Is Egypt's Brotherhood choosing escalation over peace?
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt today seems weaker and more poised to resort to violence.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has been in a state of crisis for quite some time. Will the Brotherhood emerge from this crisis with a new strategic vision? What effect might that have on the broader Brotherhood movement beyond Egypt?
After the arrest of President Mohammed Morsi following widespread protests against him in the early summer of 2013, the Brotherhood opted to contest the military’s takeover. While there were isolated pro-Morsi elements that engaged in limited political violence, the group itself did not engage in a militant struggle against the state. Instead, it focused on protests and marches and an international lobbying effort with groups like the Turkish-based "Egyptian Revolutionary Council," mostly active in Western capitals.
Today, the demonstrations in the country calling for Morsi’s reinstatement have dwindled and have little political impact. The controlled use of violence that the pro-Morsi protest movement engages in as part of what it considers defensive has made it easier for the Egyptian media apparatus to consider the Brotherhood directly linked to more radical groups like Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis. The rhetoric the Brotherhood indulges in, particularly in Arabic, or permits on its platforms, does not help to distinguish the movement from far more extreme groups.
The national Egyptian media apparatus needs few excuses — all Egyptian media channels based in Egypt, whether public or private, are opposed to the Brotherhood. The international lobbying effort led by the "Egyptian Revolutionary Council" likewise has had little political impact for a variety of reasons. The new political dispensation headed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo has become normalized on the international scene.
