Arab revolutions broke out in 2011. There were many precursors. Though Islam did not play a part in these revolts, certain Muslim Groups, like the Ikhwan al Muslimiya, need be vetted. In Egypt, the army was always in control (since 1952) and now must enforce security while the new democrats pick their leaders.

Most of which follows was written between Feb.3 and 10, just before Hosni Mubarak announced his resignation. The situation may have changed then, but the points made in this post, prove even more useful now. Now the big questions: what kind of party platter do they serve, or is it to be one huge national party, a big tent under which all the chiefs can sit?

Notes on the Arab rebellions of 2011

The revolts breaking out across the Arab world in January did not happen in isolation. Over some twenty precursors (causes) have been identified. Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen have effected the requisite changes and resolutions, but the revolt in Egypt is still very much in process. Will the intense discussions in Cairo's Isma'ili Maydan (Tahrir Square) lead to competent democratic candidates and qualified reps? Will the Egyptian army play referee? What about the Islamic Brotherhood – will they go for it? Finally, and most critically, will the new governors of Misr find practical ways to relieve the intense economic pressures on most Egyptians? To do so they need to harness the social service resources of the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Ikhwan (Brothers) need to be vetted, qualified. And for this, regrettably, there exist no real competency in Islam possessed by any government, any Islamist, and any western social scientist. Muhammad Qurayshi was an ordinary unassuming man, without pretense. Not so these players.

Stranger than Ghosts and UFOs: Notes on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, its Causes and Consequences by John Paul Maynard

Everyone is calling the place 'Tahrir Square' but that's a recent name. The place has been in existence since the Fatimid sultan Al-Jawher or 'The Jewel,' took possession of Fustat in 969. The Fatimids soon moved their capital from Tunisia to a new city called Cairo. The square's proper name is al Maydan al Ishma'ili. A maydan is that characteristic large open field found in most traditional Islamic cities and towns. The Ishma'ilis are Shi'i 'heretics,' here the Fatimids. They fought viciously against Abbasid imperialism and a dumbed-down conformist Sunni orthodoxy. Perhaps we've heard of Sultan Baybars, or the very imaginative, individualized non-doctrinaire Ishma'ilis. In short, the old Fatimid name connotes tolerance, a reconciliation with one's enemies, which is the opposite of freedom (Tahrir), in a way.
Modern state planners made the maydan a traffic round-a-about called 'Freedom' then surrounded it with government offices and museums. They also invited in big hotels – the most expensive. They called it cynically 'freedom square' and amazingly, western media still perpetrates the hoax, simply because they don't know Cairo or Egypt's history.
The maydan did not again become sacred land till the 25th of January, 2011, when the protesters disobeyed the state-imposed curfew, forcing the police and army to withdraw. Since then, there has been constant occupation. At times a half a million demonstrated, with signs and chants. But more often, and more interesting, were, are, the down times, when only a few hundred or a few thousand occupy the maydan. There one witnesses highly individualized behaviors. Some took odd postures in front of the cameras, or alone. Everybody had to draw something. Effigies were made, food distributed, a medical clinic working 'round the clock to care for severely injured protesters. Intense discussions were underway amongst some, but many protesters meditate in private. There are no leaders.

The media played such a role that one is tempted to say, following McLuhan, that the media is the message. Electronic communications have been democratized, so the democrats were able to organize. Individuals empowered each other. No plan or design prompted the revolution: it is organic, or if not, something uniquely odd, an enigma. It has yet to succeed. Mubarak is in office, and his intelligence, police and army firmly under his control.
There's no way see the future. It's uncharted territory. Dispassionate discussions need take place, and the politics of human needs must replace the politics of symbolic appeal. Before elections there must be a deliberative phase where representatives are selected. This must happen soon.
There is a table around which some one dozen people are to sit. Who are they? And will the present government, with all its bureaucratic weight, with its police and army, be admitted as members around this table? If not, then we are in for a rocky road.

The on-going 'happening' on the Isma'ili maydan does not die or get stale, because new people arrive all the time, and because intense discussions follow the constant news. The army has failed to secure control of the maydan, now a critical round-about for lower Cairo. The protesters can just send out a request for more people, and 10,000 will arrive within an hour or two.
Egypt's situation is so complex, its history so deep, that forgiveness should be a feature. Where's the truth and reconciliation commission? Where's, the admission of shared responsibility by government, by Muslim leaders, the leftists, the business class? Are they blaming outsiders (the US and Israel) for Egypt's malaise? The table we speak of, must have scientists, led perhaps by Dr. M. al-Baradei; historians; economists, a secular poet, and a few clergy who have not used their religion to reinforce their egos. At least one Copt should be present, and perhaps a more liberal, competent jurist from Al Ahzar University (to counter and discipline the Brothers).
This package includes three articles: An examination of the Muslim Brotherhood that refers to the lawful tradition of Islamic reform laid out in the late 19th C., in order to then vet any Muslim applying for office. The second looks at the other revolution, that of the Free Officers in 1952, to draw a few critical lessons. The third examines the precursors and probable causes of this second Egyptian revolution. All the Arab revolutions have economic as well as political similarities: high food and water and energy costs; a systemic refusal to build affordable housing; unemployment.

At first, there was no invoking in any of these revolutions, the politics of symbolic appeal. Outsiders were not demonized. Now, after three weeks, that is changing. The leftists and the Islamists are actively trying to influence the revolution. Both would hijack it if they could. But they cannot. In ten years, however, if there is no housing, no cheap food, no end to relentless inflation, no jobs, then we can expect the leftists and the self-appointed Muslim leadership, to take over the country.
In these articles, we make reference to the role of the media, the social media, their capabilities for communication and instant information, never seen before. Demagogues beware!

Young Egyptians played a big role, using FaceBook to launch the initial protests. But the Youth are highly politicized in a childish way. They, and the leftists and the political Muslims, are demanding the end of the regime. No one in high office should remain there. This is not good for Egypt. If the police are fired or kept in their command centers, criminals will run wild. Already, hundreds of criminals have been released. For some fours days, January 27-31, chaos reigned as criminals stole cars, broke into the Egyptian Museum, and mugged innocents. Neighborhoods organized their own defenses. Fear all but replaced peaceful protests for democracy. Let that be a warning. The police and intelligence services are needed now more than ever. So the impasse will persist. Tahrir Square will be continuously occupied until further notice. Since the square is a major round-about, the economic damage attributed to the uprising will slowly drive business people against them. Already Egypt has lost about 4 times more money, than the $1.3 billion given Egypt each year by the USA.

For the US government, the birds of policy come home to roost. The implications of past US policies yield lawful consequences. Five presidents looked to Hosni Mubarak for guidance and support in keeping Islamist terror cells from killing innocents. Civil war raged, with thousands of casualties. Mubarak was well aware that the pious Anwar Sadat had freed the Brothers, only to have them assassinate him.
In solving these issues, that is, in vetting Muslim groups, one must go back to Muhammed's time in Medina, to see and study the very real differences between his practices there, and those upheld by the Muslim religion, Sunni and Shi'i. My own understanding is that this great war raging from Mauritania to Mindanao, from Daghestan to Nigeria, will not subside till Muhammed's own ways receive just as must coverage as does the Muslim religion.

Muhammed was an unassuming man, without pretense. When he heard voices while meditating in a cave, he thought he was going crazy and wanted to kill himself. He never set up a clerical hierarchy. He did not see himself as a universal law-giver, which meant he left most laws stand. He did see himself as establishing a new universal religion. He had plan of conquest, nor is there any theory of war in the Qur'an. He left no teachings, no successor, no instructions. Because he was unassuming, he did not organize his patrimony. Hence the present predicament, where interpretations of Islam are all over the place; where the mullahs enforce uniformity, and the real message of the prophet is lost.

Scholars of Islam study Muhammed's Constitution of Medina, ca. 628 CE. It is not a statement of the Muslim religion, but a democratic mechanism to overcome the factions. For there were some eight Jewish tribes in the area around Yathrib (Medina), plus Christian monastics, and pagan bedouin tribes. There was also a growing argument between the Ansars (Helpers) of Medina, and the Muhijarun (emigrants) who fled with Muhammed to Medina from Mecca in Year Zero (622 CE).
The Egyptian democrats face the same kind of challenge.

How to Vet the Muslim Brotherhood: Errors of the Ikhwan, with reference to the19 C. reformer, Sayyid Jalal ad-Din al-Afghani

To assess the Muslim Brotherhood we need see through it to its doctrinal birth. Here we dissect reformist discourse and tradition in the Muslim world. We need go back to the beginning of modern reform in Islam. Jalal ad-Din al-Afghani, the great peripatetic late-19th century Muslim reformer, held views directly opposed to the less informed later reformers, specifically Hasan al Banna and Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid al Afghani spoke in an intelligent way about how to handle the Western colonial masters, the need to come together as Muslims, the need for science in Muslim life, and insights into Islam itself, that is, the practices of Muhammed at Medina, as opposed to the ignorance of the present self-serving clergy.

The al Ikhwan al Muslimuna, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) were later imitators, impostors, who bent this original wisdom completely into its opposite: prescriptions for disaster, for poverty. Everything western was seen as corrupt. Violence against innocents was sanctioned; non-Muslims were to be slaughtered like animals,' and even Muslims were permitted to be killed simply because they were not radicals. This paper finds the requisite historical depth necessary to assess the dumbed-down thinking of the current Islamists. Only then can one engage them.

The Ikhwan is often said to be the first, the oldest and the largest of the Islamic reform organs. But that is definitely not true. They are not the true inheritors of Islamic reform. We will show step by step, how they deviated, doctrinally. The MB consists of many chapters, with many wings. It's a franchise that can set up anywhere, anytime. There are probably over 15,000 established Ikhwan groups and secret cells, from Indonesia to Morocco. In some of these countries, the MB appears to be the largest opposition group or party. But that assessment requires that we phase out all those less-radicalized Muslims, plus the secular population, both of which are larger in numbers (and reason) than the MB. In Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya and elsewhere, the MB is banned as a political party. Governments are wary and for good reason: the MB outfit says one thing, and does another. They, violent splinter groups of the MB, consider themselves to be above the law. The most lethal of the terror groups were, are, MB splinter groups. Need we name them all? Start with al Qaida.

As extensive as the Ikhwan may be, no more than 350 Brothers run the organization. The core leadership is much, much smaller, arrayed in several consultative bodies, all secret. No new doctrine appears forthcoming: the Ikhwan have held the same dumbed-down policies for over 80 years.

Under intense police pressure over the past 70 years, renegade Ikhwan cells became autonomous, and some were murderous. I speak of the Gama'a al Islamiyya, Hizb wal Takhrir, and of course, al Qaida and its affiliates. The Egyptian Ikhwan lost control of their hotheads after they were banned and broken up by the Egyptian national and intelligence police. Nasser banned them after they tried to kill him and other government officals, and they have been banned ever since. Their views are narrow, divisive, and fictive, like driving the Israelis into the sea. In the 1990s, Egypt kept suffering violent attacks against foreign tourists, attacks on secular intellectuals, assassination of officials, and the depredations of bedouin. There was a decade of civil war in Egypt as there was at the same time, a war in Algeria, again featuring MB-inspired groups capable of killing hundreds of civilians for no reason. Thousands of brothers were rounded up and imprisoned. Some were tortured, not from sadism, or even revenge, but to get vital information that would upset attacks on innocent civilians.

I write this on February 5th, 2011. Protesters are lying down in front of tanks to prevent them from entering Tahrir Square. Mubarak had appointed Omar Suleiman, his intelligence chief, as Vice President. The intelligence chief is in charge of receiving the Brothers as they meet today in Cairo, for 'exploratory talks.' (The small Ikhwan reps later said it not negotiate further till Mubarak has left.)

Already the Brothers are setting conditions. Today (Feb.5) they say they 'want to see if the government will do the will of the people.' Like American politicians, they always say they represent the all the people. There are further questions. If the MB rises in the government, they can influence foreign policy, canceling Egypt's peace agreement with Israel. That would open Egypt as a base to terrorists, which would trigger Israeli responses, no doubt disproportionate. Egypt would be burdened with another round of Middle East armed struggle. Ikhwan ideology also holds to the belief, the conviction, that the West is Egypt's biggest problem. For it is the West which holds Mubarak to the peace agreements with Israel. It is Western influence which prevents the establishment of Islamic law throughout Egypt. Of course all this horrifies educated liberal Egyptians, who know full well how the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 was hijacked by clerical zealots.

The Muslim Brotherhood is still blaming others: Israel, America, the secular rulers of the Arabs. It had not helped them to so be divisive. 'Judge and you'll be judged.' And why judge anyways - isn't that God's role. The Brothers do not feel that way. They all think they serve God and Islam, but it is Islam that serves men and women. God doesn't need our prayers, as the Qur'an says more than once. Where did their presumption come from?

Let us look closely at MB-patented mentation. It's unbelievably simplistic – a manipulation of raw dreamy aspirations and sentiments, such that many ignorant Egyptians come to see them as 'the resistance.' So let us look more deeply, right down to their genesis and early history.

Curiously, reference to 19th century reformers throws light on the chief danger of , and complaint against, the al Ikhwan al Muslimuna, the Muslim Brotherhood. As we'll see, these pseudo-Muslims violate the meaning of Islam right from the start. Right from the beginning, when Hassan al Banna organized the Brothers in 1928, there occurred an unfortunate slip, a deviation and a departure from current Muslim reformist wisdom, resulting in a dumbing-down and distortion inherent in Ikhwan thinking. And this mistake cost the peoples of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan dearly. The Americans, too, ended up victims of this deviance, this original perversion. '9/11 was born in the dungeons of Egypt' goes the proverb. Unless we grasp the error of Hassan al Banna, we can't assess the Ikhwan, their loyalty and intentions; or point out exactly to them where and how they deviate from both Islamic reform tradition, and Islam itself.

It is possible to qualify Muslims them for service inside the government. Contact us and we'll send you a check list of a dozen questions about Islam which together can quickly tell what kind of Islam or mock-Islam lurks in the minds of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In summary, some questions relate to the original meaning and use of the term 'Islam.' Others relate to judging others (Judge and you'll be judged), an assumed superiority, an exclusivity – 'we are the real Islam.' Or, the Shi'a are all heretics. One set of questions asks the respondent to identify the differences between the Prophet's practice at Medina, and the Muslim religion as conventionally understood. Others present passages from the Qur'an, or well-known ahadith, relating to how politics was understood, the role of government, and other cautionary sayings, like “There is no compulsion in religion' and 'The government must consult with the people at every step,' and so forth.

The Egyptian MB keeps hiving off terror cells, even as the Ikhwan leadership condemns terror. Those leaders are responsible for the atrocities of those acting in their name: the sick Istanbuli, the psycho-path genocidal Osama bin Laden and the perverse craven Dr. Ayman Zawahiri. Violence in Alexandria proves that such splinter groups are active in Egypt. So also the recent bombing of the gas pipeline in al Arish. Let's see the Brothers move against these 'mock-Muslim' jokers.

Formal participation in the new Egyptian democracy by the Ikhwan, might present a chance to humanize, educate, their ranks and leadership. The army and police and most of the Egyptian people, are ready to pounce on the Brothers if they violate the new emerging democratic social contract, based on tolerance and mutual respect, or seek to dominate the government, or any of their discussions with other parties. If the Ikhwan are excluded – and they withdraw – then one would do well to assume that, once again, they are plotting. But the actual program for them, what they must do for Egypt, is to move against their free-ranging radicals, circulating in the blood of Egyptians mainly outside Cairo, in the Delta and in Upper Egypt. Out there in the provinces the police do not have the control they have in Cairo and Alexandria. All the more reason for the Brothers to start working for the police, mediating perhaps, resolving differences, replacing symbolic issues from economic and environmental realities.

Can the Muslim Brothers in Egypt hijack the revolution? Everybody knows Islam had nothing to do with the revolution, except perhaps as a negative factor. The bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria in December 2010, touched off three days of Muslim-Christian riots in that city. The bombers are probably secret splinter cells of MB operatives, maybe a resurgent Gama'a al Islamiyya, or maybe Hizb wal Tahir, or al Qaida of the Magreb. Judging by recent statements to the press, the MB leaders are as angry and as presumptuous as they ever have been. (You can tell by the sound of their voices, and by their erroneous presumptions, like 'we represent the Muslims.')

I can see a scenario where, over the ensuing ten years, the Ikhwan become a dominant force in Egypt. The Americans pushed for democracy, and this is what they get: the rise of Muslim demagogues and obsolete leftists. Suppose the Tahrir protesters succeed in breaking 'the whole regime,' where the army and the police get infiltrated and neutralized, or disbanded by the democrats. Then we will likely see the Ikhwan institute very anti-Western policies. The country will likely slip into a very stupid and tragic war with Israel, over Gaza. But remember: if the economic pressures on the Egyptian populace are not relieved, if food and energy are not affordable, if there is no housing for young adults, no way of honestly making money, no check on inflation, then a downward spiral will almost certainly take place, after which the Ikhwan and the leftists will inherit the whole thing.

The politics of symbolic appeal just may surmount and replace the politics of human needs. Incredibly, after all that history teaches, this simple truth is not deployed, utilized or even discussed.

As I write, the Ikhwan are moving into Tahrir Square. They are organizing and leading prayers.
By February 7th, the protesters had become vocally anti-American. This is a result partly of the emerging Ikhwan bid for leadership of the protest, and partly the fault of American leaders. Shocked as much as everyone else, the Americans have been making nightly scripted pronouncements, many televised. These have been misinterpreted by many in the Muslim world. American oaths of democratic pluralism seem cynical to the conspiracy-minded Arabs. So now the US government's capacity to (verbally) respond has gone from very weak to negative.
Curiously, both the protesters and the pro-Mubarak faction have angrily asked the Americans to just stay out of Egypt. Soon the Egyptian state may cut loose the Americans for good. US policy towards Israel seems to them highly deceptive, cynical. Educated secular Israelis also feel abandoned by the Americans. Likud has had no problems in executing their planned annexations of land and property and roads. Unless the American begin to be even-handed (in deed as well as words), we do not see any way by which the US can restore influence in a post-Mubarak regime. Indeed, anger at the US and Israel may be the cement that holds the Arabs together, as it was in Nasser's time.

The MB might manipulate and promote anti-American, and anti-Israeli sentiments, something no one can check, because the so-called educated democrats are just as ignorant about Islam as the terrorists who act in its name. We cannot overestimate the stupidity of people, ourselves included.

We in the West consider ourselves educated and sophisticated. But Cairo is home to sophisticated thinking, also. The Arabs are well accustomed to intrigue, plots and naked grabs for power and money. (We'll see that Nasser did not play 'strong horse,' a strong man, until the people demanded that he be president, after 1954, and put him back into office after he resigned following the war with Israel in 1967. It was only then that he became really popular. Egyptians are so sophisticated that responsible leaders do not seek office, being free (supposedly) of all greed, greed for power, influence, and money.

It's common to hear Westerners talk of 'strong men' in the patriarchal or tribal context. In fact, tribal chiefs are usually elected. A show of hands at the end of a meeting is just as democratic as a paper ballot in a box, as formal elections. Indeed, there are veins of democracy running through bedouin practice, and in Islam also. But the West, believing they derive from the Judaic tradition, and assuming they are the most advanced, call Israel the only democracy in the Middle East. Of course that has been an incorrect and very destructive myth. Israel has done practically nothing in the way of peace. Obviously the Likud government is sponsoring the annexation of Arab lands, but the government of the United States foolishly thought, even till recently, that the Likud players were going to play by international rules. Not a chance in the world for that.

We worry about Islamic radicals, fanaticism and a propensity for violence. But it is easy for anybody interested in the Middle East, to examine Israeli actions, and see how ingeniously provocative and self-serving. The Jewish religious radicals of the Likud are no different, no better, than their extreme Muslim counterparts. Christianity also is full of flaws and posturing. The Bible sanctifies genocide in some 6 passages (in the books of Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Joshua, and Kings).

If US policy makers and spokesmen could come out and say “We believe that radical Zionism and radical Islam are equally at fault,” the Muslim people would go wild, and see us in a positive light. As for the good people of Israel, the ones who hope to make a just peace with the Arabs, they will be empowered as well. But tragically the doctrinal blinders of US politicians preclude any intelligent response, so it is much to be preferred, that the US government just shut up, publicly, till it corrects its own myopia and double standards. It seems to know nothing about Islam, so cannot prosecute the terrorists using Islamic law, which is easy to do.

An Arab child is worth just as much in God's eyes as a Jewish child. Why do we even have to state this obvious truth? Because Israel's way has long been, since 1947, to punish, far out of proportion, Arabs. Israel has been hijacked by religious fanatics, many from America and Russia, who have caused immense damage. And such clerical rule has not worked. Hisbullah, Hamas, and other fedayeen cannot be exterminated, though Israel military planners may 'see' that, as they are preparing a truly massive response to the next time Hizbullah or Hamas fires off a few rockets.

It was required that we draw attention to stupid policies towards Israel, as we move to focus on the stupidity of mock-Islamic terrorist. State terror is even more cruel than terror by small teams of killers. State terror kills more innocents, many times more. The Red Cross says that over 26,000 Lebanese civilians were killed by the Israelis in 1982. Some 1,400 were killed in the recent Gaza operation. Yet Americans become enraged when a teenage suicide bomber, with absolutely nothing to lose, kills a few soldiers or settlers, because some racists seized his ancestral land.

HOW TO TELL A REAL MUSLIM: CRITERIA FOR VETTING MUSLIM POLITICIANS

There are simple tests to ascertain whether some person might know about Islam -or not know. I'll try to summarize in the briefest way.

If your religion is fortifying your ego, you've gone off the rails. Islam means 'surrender' in Arabic: one must doubt oneself at every step. Or let me put it in western scientific terms: we are only as intelligent as our assumptions.' Islam, 'surrender', entails seeing through assumptions of the imaginary self and its co-opted ordinary conceptual mind. 'Surrender' is not in the discourse of these modern political Islamist groups. True Islam is not followed, but bent to serve the will to power by holy-men acting above the law. Even now the Muslim Brother's leaders are acting like spoiled children, refusing tom play along, field candidates. It knows it does not have a critical mass. Those leaders may be unaware that they are 'licensing' terror cells.

We always see the loudest clergy in any of the religions, state really stupid cruel and irrelevant sentiments, demonizing others not like them. To hell with them all. They have usurped what is only God's task: the judgment of the humans. 'Judge and you'll be judged.'

The 'Takfiri Ikhwan' following Qutb, and al Banna, and the mentally ill 10th C. jurist ibn Taymiyya, and later, Osama bin Ladin, are obnoxious and downright dangerous. Stupidly and cruelly, they twisted Islam in such a way that it was now lawful for Muslims to kill Muslims. And some 100,000 innocent Muslim people have been murdered by the Takfiris so far.

Both the Ikhwan and the police have a lot of blood on their hands. There has been a civil war against the MB in Egypt since before Egypt was independent. It was the secret police of King Farouk who assassinated Hassan al Banna, again, to revenge assassinations (1950). Nasser was never tempted to side with the Brothers, or use them, even if they both shared anti-colonial priorities. In a sense, Farouk was correct in identifying the top leader as a killer. For it was al Banna's stupid 'innovation' which led the Brothers to kill and kill, and be killed. It was Nasser who insisted that they not be allowed to launch attacks against the British in Suez, and against Israel. He also insisted that the nascent Palestinian fidayeen, be strictly disciplined, so as to not launch attacks against innocent Jews. That whole period of 1947-1967 is worthy of week-to-week study. The much beloved 'father of the Jewish nation' had absolutely no respect for Arabs and moved to kill them or just evict them or make life so miserable for innocent Palestinian people, that they had to flee to camps.

Yet still that's not the prevailing narrative in America. Israel was besieged, fighting for its life, surrounded by a dozen powerful Arab armies, some armed by the Communists. How quickly these myths are dispelled by any reference to the historical record. Israel under Ben Gurion fought wars of aggressive expansion, 'cleansed' parts of Eretz Y'Israel, and executed thousands of captured Arab soldiers. Then there followed some some six large Israel commando assaults against a much weaker Egyptian army. Sounds far fetched? These aggressive acts culminated in the 1956 war. That war, one in which the Americans sided with the Egyptians, was the logical extension of Israeli plans. Contrary to his image, Ben Gurion apprenticed in outright genocide. He implemented his disrespect for Arabs. One can easily prove that power in Israel was and is usurped by greedy men using religion to justify the crime, following the base politics of symbolic appeal; and that the American Jews, backed tacitly by their US government, supported and pushed through this abomination, this hundred-years war. Since we Americans are responsible for what happened, we will pay the price. In just a few years, petroleum will be too expensive for ordinary Americans to burn in their cars and trucks. The OPEC and OAPEC have preferential pricing schedules which they will implement when the slack in the oil market is taken up. Even now the hens come home to roost. Israel still practices apartheid, a 'slow motion genocide.' For what Arab can live a decent life in occupied Palestine, or in Gaza? But the Ikhwan's militant wings practice genocide as well.

At this point we turn to look back at Muslim reform, to explain why and how the Ikhwan deviated and continue to do so.

Modern Islamic reform began in the later half of the19th C. and is generally attributed to one man: Jamal al Din 'Asabadadi' al Afghani, 1838-1897. He grew up in Hamadan Persia, and studied in Shi'ite medresehs in Qom and Meshed, where he was influenced by Sheikh Ahmed al Ahsa (1753-1826). The sheikh was a very unconventional thinker, critical of mere imitation, 'group think,' and the presumptions of the higher clergy. Sheikh Ahmed lived in Yazd, as did Afghani a half century later. Yazd of course is the center of the Iranian Zarathushtris, non-Muslim monotheists. Hence his bizarre ideas about personal guardian angels, the wanderings of higher bodies in the cosmos, a vigorous expansive after-life. This exotic tradition eschewed any sectarian chauvinism. Both Sheikh Ahmed and Sayyid al Afghani saw the battle as against conventional Islam, the corrupt presumptuous clergy.

Al Afghanis became a mujtahid, one competent to assess legal cases using fiqh and shari'a. He began to wander, going both west and east from Iran. First to Afghanistan, to meet with Naqshbandiyya and Qaderi masters, residing in Kabul, Ghazni and Qandahar. Then to Peshawar, Lahore, and Delhi. He worked for the Qajar (Mongolian) shah, Nasir ad Din, as an adviser, but was disillusioned. He was in Mecca in 1865. Fluent in Turkish, Persian and Arabic, al Afghani lectured in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He had to flee to Paris, as the feudal Mameluke emir moved against him. Even though he grew up during the colonial period, al Afghani did not recommend violence or armed resistance, but civil actions, like boycotting British-run tobacco merchants in Iran. His professional writing appeared during a long exile in Paris, where he published a periodical on reform in the Islamic world, together with M. Abduh, his prime disciple who was to carry on a real reform effort, in Egypt.

How paradoxical it is that Sayyid al Afghani, surrounded by imperial powers, recommended basically a non-violent approach to them, and a rigorous critique of Islam religion and law which would de-fang the clergy and roll back their usurped incompetent reactionary domination. The modern Islamists blame the imperialists with greater vehemence even though the nations of the Middle East have been free and independent for over half a century.

Sayyid al Afghani said that the West should be studied, its technology and knowledge adopted if they can help, and swestern democracy, liberalism and superiority in science acknowledged. Then the liberal parties of the West can be persuaded, with good argument, to just get the hell out of the Middle East and South Asia. Or at least change their act.

Al Afghani had a genuine message, one thought through. Integrate science into faith. He taught that Islam should adapt to the modern age, to basically rip off the West of everything useful. Then the Imperial parties of European states can be confronted, morally, scientifically, and then persuaded to end their occupations. After all, the West took much from Islam – science – so now Muslims take from the West.

To al Afghani, the Muslim world was not strong or smart enough to fight the big European parties and powers, including Russia, and the reason for that weakness, in his view, was the Muslim religion itself, the clergy. He knew Arabic well, so could read for himself the original legal texts. He studied Muhammad's practices at Medina and Mecca 622-632 CE. How they differed from the Muslim religion as it was put together rather haphazardly by his successors, the khalifas and the jurists. Al Afghani was a devout Muslim who liked to quote Bistami “I have seen the devil and he is a Muslim.” For him – as it must be for us – Islam was, is, a sacred call to surrender the ego, the small self, the personality, in order to engender in the body, essence.

Also characteristic of cruel and stupid 'Muslim' serial murderers is their belief in very dubious hadith or a very selective approach to the Qur'an; they are emotional, not intellectual. They are committed, not impartial, objective scientists. The MB ranks maybe humble men and women, but their leaders, driven into secrecy, once again plot and scheme to 'play' the revolution, hoping later usurp constitutional authority. They've always condemned everything western, and if they are eventually championed by the people, it will be because the Ikhwan can play on anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments to win followers and 'authenticity.' Why are they able to do that? Because the US government has once again done absolutely nothing to prevent the further annexation of Arab land in Arab Palestine.

Al Afghani held both the European imperialists and the Muslim clergy responsible. He did not fault the Jews, because he lived before Zionism became a political force. He moved directly against the earlier Wahhabi craze, in arguing that, whether Shi'a or Sunni, it does not matter. That is not an issue. He said the clerics used this division to garnish their prestige. Hence Muslim weakness.

The threat came from outside, from the West. “We must meet them on the basis of our wisdom and their wisdom.” Curiously, al Afghani's words to his Western friends (incl. Ernst Renan) were even more liberal: “So long as humanity exists, the struggle will not cease between religion and philosophy, a bitter struggle from which, I fear, free thought will not emerge victorious.”

Al Afghani's main student was Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905), an Egyptian journalist, a scholar who eventually became chief mufti of Egypt. He lived with Al Afghani in Paris, where they published a reformist news magazine. He admitted that, culturally, the Middle East was backward, the main reason being taqleed, or 'thoughtless imitation of tradition.' He said some prescient things about the malaise of affluence in the West. But he admired science. Incredibly, 'Abduh suggested that science be applied to Islam, that Islam, too, was a science, be it self transformation or social healing by law. There could be no contradiction between reason and revelation, between God and His Creation. Basically, he said it was possible to live as modern Muslims, using science and education to achieve Islamic goals. The main obstacle to this realization is the clergy.

'Abduh's chief disciple was Rashid Rida. He was born in 1865, in Tripoli, Lebanon. He studied with 'Abduh in Cairo, where he published a magazine called Al Minar, or, the Lighthouse. Rida also said western science should be used to perfect Islam. The Muslim lands were not stagnant but ill-informed about their own origins. Reform meant embracing scientific criteria of truth, proof, and inquiry. Rashid Rida told the truth about Islamic violence, that it originated when the Ummayad chieftan Muy'awiyah wrested the caliphate from Ali. Hence the Sunni-Shi'a split and most of the violence. He argued that recognition of past errors bring Muslims together.

Rashid Rida's chief disciple was Hasan Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. He was not a professor or a cleric, but a schoolteacher. A showman. His grasp of Islam was superficial. And started blaming others for Egypt's problems. Jihad was required against everything western. He had no coherent political theory, but worked along the lines of symbolic appeal. He was a populist.

But it was Hasan Banna who taught Sayyid Qutb, often seen as the transitional figure. Qutb, too, was to be executed for inciting violence, murders, against high state officials (in 1966, after a plot on Nasser's life). He was stupid enough to revive ibn Taimiyya's long-dead theory and practice of takfir, whereby another Muslim is deemed not to be a Muslim but an infidel, to be killed with impunity. This stupid idea fanned the flames, killing many Muslims.

The next rung on the tree, is the punk Istanbouli, who led the Ikhwan team that assassinated Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel. Then there was Ayman Zawahiri, still Number Two of the al Qa'eda. They were all people who thought they knew, even represented, Islam, an errant assumption which permitted them to act outside the law. Can they be trusted now?

Bear in mind that the Muslim Brotherhood was just one of a number of reform ideologies now arising amongst the Arabs. Kemal Attaturk was, of course, Nasser's teacher. Arab nationalism morphed the Ba'ath or Renaissance form, invented by a Christian (Michel Aflaq) at the American University of Beirut. There were also extensive nets of communists, and several socialist parties, some of which are still functioning. The one thing these groups all had was a blaming of others, a demonization of the other. Much time has passed, and Egypt has matured. The Ikhwan had a brief period of power after the 2005 elections, where they held 24% of seats, but failed completely in the most recebnt elections. Their leader, M. Mahdi Akef, was player till 2010 when the Ikhwan mysteriously lost their support.

The Ikhwan tried to kill Nasser. He had Sayyid Qutb hung. Since then, the pressure has not let up. The Ikhwan are prohibited as a party. Was this correct? Yes, they failed to meat some of the basic requirements of a democratic party. Up fronbt, they all looked innocent. Indeed, they were, are, devoted servants, providing many social services, so they do deserve a place at the ruling table.

The sorry fact is that there are well over 25, 000 Ikhwan cells in Egypt alone, each of which has its own take on events. There are MB cells plotting right now to kill certain Europeans and Americans. Did not 9/11 grow out of the dungeons of Egypt?

The US government was correct in publicly calling for the removal of Mr. Mubarak. All along the Americans (and probably the Europeans also) have been suggesting he open up the country to 'genuine' democracy. But the president would always cite the danger of the Ikhwan gaining control in the chaos. And he was right at the time. But now it is a bit different. Everybody has matured, it seems. The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, led by M. Mahdi Akef 2004-2010, and Muhammed Badie from 2010 on, are quick to say that they are interested in serving locally, providing services.

As I write, on Feb.5, the Ikhwan announce that they are ready to join the government. That augurs poorly for Egypt in western eyes, but such participation can be of great advantage to Egypt.
It remains against the law, for the Muslim Brotherhood to run as or even exist as a political party. Most brothers are not all that politically aggressive, but some are pursuing deadly destinies. The explosion Feb.4th of a gas pipeline at Al Arish in the Sinai may be their work. There are scores of secret cells ready to act with brutal violence against those targeted by their leaders.

The long period under Mubarak can be studied month by month, to see the deadly cycles of violence: Ikhwan attacks, Egyptian secret police arresting and torturing them. Groups breaking into cells, like franchises of terror. The Ikhwan leaders were driven into exile, or arrested, tortured, and released; then arrested, tortured and released in another cycle. Many Brothers never made it out of those prisons and torture chambers. It's leadership understood instinctively, that it might be better to not even get into politics. It is enough to provide the array of comprehensive services that the Brotherhood provides to and for the sick, the elderly, the destitute, the refugee.

Indeed, there has been a maturation of views in Egypt. A sophisticated city has become even more sophisicated. Secular and sectarian, Muslim and Copt, the government and the people – each proving pliable and giving toward the other. The new Egypt was deeply offended in December, 2010, when a Coptic church was bombed in Alexandria, triggering sectarian riots, sectarian confrontations of the most ominous kind, riots of a deadly nature. Over 300 had died in the 2011 Revolution by February 5th. Another hundred have disappeared. Some 2,000 have been wounded.

What sparked the January 2010 Arab revolutions?

The uprising in Tunis, plus more recent violence in Alexandria, were the two main contributing factors to the January 25th 2011 Revolution. But behind them were others, less direct perhaps, but just as powerful. These are basically: higher food prices, a shortage of housing, inflation, unemployment, lack of decent services, poor education and health care limited to the rich;and the heavy suppression of the people under emergency law, for decades. Other complaints include: obvious corruption by those associated with the president, his ministers, and certain members of the parliament. Plus the growing gap between the rich and the poor, that is, the death of the middle class. These were, are, all contributing factors.

Other factors, more subtle, go unmentioned. Bad air in Cairo give most resident respiratory problems. Water is scarce, usually for sale, if you can get it. The media's influence was drastic, yet so far not studied. Cell phones, internet blogs and news services, MySpace and FaceBook, texting and twitter – web cams and 24-hour news by video, TV or radio – together these more personalized media assist the propagation of the message. People came together just fooling around with their cell phones or checking e-mail and internet news hourly. The Egyptians found the government is dominating TV and radio. The social media accelerated the pace and broadened the base of the uprising, causing sparks to fly off and land in other lands, where they start pro-democratic fires. Electricity, radio waves and the use of discrete frequencies permitted Algerian demonstrators to talk with Tunisians. Then the Tunisians, running into unexpected success, coached and encouraged their counterparts in Egypt.

Behind the revolt in Tunis, were the larger series of demonstrations in Algeria. Like Egypt, Algeria has been under emergency powers for some two decades. Rights of expression and assembly, the right to bear arms, a society free of corruption and the violent abuse of the police and army, were the political reasons for the Algerian unrest. Economically, the issues were basically the same: higher food prices, 30% unemployment and the long-term tragic lack of affordable housing.
The Algerians, however, are war weary and war wary. They did not demand that the government change faces. Curiously, Boutiflika canceled emergency law, returning the constitution, almost simultaneously with the Feb.3rd attack of the Egyptian protestors by pro-Mubarak toughs, some riding camels and horses.

But what about 'economic' factors – survival? The soaring price of food and fuel, the long, continued lack of housing, the failure of Israel to do anything for peace, the Palestinian tunnels and Egypt's policies of border control, the Iranian revolt by the people two years ago, the break up of the Sudan, and the continued fighting there. The murder of a young Mr. Sayyid in Alexandria in mid January set the spark that led to the manifestations of the Isma'ili Maydan.

But what about the Muslim Brotherhood? The Ikhwan metastacized, setting up chapters around the Arab, then Muslim, worlds. Secular Syria, defending tolerance of religion, moved on them after they repeatedly assassinated scores of young cadets. I heard about that in Aleppo, from a small group of Algerian and Syria air force cadets. Then I spent a brief two days in Hama, in January, 1979, visiting some of the mosques. (If you want to meet people in the Islamic world, attend prayers, then remain after prayers, seated on the carpet. People will greet you, invite you, hear you out. All these good Muslims were slaughtered some 26 months later by Syria's Revolutionary Guards. But then, incredibly, we hear that just on 26th January, 2011, the Syrian government announcing that it will distribute free stocks of food, electronic toys, and even appliances, just to head off trouble.

Fear and loathing in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria is the subject of an important book that will never be written. In Lebanon, there was, in early January, a change in government, one in which Hisbullah and their Sunni Palestinian allies, now hold sway. Do these folks want to busy themselves with the politics of symbolic appeal while the economy collapses? The Muslim Brotherhood has deep roots in Lebanon. Indeed, they're found in all Arab countries. In Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and the MB became mutually supportive. They're still being weeded out. Another unwritten book tells that story, one with implications, i.e., the 9/11 'consequence.'

The Brotherhood is big in Africa. Let us hope that African wisdom trumps Wahhabi divisive posturing. Otherwise, they'll be a new crop of wars. It's already happening. The Ikhwan have been active in Sierra Leone, and the Cote d'Ivore, even in South Africa and Madagascar. Somalia is a bit wild for the Brothers, but I'm sure there exist imitators, crazed clerics and their talibs who see themselves fighting for God, for the spread of Islam, and so kill others not like themselves.

The Muslim Brotherhood has as its ideology, a 'blame the other' mentality, with many mechanisms of confidence. These ostentatious self-acclaiming law-usurping 'Muslim' usurpers, foolishly saw, and see, Egypt's problems as coming from non-Muslim foreigners. The Brothers foolishly see all Western influence and objects as all corrupt. All Western civilization is immoral. That's the essence of Qutb's book 'Milestones.' It is as warped as Mein Kampf.

There are good brothers and bad Brothers, and most Brothers are rather neutral. After all, their work is social service. And because they have contributed, quite a lot, they deserve a place at the table.
When they come, every word they say will be listened too carefully. Plots will be seen through. Somehow the Ikhwan must be made to change. Can they be redeemed?

The most lethal of terrorist groups were generated as splinter groups, hiving off from the MB. The best known are, or were, the Gama'a al Islamiyya and Al Takfir Wa'l Hijra and, of course, al Qaida and its affiliates. Curiously, Osama bin Laden detests the Brothers, and often speaks (spoke) against them. Why? Because the Ikhwan publicly disassociated themselves from all violence. Could that be true?

Yes, the MB leadership says and teaches non-violence, and brothers obey. Muhammed Mahdi Akef, MB chief from 2004-2010, repeatedly condemned terrorist attacks. In 2010 Mr. Akef stepped down, being replaced by Muhammed Badie. No leaders imagined the Jan. 2011 revolt, and delayed telling the MB rank and file, to join the demonstrators. Now wooed by the government, and open to the closest of inspections, the Brothers must be on their best behavior. In fact, they must correct their errors.

But can such a dumbed-down franchise, such a defuse theocratic organization, ever be open to others not like themselves? Maybe. Have they helped prevent Muslim attacks against the Copts? Yes and no. The Brothers have matured, directing their energies to social service rather than political agitation. No brother wants the job of actually running Egypt – they know they lack expertise in the social sciences. Yet instinctively most Brothers believe they have a legitimate role to play. They do. It's called social service.

What Would Nasser Do? Could He Find Common Ground Today?

The only other event in recent Egyptian history that might compare to the January 25th 2011 Revolution is the Egyptian revolution of July 23, 1952. Till then, Egypt had not been ruled by Egyptians for two and a half thousand years. Going back in time, the rulers were British, French, Turkish (Mameluke and Ottoman), Kurdish (Ayyubids), Fatimid, Arab (bedouin), Byzantine Greek, Roman, Hellenic Greek, and Persian.

Gamal Abdul Nasser has been stereotyped as a populist demagogue, a 36-year-old army hero greedy for power, who betrayed America by buying arms from the Russians; by perpetrating land reform; who hated the Jews, pulling all the Arabs together for war and terror; who brought in the army and became 'anti-democratic' by banning political parties, and who became a player in the high stakes Machiavellian intrigues of Arab nationalism; and who turned Egypt into a military state.

None of the above statements are strictly true. The real story is different. Land reform was long overdue and went ahead without much protest. The owners of the large farms were paid cash and given vouchers and permits, which they could use to hopefully start construction companies in the cities, and thereby alleviate the crushing shortage of adequate housing. This was an ingenious economic policy, a bit more advanced than our own, one based on the laws of reciprocal feeding, than what the Americans or Russians or Japanese or Chinese can do. This man Nasser, from 1953 on, tried to kill two birds with one stone, a complex imaginative set of liberating regulation that forced the really big colonial landholders, to build affordable homes with money given to them from the government. But of course, they did little in the way of affordable housing. Almost all the construction projects were luxury apartments.

As for greedy power-hungry Nasser the populist, Nasser with assets totaling a little over $6,000. He much preferred to let others lead, like the prime minister/president M. Naqib (Naguib). In the early years, the Egyptians were just two of some nine army and air force officers, most war heroes of the 1947-48 war with Israel, who were able to keep hidden their plot while recruiting key commanders. They were nationalists, anxious to bring out from the shadows, the Egyptian nation and people. Britain still occupied Suez: over 80,000 troops guarding the canal.

Nasser much preferred to work from the shadows, and tried not to be chief. General M. Naguib was set up as figurehead, leaving Nasser and his technocrats free to examine carefully the economic malaisde, and determine what to do. Today Egyptians say they, the people, were suppressed and sleeping under the patriarch, Hosni Mubarak, for three decades. But when Nasser operated, the Egyptian people were much more suppressed, so deadened and exploited, that Nasser knew they didn't have the fire necessary for change. Now they have that fire, but do they have Nasser's competency in social engineering?

It was of course the Free Officers who instituted military government in Egypt. Everybody else was either bought off, suppressed, or just forlorn and fatalistic. Nasser feared he could not get people motivated to actually end feudalism, converting big colonial corporate farms into many private plots. Though Nasser and the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) were socialists, they nonetheless were out to make individual Egyptians into small capitalists. No doubt that's because Egypt is largely a Muslim country. In Islam, the poorest vendor gets access to the market.

Even though Egypt had no enemies, it built up a large army. It needed to be able to fend off British, French and Israeli attacks. It felt it had to respond to the eviction of some 1.2 million Palestinians by the Israelis. But he saw the possibility of using the army to incubate and run industries and capitalist agriculture. (I can't find any precursors to this 'experiment' except in the much older sultanates and nomadic empires, including the Ottomans and Mamelukes.)

There was something innocent and naive about Nasser. Like many people in the Muslim world back then, he admired America. He saw the United States as a counter to British, French, Israeli and Russian plots and attacks. Nasser and the army wanted American weapons. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles made the transfer of any weaponry to Egypt contingent on its joining an anti-Soviet pact, an alliance with the imperial powers. But Nasser had already signed neutrality agreements with the Arab League, so could not conform even if he wanted to. That was held against the socialist Egyptian government. The Egyptians called in the Russians for help, which of course changed the situation in the Middle East. The Arab-Israeli conflict got locked into the big showdown between Communism and free market capitalism. The survival of humankind on earth was put at great risk.

Furthermore, Nasser moved to liquidate the Communists. He rightly saw them as a threat to the middle class, of which he was one and with which he strongly identified. He was much more effective in limiting Bolshevism than the Shah, and he did it without the massacres perpetrated by another 'player' behind the scenes, young Saddam Hussein. Saddam did not rise through army like Nasser did. Furthermore, the Ba'ath party had similar aims as Nasser, namely, the creation of an independent state, socialist in its concerns but capitalism in its aspirations.

The 1950s were a time of secret Machiavellian maneuvers, crass radio propaganda, double crosses, deception and blackmail. The Palestinians were all packed into some 40 refugee camps, and beginning to fight back. The other Arab colonies received independence, but not Egypt. The reason was not so much British control, but the fact that King Fuad actually effected a tolerant democracy, led by the liberal Waqf. But the represented the great feudal landlords. The army rose up. Nasser banned the parties because they were so deceptive, promising what they could not do. He moved against the leftists, the Communists, and he banned the Muslim Brotherhood, in 1954.

The Muslim Brotherhood was well-established in Egypt by the late 1930s. Following the dumbed- down, simplistic and highly divisive ideology of the Ikhwan, the Brothers tried to muscle in on the Palestinian issue, by deploying their own fedayeen to fight the Jews. Nasser moved to control both the PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood, insisting that the Palestinians discipline themselves, and that the Ikhwan be prohibited from launching terror attacks of its own. Nasser didn't even let the Brothers fight the British occupiers in Suez. He knew they were lousy soldiers, dream-driven.

The big powers were no less desperate, or so it seemed at the time. The Cold War really began in Iran, 1946-47, in Iran. The newly elected nationalist prime minister M. Mossadeq, foolishly cut oil exports to Great Britain, violating current contracts. Most of Britain's oil was still coming through the Gulf. That's why the Brits and the American pulled off the 1953 overthrow of Iran's elected government. Kermit Roosevelt, the American operator, was friends with Nasser and visited him even as he and the Brits were plotting to overthrow Mossadeq (and his clerical and communist backers). Islam began to be seen as a bulwark against Communism.

Curiously, in 1952, the American government pressured King Farouk to check the corruption of his ministers, and transform Egypt into a western-style democracy, with Muslim politicos having some say and sway. But Nasser despised the Ikhwan. Their message divisive, dangerous, and not really in keeping with Muhammed's practices. After the Brothers tried to kill him, Nasser locked up their leaders and hung their chief ideologue, Sayyid Qutb. With Egypt being too hot, the Brothers metastasized as Egyptian Ikhwan fled to other Sunni Arab countries. Today they play covert and overt roles in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Lebanon, Morocco, northern Sudan and Morocco.

The Egyptian revolution of 1952 was a fight against feudalism, and Nasser put the best of his energies into reconfiguring available resources. He realized Egypt needed better, uncorrupted businessmen; to him, even the Mameluke aristocrats running the big corporate farms, had a role in the revolution. Some 6% of the population owned 65% of the land.

Nasser understood there were two revolutions: the first to dispose the King and expel his British masters, the second, to dismantle the structures of feudalism – serf bondage. Nasser acted to ban all political parties which may have made him look like a Bolshevik, but the one dominant party, the ruling Waqf, were all tied to the big landowners and industrialists, working within the British colonial system. The whole thing had to go. A similar quandary faces the new revolutionaries, who may be tempted, wrongly, to exclude all government personnel from a new government.

Clearly, as Nasser said, two revolts were necessary. The first was to achieve independence, the second, to knit together rival factions. There was a third – to devise the correct prescriptions to economic problems eating at the people. Maybe the third revolution was, is, the real challenge. The whole system had to be carefully disentangled, before a new government might prove capable of providing for the people. Egypt's burgeoning population had ever more pressing needs – food, fuel, housing, education, capital – and fulfilling these needs could not take place amidst constant ideological bickering and rivalry between competing parties. No do the politics of symbolic appeal help.

Today the situation is even more pressing. Today, the Egyptian poor are just as destitute as they were when they worked as serfs. Cairo had just several million people in 1950. By 1990 it had 38 million and by 2010 the population had exceeded 84 million. And of course the people are concentrated along the thin strip of fertile land on each side of the Nile, so the density of population is excessive.

Whoever runs Egypt has to reckon with the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan were not involved in the initiation of this recent revolution, but already, by February 5th, issued angry declarations of autocratic intent. The voices of the MB spokesmen and leaders are full of spite towards Israel and Egyptian secularism. Of course they seek vengeance against the secularists in the government. Already they are doing their best to steal the whole affair, as happened in Iran. Nasser would stand for any MB role.

We study Zaghoul (Nasser's code name) because decisions he implemented impact on the situation today. The revolutionaries in Tahrir Square believe they have power, but actually the army stands a very strong power behind the scenes. No doubt the army is splitting, and no doubt young democrats, likely educated in America or Britain, will seek to lead the army into helping fill the very pressing needs of the Egyptian population. But how can that happen?

Because the army does not drain the treasury, Egypt's debt was only 93.6% of GNP in a 2005 estimate. That's less debt proportionately than the US (102% GNP), and much less than the United Kingdom. The UK in 2005 had an external debt of$7 trillion plus, while Egypt, with a poor population some 20% larger than the UK, had debts of only $29 billion.

International monetary pressures, that ultimate reckoning of nations, forced Egypt to devalue its currency, making all imports more expensive, and causing inflation. One very real factor behind the 2010-11 January 25th Revolution, was, is, the soaring price of wheat and corn. The terrible drought in Russia during the spring and summer and autumn of 2010 caused that government to cancel wheat exports. The Egyptian people went without. Rents also soared. Water of course is a huge hassle, for poor Cairenes.

The Egyptian government has not been able to fully educate its youth, care for its sick and hungry, or help provide jobs. People turn to new spiritual identities. The Muslim Brothers step in. Our hope is that the government can harness the thousands of Muslim organs in a new bid to take care of its people's most basic needs.

What would Nasser do? He had basically the same resources, the same pressures (like debt and inflation). The population had not yet ballooned. Following the 1952 revolution, Egyptians were free to join up symbolically with their Arab counterparts, forming the Arab League and the UAR and other unions, fighting to preserve some semblance of dignity after the defeats of 1948. 1956 and 1967.

This generation of Egyptians did not have to spend its free money on military adventures. The peace has allowed Egypt, Jordan and Israel, even parts of Palestine, to prosper. Today, Cairenes are much more globally informed. They are weary and wary of the left and the right. Socialism and capitalism must go together. A socialist society needs plenty of cash and it can get this by sacking the rich, or by fostering innovation, a free market, and the mobilization of its people. Capitalism of course marginalizes many, causing destitution and exploitation. The market will not create enough jobs, especially in the 21st C. global economy. But that world economy is also changing. Gasoline will doubtless be too expensive for ordinary people to burn much of, and many modest folks around the world, can't get enough cheap food and housing.

Let us hope that the politics of symbolic appeal are replaced by a pragmatic bid to lessen suffering, keep people in their homes, provide them with food to buy, some basic medical services. But just as important, is what Egypt does with its hyper-dynamic young educated investors. Can the government help them incubate firms?

Most amazing, to me, an Arabic scholar who has studied Islam's legal traditions, a non-Muslim social scientist, is that Islam has, hidden away in its heritage, some legal formulae for the mass auto-construction of new housing, the science and the tolerance, and the generation of so many jobs that everybody who wants one can have one.

As far as Islam is concerned, it will have to be Al Aksa University which provides the guidance on these issues. And even they don't know much non-Muslim science, like the archaeology of pre-Islamic Arabia, its diversity, and its 'pocket' civilizations: Nabatea, Ghassan, Lakhmid (places where Muhammad no doubt visited or heard of). The Ikhwan know even less.

Islam means surrender, surrender of the self, so any Muslim who is reinforcing his ego by appropriating Islam to his self or sect, has gone off the rails. There are other tests as well. Just listening to some Ikhwan leaders on Feb. 5, the day they met with Vice President Omar Suleiman, showed the sect's arrogance and anger, plus its emotionalism.

Egypt will mellow in its Islam. Islam will be put to use. The state will keep privatizing army-run factories. Investors will return. The country will become a democracy, but no one can predict what kind of political parties (their platforms) will emerge. At the table of governance, specialists are needed not simply to represent their constituents, but to provide expertise.

Dr. Al-Baradei, for example, might chair a panel on science, while a social scientist, along with Muslim organs, might manage and expand social services.

But the revolution is just a few weeks old. It'll take years before Egyptian leaders find the right combination of elements to meet housing demands and social needs. Do they have the time? These new technocrats need be as clever as Nasser was in his approach to land control. For there are many countervailing factors, unseen but in play behind the scenes: the army, the secret police, diplomatic pressures, and a zoo of different types of ideologies, so what one hears at this point, is a disputatious babble. Nasser often spoke in English during negotiations. Asked why, he said Arabic is great for arguments, vendettas and wars, but weak in the terms of peace.

Nasser was joking. Arabic has over 30 words for peace and tranquility. But the language is so strong, not just in its phonology, but its permutations of roots, creating so many kinds of concepts, that Arab negotiators are apt to spend hours qualifying terms.

As in many modern Arab nations, the young are learning English at the expense of their Arabic. This is partly the result of the social media. But it is also a bid to join up with the western world.



-JPM, Feb.8, 2011



The author has conducted research in eight Muslim countries, plus Russia and Serbia. He has taught in colleges in Vermont. Since 1988, he has authored and published the Middle East Speculum Report, a newsletter now on line. He holds degrees from Wesleyan and Harvard Universities.

His most recent studies are found at middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com