Monem freed

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is happy to report that Abdel Monem Mahmoud and several other MB detainees will be released from prison in a couple of days.

Monem Free

This is a surprise event, with no explanation of why they are being released. The presence of comment in the Western press, including the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal (!), may have helped here.

Now, as Monem's lawyer points out, they can work on releasing other political prisoners.

Conservative infighting over the Muslim Brotherhood

This is a very interesting discussion. Conservatives have taken up the cause of Western approaches to the various Muslim Brotherhoods in different countries (including Britain and France as well as Middle Eastern countries), using Reaganite reasoning that moderates protect against radicals, and that approaching China was successful in sidelining the USSR. For instance:

European Social Democracy was our key ally in the Cold War. Without it we would have lost Europe to the Communists. Without the Muslim Brotherhood, and with Poole’s policies, we stand to lose the Middle East and the entire Muslim world. The analogy fits: the Muslim Brotherhood is to jihadism as Social Democracy was to Communism.

In that article, (linked from the MB's very good English website) the authors defend their considerable conservative credentials and reject the idea that they have been soft on the MB. More interesting is their response to Joshua Muravchik:

Josh [Muravchik] adopted the method of the pundit. He consulted one source- MEMRI (an estimable but hardly an objective, scholarly one dedicated to providing the whole picture).

This kind of polemical method took root in the West in the 1960s in the sectarian debates emanating from the universities and the left. It was followed by the gradual takeover of the university, particularly the social sciences and the humanities by those whose first aim was to politicize it, and by politicizing it they meant to radicalize it. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. That pole in the partisan landscape was formed by the politically correct left in the university and much of the media, including Hollywood and the network news.

The neoconservatives arose as a reaction to this. They did not throw the first stone. More often than not they were right, especially on this issue of Communism, about which they (and I with them) have been corroborated by historical developments. Bill Bennett was right on the culture wars and that is a vast unexplored area of conservative agreement with Muslims, including many Islamists.

Aside from my disdain for his slagging of leftists, Leiken raises an interesting issue that I have often wondered about. So far, MB supporters in the West have been liberals - people like myself who would also support organisations like Helem, the Saudi Arabian Green Party, and other issues and causes that the MB is less than thrilled about. Conversely, enemies of the MB in the West have been conservatives. This causes me some degree of cognitive dissonance. Does - not - compute!

I have somewhat mixed feelings about what Leiken and Brooke's research will do to Western conservative approaches to Islamism. On the one hand, I despise sectarianism and feel that it is only correct that Western centre-right figures reach out to their counterparts in the Islamic world. The MB has already started doing this in the opposite direction, running (for instance) a positive article about Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (They lifted it in its entirety from a website called Taqrir Washington, but this is not the place to discuss the MB's enthusiastic embrace of copyleft.)

On the other hand, I am naturally cold on the notion of conservatives gaining more power. I have no love for the notion of gender apartheid, and the increasing fashionability of 'men are from mars, women are from uranus' nonsense in the West gels nicely with Islamist gender separatism. The MB doesn't seem to have a very unified position on women's rights - Abdul Monem Al-Futoh seeks to assure us that women may hold the highest political office, but the official MB line is that "The only public office which it is agreed upon that a woman cannot occupy is the presidency or head of state." Well, that's sort of good - and a great improvement over some other Middle Eastern countries - and I note that the MB has started linking to the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights campaigns in its Women section. But my skin crawls at the idea that I might inadvertently contribute to making life more miserable for women, gays, atheists or other minorities in the Middle East via my support for the MB.

I endorse Leiken and Brooke's suggestion of engaging the MB, as I have written elsewhere. However, what I would say to the MB and what Leiken, Brooke or even Muravchik might say would probably be quite different.

Besides, it's just really fun to watch conservatives fight each other. You know you love it.

[EDIT] Now the New York Times gets in on the act with Islamic Democrats?, a look at the Egyptian MB and its practices, its need to deal with its Qutbian past, its attitude to Israel and Palestine, which comes to the conclusion that "Even a wary acceptance of the brotherhood... would demonstrate that we take seriously the democratic preferences of Arab voters." Even better, the writer's contact in the MB asks

“I’ve heard that even George Bush’s mother thinks he’s an idiot; is that true?”

Free Monem!

A while ago, I posted about the arrest of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer on charges of "insulting Islam" and "defaming the President". Recently, a level of absurdity has been introduced as the authorities arrested Muslim Brotherhood activist Abdul Mon’em Mahmoud, presumably on charges of being a member of the illegal Brotherhood. Human rights activists suspect Monem was probably arrested for writing about torture and illegal detention in Egypt, which makes sense given that the Egyptian authorities don't evenly and equally enforce the ban on the MB. The government uses the Brotherhood when it sees fit, and squashes them when it suits.

One important reason that Western bloggers, human rights activists etc should support Monem is that he and other Muslim Brotherhood writers have spoken out in support of Kareem, despite Kareem's open contempt for Islam and Islamists. This indicates that at least some MB members are starting to "get" why freedom of speech and liberal democracy exist. It's not just because we want to insult Mohammed and have orgies! If we (ie The West) want Islamists to start behaving themselves and showing respect for democratic principles, we are obliged to offer carrots as well as sticks. Co-operating with Islamists on human rights issues, whilst still firmly criticising them when they fall down on these issues (ie anti-Jewish, anti-Coptic sentiment) will send a firm , consistent message of Western values, which are largely compatible with Islamic values.

In addition, there is a far greater human rights issue here. The Mubarak regime targets all opposition, not just Islamists or leftists. Even quite middle-of-the-road political parties have difficulty registering to operate as parties, and they have to apply to the government to register. In the West, parties have to apply to a government-funded body to register, and they may be forbidden/delisted for various reasons, but (for instance) left wing parties don't have to apply to the conservative party for permission to operate, nor right wing parties to the Labour party.

In Monem's case specifically, I don't yet have words of a petition or a specific campaign for him, but the Free Kareem! guys have stepped up to the plate on his behalf with news of his detention, and if you wanted to fire off an angry letter to the Egyptian Justice Minister, they have details right here.

Shock! Comment is Free item concerning Islam actually half-decent!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the responses to this Comment is Free post by Abdul Monem el-Futouh, spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, was not so much the steaming pile of bilge that CiF posts concerning Islam tend to be. The responses give a good range of perspectives on the Muslim Brotherhood's activities and the concerns that regular Egyptians have about them. I think it's a bit rough to judge the MB on activities that took place 50 years ago - I don't know if you've noticed, but practically no-one outside the hard left raises Israeli Irgun activities except in a historical context - but there are still areas of current concern that are worth monitoring, such as their lack of support for freedom of artistic speech and, yeah, their funneling of support to Hamas (although I don't know how much actual support has been forthcoming - I assume they were responsible for the contents of some of the briefcases Hamas officials were trying to bring into Gaza by car). Oh yeah, I wrote an essay about them recently that covers some of these issues.

Free Kareem

If you're reading this blog, you're probably already familiar with the recent arrest of the Egyptian blogger calling himself Kareem Amer. Failing that, here's a brief recap:

Egypt is an authoritarian republic with tokenistic elections and restrictions on the press and freedom of association stop Egyptian authorities have arrested or threatened a number of bloggers in Egypt from various sides of politics stop Kareem Amer was arrested and sentenced for four years in prison for ‘contempt of religion’ and ‘defaming the President of Egypt’ stop Bloggers from all sorts of backgrounds have stepped forward to support Kareem stop contact the Free Kareem website to see if you can help in any way.

Check out Marc Lynch's "Brotherhood of the Blog" in the Guardian's almost-useless Comment is Free section (which really ought to be retitled Opinions Are Like Assholes) - he makes the excellent point that, whether you like the Bro's or not, they are entitled to the same transparency, justice and freedom of expression as the rest of us.

In this context you may also like to consider signing up for Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign, where you agree to post blocked text on your site. This may not be too useful for people using Blogspot, which is a seriously blocked domain, but if you have a university or private website it could be valuable.