Shadi Hamid on the Muslim Brotherhood

Shadi Hamid, author of “Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East” talks to Middle East Monitor’s Christine Petré about the state of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the radicalisation of its youth.

What would you say are the main differences between the leadership of former President Hosni Mubarak and the current General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood?

The level of repression that we are seeing under Sisi is not similar to Mubarak’s repression. It’s at an entirely different level. Mubarak never tried to eliminate the Brotherhood altogether – he gave them a margin of political operation and movement in the society. Sisi doesn’t see things in the same way. His goal, and his regime’s goal, is clear: the eradication of the Brotherhood. Another interesting comparison is with former president Gamal Abdel Nasser and even there if we look at the number of people killed and in prison Sisi surpasses Nasser. But one key difference is that under Nasser the Brotherhood didn’t fight back, so there wasn’t a reason for Nasser to have tens of thousands of people arrested because the Brotherhood took a step back and laid low. Another difference is that under Nasser, you didn’t see the Egyptian state as unified as it is now. The judiciary and other state institutions were anti-brotherhood during Nasser but not to the same degree as we see now where the courts are actually on the front line of repression and in some way go beyond what Sisi probably is comfortable with. It is not just Sisi – it is a broader state elite and state structure that are all oriented in this aggressively anti-Brotherhood direction.

Have you been able to identify an increase in radicalisation?

Yes, in Sinai the number of attacks has increased significantly in 2015. Why? One of the reasons is the creation of a buffer zone along the Gaza border, which displaced up to 10 000 people and had a devastating effect on the local community. It doesn’t mean that these people joined [ISIS affiliate] Sinai Province but that there is a more conducive environment for Sinai Province to operate because extremist groups don’t just depend on the number of fighters they have, but also on local sympathy and support. Groups like Sinai Province will take advantage of the situation and intensify operations and I think we have seen precisely that. Extreme levels of repression are going to radicalise at least some people. Even if a relatively small number take up arms it can still have an outsized effect on stability.

If we look at the Islamist scene more broadly there is currently a very interesting internal discussion within the Brotherhood about the use of violence, meaning here low-level violence as opposed to al-Qaeda style violence and terrorism. There is a growing minority of Brotherhood members and even a larger portion of Brotherhood supporters who appear to be open to the use of violence. Young Brotherhood members are increasingly willing to discuss their views on these questions. They would call it ‘defensive violence’ and distinguish between different types of violence. What they are talking about here is targeting security personnel for example. Another idea that has gained some currency is economic sabotage. But so far most of it seems to be talk and theories about the use of violence and not necessarily action, otherwise I think we would have seen much more violence in Egypt. My worry is that the longer this conflict goes on more members will start to act on these ideas, which are gaining more support within the organisation.

Lastly, this has led to internal tensions. You have the old guard conservative leadership, which is concerned about radicalisation among youth members and are therefore trying to push back with efforts to support the non-violent path. The younger Brotherhood members are more confrontational in part because their context is different, they are the ones on the front lines demonstrating.

So are you saying that the Brotherhood youth is becoming increasingly radical?

Yes, but there are different types of radicalisation, I’ve talked about the use of violence, where it is definitely clear and which I think will continue, but radicalization in the sense of attitudes towards the Egyptian state will likely have the longer-term impact. The majority of the organisation has moved in a “revolutionary” direction, adopting a more confrontational posture towards the Egyptian state. You will have even the old guard, conservative leaders who follow the lead of the Brotherhood youth and say that gradualism doesn’t work, revolution is the way.

Under Mubarak the Brotherhood would criticise individuals and policies but not necessarily attack the institutions themselves, for example the military and the judiciary. There was a certain degree of deference, which was a key element of the Brotherhood’s approach. They never called for a revolution under Mubarak. They weren’t trying to purge the state. But now, after the coup, the state isn’t something to be reformed, the state is an enemy to be confronted, to be purged, and in some sense destroyed. This is a key shift in discourse. This is not surprising as state institutions have become directly implicated in the worst crack down in Egypt’s modern history. State institutions can no longer claim to be above the fray. They are thoroughly politicised now and that makes it very difficult to imagine a path of reconciliation down the road because there is no state institution that doesn’t have its hands dirty and hasn’t been implicated in the civil conflict.

How effective would you say that the Egyptian state’s attempt to portray the Brotherhood and IS as two sides of the same coin has been?

It is effective with the people who are already predisposed to believing that. Sisi’s pro-regime, pro-military constituency is responsive to this rhetoric but, two years later, I don’t think that attitudes are really changing one way or the other. This media effort to portray the Brotherhood as terrorists started in August 2013. iIt has intensified but if you thought they were terrorists then you are likely to think they are tied to IS now. One of the lessons here is to not underestimate the power of state media to shape narratives, not with everyone, but with a pretty large chunk of Egyptians.

Morsi has been sentenced to death, do you believe it will take place and what would it mean for the movement?

It’s hard to picture it actually happening; it would really be unprecedented. I don’t think it would be wise from the Sisi’s regime standpoint: why make Morsi into a martyr? Morsi is important only in so far as he represents something larger than himself. Now, the Egyptian regime often does things that aren’t in its interests so we can’t count on it to act rationally in this set of circumstances- so anything is possible. If it happened, I think it would only strengthen voices within the Brotherhood who call for a more confrontational approach.

What is next for Egypt?

Egypt is growing less stable. Sisi, who came to power on a platform of stability and security, hasn’t done a very good job on that. The regime doesn’t have an effective strategy for countering terrorism and it also failed the first test, which is to correctly identify who the terrorists are. The fact that the Sisi regime considers the Brotherhood to be the country’s major terrorist threat is not encouraging from a counter terrorism stand point and also distracts resources from the real fight, which should be against IS and thinking more creatively how to counter Sinai Province’s activities. That doesn’t just mean the heavy-handed security approach. You need to think more holistically about the needs of the local Sinai population, addressing political grievances, and jumpstarting economic development there. The fact that this regime doesn’t have any vision of that means that things will probably only get worse.

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow in the Project on US Relations with the Islamic World‘s Centre for Middle East Policy. He served as director of research at the Brookings Doha Centre until January 2014. Prior to joining Brookings, Hamid was director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University’s Centre on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Hamid is currently vice-chair of POMED’s board of directors and a member of the World Bank’s MENA Advisory Panel.