This is one of the important studies on Egypt written by Adam Shats in the London Review of Books magazine, commenting and analyzing the political situation in the country.
The Muslim Brotherhood is considered to be the main adversary of President Mubārak's regime- and perhaps his most important tool in promoting himself to the West and scaring the middle class. It was founded in 1928, but is still a major opposition to the government and best organized movement in the country. The group has witnessed many strategic transformations over the years, but its mission has not changed: social justice, ruling based on Islamic principles, opposing imperialism and supporting the Palestinian cause. Former Presidents Nāsser and Sadāt were sympathetic with the group and maybe among its members in the 1940s.
In 1970, when al-Sādāt assumed power, the Muslim Brotherhood renounced violence, and adhered to this position throughout the nineties when the security bodies launched a dirty war on extremist Islamic groups who inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb, and the Muslim Brotherhood sought to convert Egypt gradually towards Islamic values and to provide medical and social services to the poor. These services have become almost a state within a state through the Islamic banks managed by the Muslim Brotherhood, the donations of the religious middle-class and the financing of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
President Mubārak has not sympathized with the Muslim Brotherhood at all, but has found a way to co-exist with them. The group is often described as "forbidden" because they pose a serious threat to the system but "allowed" because their presence permits Mubārak to present himself as the only bulwark in Egypt against an Islamist takeover. Accordingly, and in light of U.S. pressure, Mubārak allowed the Brotherhood to run for legislative elections in 2005 and won 88 positions in the parliament.
Since then, the U.S. eased the pressure for democratization and the Muslim Brotherhood was not allowed to go into the midterm elections to the Shūrá Council in 2007 and the local council elections in 2008. The government used thugs to attack their supporters, and arrested hundreds of them, mainly the moderate ones who are trying to reform the group from the inside.
The result strengthened the position of hardliners, led by the new leader Muhammad Badīcī, who was incarcerated with Sayyid Qutb in 1965. Badīca managed to win the group's internal elections last January, and reformist cAbd al- Muncim cAbū al-Futūh lost his position in the group's Shūrá Council.
Advocates of this approach in the radical Muslim Brotherhood do not favor an alliance with secular forces and refuse the mandate of women or that the country be ruled by a Copt.
Conservatives in the Muslim Brotherhood movement believe that the openness of the group makes them vulnerable to interventions by the state and the temptations of liberal secularism. Therefore they believe that confidentiality is the only means of the group's survival and this is the main goal. They prefer to devote their efforts to Islamization of the society.
Maybe the state is encouraging them; hence it allowed a greater role for the clergy on television and in the field of education. It is wrong to consider that the ruling National Democratic Party is a secular party whose principles contradict the fundamental principles of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact there was an undeclared arrangement for power sharing between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood.
