Unprecedented Pressures, Uncharted Course for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (original) (raw)
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This article sets out the factors underlying the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and argues that domestic and regional factors were interwoven in this failure. We suggest that this failure was due to the climate created by the 2011 uprising that enhanced the focus on Egyptian national interests rather than transnational ideologies but was also due to the Muslim Brotherhood’s inability to fully or convincingly employ its vision for Egypt and the Middle East, which was crucial in order to meet the heightened demands of the post-2011 uprising Egyptian public. Consequently, the ‘Islamist threat’ discourse has not only been reasserted but also strengthened. This will limit the influence of political Islam, while enhancing Egypt’s impact on post-Arab Spring regional alliances.
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Following the Arab Spring, democracy exercised through free and fair elections had allowed Islamist political parties to gain power in Egypt. There was a transformation happening in the ideology of Islamists, who were increasingly trying to influence legislation through democratic processes and social activism. It could be argued that for a time, the u.s. and other Western governments no longer viewed Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as a threat comparable with Jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda. This did not translate into a domestic political success, however, once Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood was elected into power in 2012, it simplified good governance to a single and effective slogan: "Islam is the solution!" Yet, it had no real solution to the everyday problems of Egyptians and the sheer chaos that characterizes the daily lives of its people. In a devout region with growing inequality and poverty, religious credentials will matter less than offering specific solutions to these growing social issues. This paper argues that the myth of political Islam has been exposed in Egypt and that the Muslim Brotherhood's identity, torn between political pragmatism and religious conservatism, shaped its political actions under Morsi's rule.