Monday, May 23, 2005

Is democracy supposed to exclude?

Oddly enough, the group that spurred the Emergency Law in Egypt 30 years ago is now a leader in the democracy movement in Egypt.

The group has a long, violent, and fairly complicated history. When you google "Muslim Brotherhood", you will get a vast array of descriptions about the organization, some more biased than others. Some rightwinger no doubt rewrote the Wikipedia page on this organization. Forget that the past 30 years have been dedicated to advocating democratic principles. This is one of the biggest problems about Wikipedia. Any dumbass can go in there and edit it, and since the right has no respect for facts (Facts are stupid things.), they can insert any old ideology they want. While it is true that the group's founder, Hassan al-Banna, was a terrorist whose ideas were propagated by the father of modern terrorism, Sayed Qutb, the group renounced terrorism in the seventies. However, they killed Sadat in 1981, so I guess the violence wasn't out of them yet.

I suppose they are like the Sinn Fein of Egyptian politics these days, and some of the militant splinter groups are like the Real IRA, which has no connection to the Irish Republican Army, are making them seem like a terrorist organization. People like Bin Fuckhead and Zarqawi claim to be members of the Brotherhood, but the Brotherhood was too moderate for them, so they had to form their own militant groups.

The question is whether they would support democracy if they were in power or would they turn Egypt into another Iran, where elections are a farce. With such a large following, one would think that there is no way they could be left out of politics. Why is there no outrage when members are arrested and detained indefinitely? I think we've heard this one before:
Chants of "Freedom, freedom! Where, where?" broke out. A speaker proclaimed: "Liberty is the hope of millions, based on the method of the prophet Muhammad." The crowd answered: "Jihad in the name of God! Death in the name of God is noble!"
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

2 comments:

  1. Religion of Peace?

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  2. In my job I come into contact with many, many Muslims. I've never heard one of them utter "Death to America."

    ReplyDelete