You may have noticed that I've referred a few times recently to Muslim Brotherhood bloggers. Well, I've got a new piece up at the Guardian's Comment is Free site: "Brotherhood of the Blog." Excerpt:
Over the last few months, young Muslim Brotherhood members have begun blogging in force. This sudden, dramatic development may come as a surprise to western observers, who generally assume that blogging empowers liberal, pro-western voices. And it's true that the first wave of Arab political blogging featured mostly westernized, relatively liberal voices writing in English - often brilliantly individual voices who made little claim to represent the broader political spectrum. Much coverage of the Arab blogosphere continues to focus on these voices, and the attention has helped generate impressive global campaigns in support of bloggers like Kareem, an anti-Islamist writer sentenced to four years in prison for his blogging, and Alaa Abd al-Fattah, who spent 40 days in prison for his political activism.
But the Arab political blogosphere has changed. Over the last couple of years, a new wave of more politically engaged bloggers has emerged, often writing in Arabic and deeply connected to local political campaigns. The young Bahraini bloggers who denounce repression against human rights NGOs, or the young Egyptians using blogs to support the Kefaya movement and expose police brutality still fit a recognizably liberal story of popular empowerment. But the Egyptian Muslim Brothers using the same blogging platforms and the same campaign strategies to raise awareness of the imprisonment and mistreatment of their brethren do not.
And, from the end:
Still, the Brotherhood's online activity has more in common with the secular political activists of the younger generation than with the older members of the Brotherhood. Today's younger Muslim Brothers are trying to harness blogging technology to generate the kinds of solidarity, support and attention that Alaa Abd al-Fattah and Kareem have enjoyed. That seems unlikely, given the suspicion of the Brotherhood in the west and the Brotherhood's generally anti-liberal cultural views - as well as the language barrier (most of the blogs are in Arabic). But perhaps the bloggers could contribute to generational and political solidarity across ideological lines. Many Egyptian bloggers and political activists understand what many in the west do not: The Egyptian regime's repression of the Muslim Brotherhood and its repression of liberal bloggers are part and parcel of the same despotic impulse.
Beyond the immediate campaign, what might the Brotherhood's blogging portend? Perhaps the blogs could put a more differentiated, human face on an often-demonized organization - although the language barrier and cultural differences still loom large. The greatest impact of the new blogging trend, however, might be internal to the Brotherhood. The new outlets may allow a younger generation of Muslim Brotherhood voices to be heard, challenging entrenched dogma and empowering reformist or independent voices. According to an article posted on an official MB website, "with the spread of weblogs among MB young men, there emerge free areas in which they can express themselves spontaneously and in simple words avoiding the phraseology of the group's cadres and leaders." But whether their blogging will be limited to political campaigns, or evolve into something more challenging, remains to be seen.
A section on more personal blogs by Muslim Brothers - i.e. not directly associated with this particular campaign - got edited out for space reasons, which is a shame because that shows that it's more than just a single campaign. But I think it came out well, and points out something which few people seem to be aware of - in the whole raft of 'Arab blogging' articles I've tagged over the last few weeks, hardly a single Islamist blogger is even mentioned. That's a blind spot worth correcting. Check the whole piece out at Comment is Free.
Did anyone see the comments over at the guardian article? Holy crap! No wonder the muslim world thinks the West is at war with them. I thought these types of comments were the confines of right wing blogs American blogs. Jeez...
Posted by: Rashad | March 06, 2007 at 03:39 AM