The Muslim Brothers in Society

Everyday Politics, Social Action, and Islamism in Mubarak's Egypt

Marie Vannetzel, David Tresilian

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781649030238
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A groundbreaking ethnography of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood The Islamists' political rise in Arab countries has often been explained by their capacity to provide social services, representing a challenge to the legitimacy of neoliberal states. Few studies, however, have addressed how this social action was provided, and how it engendered popular political support for Islamist organizations. Most of the time the links between social services and Islamist groups have been taken as given, rather than empirically examined, with studies of specific Islamist organizations tending to focus on their internal patterns of sectarian mobilization and the ideological indoctrination of committed members. Taking the case of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), this book offers a groundbreaking ethnography of Islamist everyday politics and social action in three districts of Greater Cairo. Based on long-term fieldwork among grassroots networks and on interviews with MB deputies, members, and beneficiaries, it shows how the MB operated on a day-to-day basis in society, through social brokering, constituent relations, and popular outreach. How did ordinary MB members concretely relate to local populations in the neighborhoods where they lived? What kinds of social services did they deliver? How did they experience belonging to the Brotherhood and how this membership fit in with their other social identities? Finally, what political effects did their social action entail, both in terms of popular support and of contestation or cooperation with the state? Nuanced, theoretically eclectic, and empirically rich, The Muslim Brothers in Society reveals the fragile balances on which the Muslim Brotherhood's political and social action was based and shows how these balances were disrupted after the January 2011 uprising. It provides an alternative way of understanding their historical failure in 2013.

1

(In)formal Politics

The condition of ‘open secrecy’ in which the Muslim Brotherhood operated was the result of a historical process that saw developments within the regime, changes in the relationship between the regime and the Brotherhood and in the latter’s internal dynamics, and changes to the political, economic, and social systems in Egypt from the early 1970s onward. This chapter does not aim to give a history of these changes or to present a history of the MB. Instead, it aims to describe the ambiguous position the Brotherhood enjoyed under Mubarak’s rule, being neither legal nor entirely banned and neither part of the opposition nor a collaborator with the regime. It was neither completely integrated within nor completely outside the system, and it was positioned at the intersection of the political, social, and religious spheres.

As a result of this ambiguous positioning, the Brotherhood participated in the institutional political sphere in an informal way, though this informality, the consequence of the organization’s ideology and specific relationship with the regime, was also a result of the tensions between formality and informality that shape the institutional political sphere in Egypt. The latter is characterized by a strong element of “institutionalized informality”¹ since many widespread political practices, though ‘informal’ in the sense that they are not covered by any particular legal provisions, are in fact ‘institutionalized,’ which transforms the activities and the roles played by actors in the political sphere into constraining norms even if these are not legally defined.

Yet, instead of its being the result of cultural factors or of hangovers from the past, the informal dimension of the institutional political sphere in Egypt comes from the way in which successive regimes have sought to depoliticize electoral politics. Their desire to establish their hegemony has meant that the ‘non-specialization of politics’ has been the rule governing the activities of MPs. This concept, referring to Bourdieu’s theory of social differentiation, holds that politics in Egypt is a lesser-differentiated field in which activities are deeply entrenched in other social activities such as providing services and doing charitable works. Moreover, most political actors, including MPs, are not ‘political professionals’ since they do not live from politics alone, and many of them do not have specific political skills but instead are characterized by their ability to connect with local communities. To sum up, the non-specialization of politics means both the non-differentiation of political activities and the non-professionalism of political actors.

This chapter analyzes the ways in which the MB participated in Egypt’s electoral system in relation to this rule of non-specialization. Its electoral successes were based both on following this rule and on using it to build a strong grassroots presence. As this chapter explains, the particular characteristics of Brotherhood MPs from 2005 to 2010 can be understood by examining the relationship between the organization’s electoral politics and its strategy for social embedding. This also allows us to understand the reasons behind the Brotherhood’s successes at the polls during the Mubarak period.

The Brotherhood and the Local Road to Parliament

The reemergence of the Brotherhood in Egypt began in the 1970s when leading figures from the organization began to be released from jail after the repression of the Nasser era. The ways in which Sadat’s policies contributed to this reemergence, whether directly or indirectly, have been well documented. As part of its policy of countering policies associated with the Nasser regime, the Sadat regime encouraged the “reorganization of the field of political struggle and domination in religious terms” (Ismail 2003: 56), with the political system as a whole being turned into a “liberalized autocracy” (Brumberg 2002) by the introduction of “limited political pluralism” (Linz 1975) from 1976 onward. Leading figures in the regime used Islamic references as a way of managing this still very limited political liberalization, ridding it of openly expressed social conflicts and imposing a kind of ‘solidarity without consensus’ around the use of Islam in politics. This means that forms of common understanding developed between actors not sharing the same political convictions but nevertheless drawing on “a common vocabulary that meant the … same system of references could be used even if they were interpreted in different ways” (Ferrié 2003). The regime’s leaders imagined that the Brotherhood could be drawn into this ‘solidarity without consensus,’ even if necessarily in a limited way, since they would never grant the organization its legal status. However, it was precisely the limited margins for maneuvering that gave the Brotherhood the opportunity to rebuild itself from the 1970s to the 1990s. At first this meant operating outside of the institutional political sphere because of the constraints imposed by the regime, as well as because of the necessity to regain widespread grassroots support. Later the MB began to work within the institutional political sphere, precisely in order to consolidate its support at the grassroots level.

Rebuilding an Undefined Organization

Dynamics and networks of reemergence

The rebuilding of the Brotherhood took place at first through work in the two major areas of the charitable sector and on university campuses. The Sadat regime had supported the expansion of Islamic charities so that they could take responsibility for the social services that the state was abandoning in the wake of its adoption of economic liberalization policies. Egyptian entrepreneurs, some of them Muslim Brothers,² who had left for the Gulf, where they had made considerable fortunes, were urged to reinvest their money in Egypt, particularly in real estate. Tax privileges were granted provided that parts of the new buildings being built would be set aside for private mosques run by charitable associations often hosting social, healthcare, and educational services. These large “Islamic complexes” multiplied exponentially during the period (Ben Néfissa 1995), and MB businessmen coming back from the Gulf were able to rely on the support of influential “brokers”³ within the ruling economic circles.⁴ Such brokers were also to be found within the prestigious institution of al-Azhar, which consisted of the most important mosque in Egypt, a major university, and several bodies with authority over religious affairs. While al-Azhar represented, and still represents, the Islam of the state, influential ulama within it were able to use Sadat’s new emphasis on religion to push for the social and legal re-Islamization of Egypt (Zeghal 1996). Al-Azhar also operated a network of primary and secondary schools across the country, and these now welcomed many Brotherhood teachers.

At the same time, in the context of the exponential growth of higher education⁵ that was taking place in these years, the regime also encouraged the development of ‘Islamic groups’ (gama‘at islamiyya) in the country’s universities⁶ in order to counter leftwing student movements. These ‘Islamic groups’ enjoyed considerable success in student union elections until they opposed Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel and were closed down as a result in 1979. However, it was through such developments that a new generation of young activists putting references to Islam at the core of their discourse and the center of their practices emerged and began to build connections with MB leaders who had also now been released from prison (Kepel 1985; Mubarak 1995; Tammam 2011; Al-Arian 2014). These young activists played a crucial role in rebuilding a broad, cross-class social basis for the movement. After Sadat’s assassination by Islamist militants in October 1981, his successor, Hosni Mubarak, adopted an accommodating attitude toward what was described as “moderate Islamism” (Abed-Kotob 1995). The Brotherhood resumed its activities in the country’s universities and charities, as well as in the professional syndicates (doctors, engineers, pharmacists, and so on), gathering momentum throughout the 1980s (Bianchi 1989; Fahmy 1998). Young, well-educated, middle-class activists rose to leading positions in the syndicates, and they were able to use these positions to reach out to new constituencies (Qandil 1994; Wickham 1997; Hasan 2000).

Mobilization of this sort continued until the regime cracked down on the syndicates in the 1990s after they had become more critical of the government and the Brotherhood’s influence within them had become all too obvious (al-Awadi 2004). This repression was part of a broader reversal of political liberalization in the context of an economic structural adjustment program that was also introduced in Egypt during these years (Kienle 1998). The syndicates were ‘frozen.’ This official term meant that they were not dissolved, but rather that internal elections and various activities within them were now forbidden. The regime arrested several prominent MB syndicate figures who were subsequently tried before military tribunals.⁷ It also strengthened its control over the country’s charitable NGOs, reinforcing their supervision by the Ministry of Social Affairs and dismantling some of those that appeared to be too obviously affiliated with the Brotherhood (Siyam 2006). However, as will be described in more detail below, the Brotherhood was able to maintain significant influence in the charitable sector as well in the now ‘frozen’ professional syndicates,⁸ even if this became less obvious. While the regime did not want to eliminate the MB’s activities in the social sphere, it also did not want to draw too much attention to its own redistributive failures at a time of economic austerity. As a result, repression was mostly aimed at making the Brotherhood less visible.

Tanzim, ideology, and undefined identity

For the Brotherhood, the incorporation of a new generation of activists in the 1970s and 1980s meant extensive reorganization, and this turned out to be a complex task because of the existence of three distinct groups of activists who did not share the same relationship to political action, legality, and clandestine activity.

Three Generations of Leaders

At the beginning of the 1980s, the Brotherhood no longer possessed more than a few of its ‘historic leaders,’ the former associates of al-Banna who had been effectively neutralized as a result of long periods spent in prison. Many more were from the generation that came up during the 1940s and 1960s, and who did not constitute a homogeneous group. In addition to the sons of the Brotherhood’s founders, or those who had been imprisoned in 1954 only to be released twenty years later, such as Mahdi ‘Akif (future supreme guide of the organization from 2004 to 2009), there were also others who had been members of the ‘Secret Apparatus.’ The ‘Apparatus’ was the supposed ‘armed wing’ of the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1940s and 1950s.⁹ Others, who had been members of the ‘1965 Organization’ that had been created by young militants inspired by Sayyid Qutb’s ideas to take action against the state, also rounded off this faction. Former members of these groups, who included Mustafa Mashhur, Gom‘a Amin, Mahmud ‘Ezzat, and Mohammed Badi‘ returned in force to the Brotherhood in the 1970s and took up positions of influence within it in a more and more visible fashion.

The third generation, sometimes called the ‘intermediate generation’ (gil al-wasat), is made up of activists that came from the vibrant Islamic student groups of the 1970s. One trend, advocating for public outreach, provided some of the MB’s most prominent public figures, including men such as ‘Isam al-‘Iryan, ‘Abd al-Mun‘im Abu al-Futuh, Helmi al-Gazzar, and Gamal Heshmat. These were able to take up positions in the country’s professional syndicates and later be elected as Brotherhood MPs. However, they were still often kept out of important positions in the tanzim hierarchy itself. Another trend gathered young activists, most notably Mohamed Morsi and Khayrat al-Shater, who were close to the former members of the ‘Secret Apparatus.’ Al-Shater, who eventually became a businessman and gained the reputation of being a martyr to the cause as a result of his many years spent in prison, played an important role working in tandem with Mahmud ‘Ezzat, and he headed the so-called ‘organizationist’ current of the Brotherhood that gave absolute priority to the preservation of the tanzim (the tanzimiyyin).

The latter current was particularly important in the 1990s, a decade characterized by the repression of the MB, and then even more so between 2005 and 2010 when al-Shater was again in prison. The influence of the ‘organizationists’ over the rest of the organization culminated in the resignation of ‘Akif from the post of supreme guide in 2009 and the election of Badi‘ against a background of intense internal conflict.

Building a firm hierarchy for the Brotherhood, called the tanzim and inspired by the hierarchical framework of al-Banna’s original association, was a priority for former members of the organization’s ‘Secret Apparatus’ (Tammam 2006). These men now holding positions of power within the organization considered that “the path of tanzim was preferable to any legal accommodation with the regime. They were not only convinced that the refusal [to accord the Brotherhood legal status by the regime] was final, but they also thought that the movement’s illegal status was more favorable to it as it meant avoiding the costs of legality, which would be much greater than its advantages” (Tammam 2006: 7–8).¹⁰ As an illegal organization, the Brotherhood could avoid legal restrictions that weighed on political parties that had appeared after 1977. These had turned the parties into co-opted organizations and had prevented them from developing any real grassroots support. On the contrary, it was precisely the MB’s strategy to regain extensive support at the grassroots level that allowed the reborn organization of these years to reestablish itself. This strategy consisted of consolidating the Brotherhood’s existence in a de facto fashion even while being denied the possibility of obtaining de jure legalization.

The strategy of building grassroots support also helped to bring the organization’s ideological repertoire up to date, which had been inherited from the first period of the Brotherhood (1928–48). During this period, when Egypt, then a monarchy, was under British occupation, the Brotherhood existed as a legal association but it had been able to turn rapidly into a mass movement by multiplying its reach into different sectors of society. It had recruited supporters from the popular classes, the lower-middle classes, and the middle classes, and it had used sophisticated methods to attract young people from the country’s growing number of students (Lia 1998).¹¹ Members of the association had been instructed to “spread the principles [of the MB] throughout their social spheres,”¹² meaning particularly their personal social circles and neighborhoods, as well as to develop local forms of solidarity. As a result, the development of the early Brotherhood’s networks had relied upon actively engaging popular forms of sociability as well as on establishing educational, healthcare, and charitable progr...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Encountering the Brothers
• 1. (In)formal Politics
• 2. Mobilizing Disinterestedness
• 3. Banned MPs
• 4. The Politics of Goodness
• 5. The Double-edged Sword of Brotherhood
• 6. Goodness in Dire Straits
• Notes
• Bibliography