Muslim Brotherhood Party Platform

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is reportedly about to release the long-awaited platform for its political party.   Drafts have been leaking to various newspapers for a while, along with stories about internal disagreements and debates, but al-Masry al-Youm seems to think that it has acquired a copy of the final version and has published it in two parts.

The contents of the platform won't suprise close observers of the Egyptian scene, since most of its contents have been aired by various MB leaders in interviews and articles over the last few months, and many of its key ideas date back to the Brotherhood's March 2004 position paper on reform.   But others might find it more surprising.  The platform's most notable feature is an explicit, blanket affirmation of the equality of all citizens before the law and rejection of any discrimination between them regardless of religion, race, or ethnic origin.   This, it seems to me, is the farthest they have ever officially gone towards meeting the fears of Coptic Christians.   The platform calls for a civil state, which is the MB's formula for saying that it does not envision rule by the ulema or the direct application of sharia.  It gets around the new Constitution's Article 5 banning the formation of a religious party by declaring its referent to be the affirmation in Article 2 of the Constitution that the sharia would be the primary source of legislation.   Most of its specifically political statements can only be described as liberal and roughly coincide with the demands of most sectors of Egyptian opposition discourse:  insisting on the authority of elections, the freedom to form political parties, civil society, rotation of power, sovereignty of law, judicial independence, and so forth.   In what strikes me as an especially important passage (1.9), it insists on freedom for all based on the premise that God gave every man the freedom to chose between faith and kafir - which could be read as a rejection of 'takfir', even if not as full-throated as I would have liked to see.   It is still Islamist, of course:  it rejects all forms of foreign intervention and interference, works to promote faith and sharia, and offers a vision of a more Islamic society. But it spends a lot more time on politics and economics than it does on religious discourse. 

The MB has made it clear over the last few months that it will not be submitting this platform to the Political Parties Committee, which is cynically and ruthlessly controlled by the ruling NDP and has consistently rejected all applications from possible political contenders. Even the moderate, borderline Islamist Wasat Party was rejected multiple times for offering "nothing new";  it will be interesting to see how the committee deals with the new party of former Islamist radicals, which will reportedly be announced today by Montasir al-Zayat.  But either way, the MB explains that it plans to lay out its platform to public opinion, responding to critics who have accused it of lacking a clear political vision and explaining to the people its real positions and ideas rather than the distortions peddled in the media.   

I suspect that many will have the response articulated by Coptic intellectual Milad Hana in a recent article (can't find the link, sorry):  very attractive words which won't fool Egyptians because they know the MB's true nature.  But others may well be drawn into public debate over the platform being advanced, and could well find common ground with those principles - which could further embarrass the ruling NDP, and could perhaps lay the groundwork for new political alliances in Egypt.  The MB is presenting the platform as a vehicle for such dialogues and public discussions.    Such debates will be interesting to follow - I've been following, for instance, an absolutely fascinating series of articles over the last two weeks by the secularist Sayid Qemni attacking the political ideas of noted MB moderate Abd el-Monem Abou el-Fattouh for cloaking Islamism within deceptively liberal rhetoric.  Those are good debates to have in public, and the way this political party platform is being presented suggests that the MB welcomes them.   I'll be watching closely.

For now, it's just worth noting the significance of the fact that the MB developed this kind of relatively liberal document at a time when it has come under such intense pressure from the regime.  It seems to me that it is trying as hard as it can - whether through this party platform or through its contestation of the Shura Council elections - to signal its moderation to Egyptian and foreign observers. 

(But gosh darn it all, couldn't they have waited a week and a half to release it... you'll see why in a week and a half.)   

Comments

[Amr Gharbeia]

The platform also promotes nuclear fusion (technology that, if practical at all, will not be available before decades) among its favorable energy sources. Let us hope the rest of their program is not as fictional.

Sometimes I think the "h-bomb is the solution".

[Neil]

Do you know if their manifesto has been published in English yet?