by Raymond Ibrahim
Hudson NY
July 25, 2011
Hudson NY
July 25, 2011
Things are looking good for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the grandfather of all Islamist groups. Despite the organization's hegemonic aspirations—which include "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization … so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions"—the Obama administration recently announced that it "welcomes dialogue" with the Brotherhood; so did the European Union. And under Egypt's military regime, the Islamist organization just "became a legal political party for the first time since President Gamal Abdel Nasser banned it more than half-a-century ago."
 President Nasser (right) instinctively understood the existential threat posed by the Brotherhood and acted accordingly. |
Why Nasser banned the Brotherhood, indeed, tried to decimate it, is instructive, and offers an important lesson in—and about—time.
Machiavellian from the start, Nasser collaborated closely with the Brotherhood; many Egyptians still insist he was originally a member. Soon after usurping Egypt's leadership via the 1952 Revolution, the alliance soured, culminating with an assassination attempt on Nasser's life by a Brotherhood member.
Nasser's response was swift and decisive: he dissolved the Brotherhood, burned down its headquarters, arrested some 15,000 members, and executed some—most famously Sayyid Qutb, the spiritual father of al-Qaeda—while leaving others to rot in prison. Many of the remaining members, aware that Nasser meant business, fled Egypt.
Why such a dramatic response? Why not simply punish the failed assassin and his accomplices? Nasser, a pious Muslim, was most likely intimately, if not instinctively, aware of what the Brotherhood was—and still is—all about; he was aware that it is impossible for Muslim organization's committed to theocratic rule to negotiate or share power, much less be trustworthy allies. Read the rest on: pundicity
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