The pro-democracy upheavals sweeping the Arab world have largely been started by young secular Arabs looking for political empowerment, equitable opportunity and dignity.
But while Islamist movements for the most part weren’t at the forefront of the revolutions, the upset of authoritarian regimes is providing opportunities for Islamists to flourish. Here’s a look at some of the fronts on which they are making gains, and the implications.
Syria: The most to gain
The late president Hafez al-Assad was so fixated on the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood that he didn’t hesitate to act when members of the movement staged an uprising in the city of Hama in 1982. The president ordered a large section of the city levelled and thousands of Brotherhood supporters (and innocent civilians) were buried underneath.
Syria’s security forces were unleashed to keep close watch on the movement, and Brotherhood leaders fled into exile outside the country, where they mostly remain to this day.
Bashar al-Assad faces a similar threat, especially since Sunni fundamentalists view as heretical the Alawite sect from which the al-Assads and most military leaders hail. But the younger Mr. al-Assad has taken a different approach. He has encouraged young Islamists and religiosity has become increasingly evident throughout the country in the past decade. The President’s support, however, comes at a price: The Islamist leadership is expected to police its congregations and ensure there is no political activity being carried out.
“The regime’s support for the Islamists is not genuine,” said Adnan abu Odeh, a former adviser to Jordan’s kings. “When the unrest started, they immediately blamed the Islamists, even though there was no basis for the accusation.”
“The Brotherhood has the most to gain by the lifting of political restrictions in Syria,” said Barry Rubin, author of The Truth About Syria, and there’s no doubt this was a big factor in Mr. al-Assad’s thinking this week when he disappointed many people in announcing that any political reforms would come at a painfully slow pace.
Libya: On the front line
“Islamists are proliferating all across North Africa,” said Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 officer and author of Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution, “and Libya is no exception.”
Their numbers are not huge in Libya, most observers agree, and the majority of active Muslims prefer a brand of Sufi Islam that eschews extremism. But some of the Islamist old guard – a lot of whom are on the front line against the Gadhafi forces – were mujahedeen fighting in Afghanistan against the Russians and some, more recently, against NATO forces.
Many of the younger Islamists are followers of the salafist trend, an extremist fundamentalist movement that is expanding in far greater proportions than the Muslim Brotherhood or other more moderate movements.
The trend is to the more extreme, and Islamist numbers will only grow in the absence of an authoritarian strong man such as Moammar Gadhafi.
Egypt: Part of the establishment
Outlawed for half a century, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has come in from the cold. They’ve come so far that when Egypt’s newly appointed interim prime minister addressed the crowd in Cairo’s Tahrir Square recently, he had the Muslim Brotherhood’s former parliamentary bloc leader at his side.
This week, the ruling military council announced that religious parties will not be allowed to run for office themselves, but there’s nothing stopping them from creating their own, distinct parties to run. The Brotherhood is expected to field at least two parties: one appealing to the old guard, the other to the youth.
But so careful is the Brotherhood that it says neither party will contest more than 30 per cent of the seats. The Brotherhood is not seeking power, nor will it run a candidate for president, they say. But as the major opposition, they’ll be powerful enough to influence the agenda.
