assent of the army. The people are claiming that the army is their friend, but is this true? More than 300 people have died since the revolt began in earnest on January 25, but if the army had chosen to oppose the demonstrators, the death toll would have gone exponential. Mubarak kept a firm grip on power through this same army. Mubarak had been the vice-president under Anwar Sadat before the latter individual had been slain on October 6, 1981 by members of Islamic Jihad. The assassins had sought a fatwa, approving the assassination , from Omar Abdel-Rahman, who led Al Gama’ah al-Islamiyah, a  group which was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Before Sadat took power in 1970, Egypt had been ruled by military dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser. Both Anwar Sadat and Nasser had been members of the “Free Officers Group,” a faction within the military that had brought about a revolution in July 1952. In effect, the military has been the power behind the throne of the three presidents (Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak) who have maintained a continuum of power lasting from June 23, 1956 (when Nasser became president) until February 11, 2011. In effect, the removal of Mubarak has been the removal of the figure at the top of a pyramid of power, but that pyramid has at its base the army, allowing the same pyramid to exist for fifty five years of continuous influence. The people have got rid of a military dictator, but they have given power directly to the same military that has kept Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak in office for more than half a century. Yet few protesters, and few Western commentators, see the irony of this situation.

The people of Egypt certainly have their grievances, living with poverty and unemployment, but their demands to remove their leader without considering their options for the future is reminiscent of the fable by Aesop of “the Frogs Who Wanted a King”. The frogs petitioned Zeus to send them a king and he dropped a log into their pond. At first they were happy with the log as their king, but soon felt that he wasn’t actually doing anything. They again petitioned the ruler of the universe, saying they wanted a better king. They were sent a stork, who then proceeded to gobble them up. In the current scenario, the Egyptian frogs who yearn for a new system of government could become prey to the stork of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan).

Before the 1952 revolution, Nasser and the Free Officers had done deals with the Muslim Brotherhood, who supported the revolution on the promise that once the revolution took place, they would be instrumental in imposing Sharia law upon Egypt. Anwar Sadat had been the Free Officers group’s point of liaison with the Brotherhood. It is perhaps ironic (some could say “karmic”) that the man who was found guilty of firing the bullets that killed Sadat, Khalid Ahmed Showky Al-Islambouli,  gained his radicalism through reading the books of Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb had risen to become the main ideologue and propagandist of the Muslim Brotherhood at the time of the 1952 revolution, after Hasan al-Banna, original founder of the Brotherhood, had been shot dead in a Cairo market on February 12, 1949.

After the July 1952 revolution, the Brotherhood did not gain the apportioning of power that they wanted, and on October 26, 1954 one member, Abdul Munim Abdul Rauf, tried to assassinate Nasser. This led to the group being banned. Many leading Brotherhood (Ikhwan) figures fled abrod. Later attempts by Nasser to find rapprochement with the Ikhwan were met with further attempts to assassinate him, and in the early 1960s the group was purged. In 1966 Nasser briefly relented, freed many imprisoned Ikhwan members, and within a short time there were three further attempt on his life. In consequence Sayyid Qutb, a virulent anti-Semite and implacable hater of everything American, was hanged at Tura Prison on August 29, 1966.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is now international, and its foreign elements have the ear of Western governments. The current Obama administration and the Democrat Party provides perhaps the most shocking example of a Western political party allowing itself to have its interpretations of Islam dictated (and warped) by Muslim Brotherhood advisers. The Clinton presidency entertained Abdurahman Alamoudi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, who started “iftar dinners” at the White House. In 2000, Alamoudi had been in Lafayette Park declaring his support for Hamas (a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Hizbollah. Later, Alamoudi was jailed for 23 years on terrorism charges, after he admitted trying to kill the man who is currently the King of Saudi Arabia.

In April 2007, days after Nancy Pelosi controversially posed in the market at Damascus, Syria, wearing a Muslim headscarf, another meeting took place in Egypt. Steny Hoyer, House majority leader, met with Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, the head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary group. In March, the Nixon Institute had released the appalling document “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood,” (pdf) by Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke. The basic premise of this document is  that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood was not as violent as Al Qaeda, therefore governments should do business with the group. This “strategy” is no different to choosing to deal with an enemy who has a pleasant demeanor. The Brotherhood is still Islamist. It will always be an enemy of democracy. Currently, the senior figures of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood are claiming loudly that they support democracy in Egypt, as long as it is compatible with Islam. Sadly, theocracy is the antithesis of democracy.

The Brotherhood’s version of Islam is not the tolerant form of Islam that allows followers of other religions to thrive in peace and harmony, such as that championed by the late “Gus Dur” (Abdurrahman Walid), head of Indonesia’s 40 million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama. The violence of the Brotherhood’s outlook is expressed in the words of Hasan al-Banna, and also Sayyid Qutb. I urge all readers to take the time to download the document “Jihad is the Way” (pdf) by Mustafa Mashur, a former Supreme Guide of the Ikhwan. In this document, translated by Palestinian Media Watch, jihad is extolled:

Jihad for Allah’s sake has been forcing itself upon the Islamic region in recent years, and has become tangibly noticeable in parts of the Islamic world. In other parts of the Islamic world, there is a tide of preparation for Jihad and a sense that it is unavoidable, and is the only way to retaliate against the aggressiveness of Allah’s enemies, and to liberate Islamic land from its occupiers and invaders. It has become a widespread and convincing opinion, that the way of negotiation and peace-treaties with Allah’s enemies instead of Jihad is surrender in the name of peace.

Additionally, without Jihad and the preparation towards it, the obligation cast upon every Muslim to establish an Islamic state and the Islamic Caliphate and to consolidate this religion, will not be realized…

This is no recipe for democracy.

Certainly, after the New Year bomb attack upon the Coptic Christian church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve, the Brotherhood issued statements saying it supported the Christian minority. In previous outbreaks of violence against Copts, the Brotherhood has remained silent. It seems that the Ikhwan’s new-found support for Christians and democracy is just a ploy, an example of taqiyya. The Brotherhood is unable to contain its anti-Semitism and its hatred of Israel – and here there is the biggest problem. The Brotherhood is intrinsically linked to the terror organization Hamas which has a charter demanding the extermination of the Israeli state, and quoting Hadiths that celebrate war against Jews.

Already, the Obama administration’s support for the Brotherhood is becoming a political issue for conservatives. It should be noted that when he gave his Cairo speech in June 2009, Muslim Brotherhood members such as Saad al-Katani had been invited. I documented the bizarre flirtations with Muslim Brotherhood members, made by the current administration, in an FSM Editorial entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood, America’s Partner in Government.”

After Obama administration appointee James Clapper’s foolish comment on Thursday that the Brotherhood was “largely secular,” the former governor of Minnesota has stepped into the breach. Tim Pawlenty said yesterday to C-PAC members that the administration was appeasing the Brotherhood:

“Bullies respect strength, they don’t respect weakness. So when the United States of America projects its national security interests here and around the world, we need to do it with strength. We need to make sure that there is no equivocation, no uncertainty, no daylight between us and our allies around the world… We undermine Israel, the U.K., Poland, Czech Republic, Colombia, amongst other of our friends… Meanwhile, we appease Iran, Russia, and adversaries in the Middle East, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The current Egyptian revolution is called the “people’s revolution” but almost all so-called “people’s revolutions” – the 1789 French Revolution, the Russian October Revolution of 1917, The Chinese Revolution of 1949, the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9 – would become conduits for grubby little despots to consolidate the power of “the people” into the hands of the few. In consequence, almost all people’s revolutions become oligarchies where “the people” in whose name power has been usurped become the first scapegoats and victims of the new order.

In 2007, Jimmy Carter approved the visit of Nancy Pelosi to Syria, even though Syria assists in the funding of the terrorist group Hizbollah, the same group that murdered 241 American servicemen in Beirut on October 23, 1983. Let us not forget how , when he was president, the weakness of Jimmy Carter allowed America’s ally, the Shah of Iran, to be thrown under the bus. Carter could not even protect his staff in the U.S. Embassy from Iranian student militias, who were authorized by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Just as the current Muslim Brotherhood has sent mixed messages to the people of Egypt, to politicians and to the world at large, the Iranian revolution’s figurehead, Ayatollah Khomeini, deliberately lied to his followers. Khomeini claimed to support democracy, and allied himself with Marxists and secularists who wished to overthrow the Shah. He did this with no intention of ultimately letting them share power. In November 1978 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was ensconced at Neauphle-le-Chateau, just outside Paris, France. Here he engaged in a propaganda campaign, in which he deliberately lied to the people of Iran. Con Coughlin, in his book Khomeini’s Ghost, p. 18, wrote:

“…Khomeini took care to conceal the true nature of the Islamic revolution he was planning. In one of the cassettes distributed throughout the country in November Khomeini spoke of a ‘progressive Islam’ in which even a woman might one day become the country’s president.”

Women have hardly fared well under the Iranian regime. Andy Young, Carter’s Representative to the UN, described Khomeini as “some kind of saint.” The “saint” Khomeini chose to push forward the “hanging judge” Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq Khalkali to enact his version of Islamic “justice.” Khalkali even hanged 12 year old boys for the “crime” of distributing pamphlets. Khalkali would feel no sense of shame for hanging innocent people, claiming later that: “If they were guilty, they will go to hell and if they were innocent, they will go to heaven. “ He also had a strange predilection for strangling cats. Jimmy Carter stood back when Iranian “students” took control of the American Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. His UN envoy Andy Young was unable to persuade the Iranian “saint” to free the 52 hostages. Finally on April 24, 1980, Carter launched a plan to free the hostages.

Ninety commandos in six Hercules planes and eight Sikorsky helicopters, comprising the “Blue Light Squad” took off but were forced to land in eastern Iran when three helicopters developed faults. The mission was abandoned, but upon leaving, one helicopter crashed into a plane and eight people were killed. Khomeini’s main prosecutor and judge Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq Khalkali then appeared on Iranian TV, with the burned bodies of the American crash victims, prodding the charred corpses for dramatic effect. Khalkali was behind the proscription lists of “enemies of the revolution” who were to be slaughtered, no matter to which country they had fled.

The lessons of the Khomeinist revolution should have been a warning to the administration that Islamists are not to be involved in democracies, unless they have been elected. It is theoretically possible for Islamic democracies to come into existence, but Islamists seek to destroy democracy.

The recent revolts in the Middle East began in Tunisia, with the self-immolation of a street fruit vendor Mohammed Bouazizi. That revolt now appears to be hijacked by the Ennahda movement, a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

When Bouazizi set himself on fire, copycat actions happened in Algeria, Libya and Morocco. In Algeria today, there are again demonstrations to demand more democracy. In June 1991, the Algerian Islamist party known as the FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) began campaigning for the downthrow of the state and the implementation of an Islamic state. In December, the FIS appeared to be making gains in an election, and were promising to use democratic procedures to eliminate future democracy. In January 1992, a military coup took place. Since then, a quarter of a million people have died in sporadic civil war between Islamists and the government. The triumph of the protesters is seen to be inspiring Algerian protests.

In Yemen, the opposition movement is also calling for the overthrow of a dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has clung on to power for 31 years. Again, as in Tunisia and in Egypt, there seems to be Muslim Brotherhood influence. The main opposition party, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (at-tajammu al-yemeni lil-islah), also called YCR or Islah, was formed in 1990. It is regarded as the Yemeni wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are fears now, articulated by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, that Egypt could see the triumphal return to Egypt of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, in an echo of the return to Iran made by Ayatollah Khomeini on February 1, 1979.

Qaradawi, seen as a spiritual leader” of the Muslim Brotherhood, is a virulent anti-Semite. There may be useful idiots who would call him a “saint” or at least people like London’s former mayor Ken Livingstone, who would compare Qaradawi to Pope John XXIII. But Qaradawi’s support for suicide attacks against Israeli civilians is worrying.

Israel already is in a vulnerable position. Only a small block of land in Sinai divides the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Until recently, the Egyptian army protected this border. Will that border remain protected if the Muslim Brotherhood get involved in the government of Egypt?

The West should stop appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Obama administration should look to protecting Israel as perhaps the only example of a true democracy in the Middle East.

The future does not look good. The people of Egypt have succeeded in toppling their leader, but they have a long, long road to travel before they arrive at a real democracy. And it is certain that the well-funded Muslim Brotherhood would be able to campaign successfully and win seats in a government. We must accept this as an inevitability, but we should not delude ourselves that the Muslim Brotherhood is a benign group.

I hope that ten years down the line, Egyptians do not regret the day that they brought down one dictatorial president, only to pave the way for a repressive Islamist theocracy.

One thing is certain. What happened yesterday was not a triumph of democracy – it was a triumph of mob power, perhaps leading to a democratic happy future, perhaps leading to something disastrous for America and its allies. And we would be foolish to forget that.

Adrian Morgan,

The Editor, Family Security Matters.