Το Διαδίκτυο και η ισλαμιστική πολιτική στην Ιορδανία, Μαρόκο και Αίγυπτο.

Andrew Helms

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first saw a dissemination of the Internet as a center of communication, information, entertainment and commerce.

The spread of the Internet reached all four corners of the globe, connecting the researcher in Antarctica with the farmer in Guatemala and the newscaster in Moscow to the Bedouin in Egypt.

Through the Internet, the flow of information and real-time news reaches across continents, and the voices of subalternity have the potential to project their previously silenced voices through blogs, websites and social networking sites.

Political organizations across the left-right continuum have targeted the Internet as the political mobilizer of the future, and governments now provide access to historical documents, party platforms, and administrative papers through their sites. Similarly, religious groups display their beliefs online through official sites, and forums allow members from across the globe to debate issues of eschatology, orthopraxy and any number of nuanced theological issues.

Fusing the two, Islamist political organizations have made their presence known through sophisticated websites detailing their political platforms, relevant news stories, and religiously oriented material discussing their theological views. This paper will specifically examine this nexus – the use of the Internet by Islamist political organizations in the Middle East in the countries of Jordan, Μαρόκο και Αίγυπτο.

Although a wide range of Islamist political organizations utilize the Internet as a forum to publicize their views and create a national or international reputation, the methods and intentions of these groups vary greatly and depend on the nature of the organization.

This paper will examine the use of the Internet by three ‘moderate’ Islamist parties: the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, the Justice and Development Party in Morocco and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As these three parties have increased their political sophistication and reputation, both at home and abroad, they have increasingly utilized the Internet for a variety of purposes.

Πρώτα, Islamist organizations have used the Internet as a contemporary extension of the public sphere, a sphere through which parties frame, communicate and institutionalize ideas to a broader public.

Secondly, the Internet provides Islamist organizations an unfiltered forum through which officials may promote and advertise their positions and views, as well as circumvent local media restrictions imposed by the state.

Τελικά, το Διαδίκτυο επιτρέπει στις ισλαμιστικές οργανώσεις να παρουσιάζουν έναν αντιηγεμονικό λόγο σε αντίθεση με το κυβερνών καθεστώς ή τη μοναρχία ή να εκτίθενται σε διεθνές ακροατήριο. Αυτό το τρίτο κίνητρο ισχύει πιο συγκεκριμένα για τους Αδελφούς Μουσουλμάνους, η οποία παρουσιάζει έναν εξελιγμένο ιστότοπο στην αγγλική γλώσσα, σχεδιασμένο σε δυτικό στυλ και προσαρμοσμένο ώστε να προσεγγίζει ένα επιλεκτικό κοινό μελετητών, politicians and journalists.

Το MB έχει διαπρέψει σε αυτό το λεγόμενο "bridgeblogging" 1 και έχει θέσει το πρότυπο για τα ισλαμικά κόμματα που προσπαθούν να επηρεάσουν τις διεθνείς αντιλήψεις για τις θέσεις και το έργο τους. Το περιεχόμενο ποικίλλει μεταξύ της αραβικής και της αγγλικής έκδοσης του ιστότοπου, και θα εξεταστεί περαιτέρω στην ενότητα για τους Αδελφούς Μουσουλμάνους.

Αυτοί οι τρεις στόχοι αλληλεπικαλύπτονται σημαντικά τόσο στις προθέσεις όσο και στα επιθυμητά τους αποτελέσματα; ωστόσο, each goal targets a different actor: the public, the media, and the regime. Following an analysis of these three areas, this paper will proceed into a case study analysis of the websites of the IAF, the PJD and the Muslim Brotherhood.