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I have had lots of responses to my piece for the newspaper yesterday, arguing that liberals in Egypt are losing ground to Islamists. One common response, is – “Yes, but what would the Muslim Brothers actually do once in power?” Good question, and one I should have addressed more directly in the article itself.
The short answer, of course, is that we don’t know. The Muslim Brotherhood is a broad church (ha, ha) and has several factions within it. One common categorisation is to argue that there is a hardline faction that wants to press ahead with the imposition of tough versions of sharia law, a larger middle-ground group that is devout but pragmatic, and then a youth wing that it relatively liberal.
I met some members of the youth wing on the campus at Cairo University and they were keen to argue that notorious Sharia punishments, such as cutting off the hands of thieves or stoning adulterers, had happened very rarely in Muslim history. When I pointed out that there were some female students walking around without headscarves on, and asked if that was OK, they responded – of course, it was a matter of free choice.
However, there are harder line voices higher up the organisation. One senior Muslim Brother caused shock waves when, shortly after the recent referendum on constitutional changes, when he said that people who were concerned about hand-chopping simply shouldn’t steal.
On foreign policy, there is no doubt that the Muslim Brothers nurture a deep suspicion of the West and of the US in particular – and a loathing of Israel. It is common ground that Egypt should open its borders with Gaza which would alarm the Israelis, who would fear a flow of weapons to Hamas. Potentially, the Brothers could clash with the army on foreign policy. In an interview with a retired general, put forward by the army, I was told that Egypt’s alliance with the US was fundamental and unquestionable. But what would happen, I asked, if a democratically-elected government wanted to change the alliance? “Unthinkable”, I was told. And yet many Brothers clearly are thinking about it.
Given that there are various strains of thought in the Muslim Brotherhood, it is hard to predict how they would behave, if they actually gain power. Some western analysts talk hopefully of an Egyptian government that is a bit like Turkey’s mildly Islamist AKP. But a lot would depend on the circumstances in Egypt. Given that the Brothers are not even trying to win 50% of the seats in the Muslim parliament, they would clearly be in a coalition. A coalition with liberal forces would push them one way. A coalition with hardline, Saudi-influenced Salafis would point in another direction.
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