All Entries in the "Ikhwanophobia" Category

Moderate and Radical Islam

ANGEL RABASA

One of the components of this study is relevant to a question that I was asked to address,which is how radical Islam differs from moderate or mainstream Islam. Frankly, one ofthe problems that we have found in the discourse about Islam is that the terms “radical”or “moderate” are often used in a subjective and imprecise way, without going through aprocess of critically examining what these terms mean. In some cases, the term radical ormilitant is defined in terms of support for terrorism or other forms of violence. Webelieve that this is too narrow a focus, that there is, in fact, a much larger universe offundamentalist or Salafi groups who may not themselves practice violence, but thatpropagate an ideology that creates the conditions for violence and that is subversive ofthe values of democratic societies.

Challenges to Democracy in the Arab and Muslim World

Alon Ben-Meir

President Bush’s notions that democratizing Iraq will have a ripple effect on the rest ofthe Arab world, bringing prosperity and peace to the region, and that democracy is the panaceafor Islamic terrorism are unsubstantiated as well as grossly misleading. Even a cursory review of the Arab political landscape indicates that the rise of democracy will not automatically translateinto the establishment of enduring liberal democracies or undermine terrorism in the region. Thesame conclusion may be generally made for the Muslim political landscape. In fact, given theopportunity to compete freely and fairly in elections, Islamic extremist organizations will mostlikely emerge triumphant. In the recent elections in Lebanon and Egypt, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood respectively, won substantial gains, and in Palestine Hamas won thenational Parliamentary elections handedly. That they did so is both a vivid example of the today’spolitical realities and an indicator of future trends. And if current sentiments in the Arab statesoffer a guide, any government formed by elected Islamist political parties will be more antagonistic to the West than the authoritarian regimes still in power. An plis, there are noindications that democracy is a prerequisite to defeating terrorism or any empirical data tosupport the claim of linkage between existing authoritarian regimes and terrorism.

Ikhwan a nan Amerik di Nò: Yon Istwa Kout

Douglas Farah

Ron Sandee

Ka tribinal federal aktyèl la kont Fondasyon Tè Sent pou Sekou ak Devlopman (HLF) nan Dallas, Texas,1 ofri yon gade andedan san parèy nan istwa Frè Mizilman yo nan Etazini, osi byen ke objektif li yo ak estrikti. Dokiman yo diskite sou rekritman, òganizasyon, ideoloji ak devlopman òganizasyon an nan diferan faz nan peyi Etazini. Lajistis nan ka a te prezante anpil dokiman entèn Frè Mizilman yo soti nan ane 1980 yo ak kòmansman ane 1990 yo ki bay yon premye tout tan., opinyon piblik la sou istwa a ak ideoloji dèyè operasyon yo nan Frè Mizilman yo (ke yo rekonèt kòm Ikhwan oswa Gwoup la) nan peyi Etazini. sou kat deseni ki sot pase yo. Pou chèchè yo, dokiman yo gen pwa a te ajoute ke yo te ekri pa lidè Ikhwan yo tèt yo, olye ke entèpretasyon sous segondè yo.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Belgium

Steve Merley,
Senior analis

The Global Muslim Brotherhood has been present in Europe since 1960 when SaidRamadan, the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, founded a mosque in Munich.1 Since that time,Brotherhood organizations have been established in almost all of the EU countries, as well asnon-EU countries such as Russia and Turkey. Despite operating under other names, some ofthe organizations in the larger countries are recognized as part of the global MuslimBrotherhood. For example, the Union des Organizations Islamiques de France (UOIF) isgenerally regarded as part of the Muslim Brotherhood in France. The network is alsobecoming known in some of the smaller countries such as the Netherlands, where a recentNEFA Foundation report detailed the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in that country.2Neighboring Belgium has also become an important center for the Muslim Brotherhood inEurope. A 2002 report by the Intelligence Committee of the Belgian Parliament explainedhow the Brotherhood operates in Belgium:“The State Security Service has been following the activities of the InternationalMuslim Brotherhood in Belgium since 1982. The International MuslimBrotherhood has had a clandestine structure for nearly 20 years. The identityof the members is secret; they operate in the greatest discretion. They seek tospread their ideology within the Islamic community of Belgium and they aimin particular at the young people of the second and third generation ofimmigrants. In Belgium as in other European countries, they try to take controlof the religious, social, and sports associations and establish themselves asprivileged interlocutors of the national authorities in order to manage Islamicaffairs. The Muslim Brotherhood assumes that the national authorities will bepressed more and more to select Muslim leaders for such management and,in this context, they try to insert within the representative bodies, individualsinfluenced by their ideology.

Frè Mizilman an Ewòp

The Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. Network

Zeyno Baran

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe

Lorenzo Vidino

Depi fondasyon li nan 1928, Frè Mizilman yo (Hizb al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) has profoundly influenced the political life of the Middle East. Its motto is telling: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

While the Brotherhood’s radical ideas have shaped the beliefs of generations of Islamists, over the past two decades, it has lost some of its power and appeal in the Middle East, crushed by harsh repression from local regimes and snubbed by the younger generations of Islamists who often prefer more radical organizations.

But the Middle East is only one part of the Muslim world. Europe has become an incubator for Islamist thought and political development. Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations. Unlike the larger Islamic community, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate goal may not be simply “to help Muslims be the best citizens they can be,” but rather to extend Islamic law throughout Europe and the United States.[2]

Four decades of teaching and cultivation have paid off. The student refugees who migrated from the Middle East forty years ago and their descendants now lead organizations that represent the local Muslim communities in their engagement with Europe’s political elite. Funded by generous contributors from the Persian Gulf, they preside over a centralized network that spans nearly every European country.

These organizations represent themselves as mainstream, even as they continue to embrace the Brotherhood’s radical views and maintain links to terrorists. With moderate rhetoric and well-spoken German, Dutch, and French, they have gained acceptance among European governments and media alike. Politicians across the political spectrum rush to engage them whenever an issue involving Muslims arises or, more parochially, when they seek the vote of the burgeoning Muslim community.

But, speaking Arabic or Turkish before their fellows Muslims, they drop their facade and embrace radicalism. While their representatives speak about interfaith dialogue and integration on television, their mosques preach hate and warn worshippers about the evils of Western society. While they publicly condemn the murder of commuters in Madrid and school children in Russia, they continue to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Europeans, eager to create a dialogue with their increasingly disaffected Muslim minority, overlook this duplicity. The case is particularly visible in Germany, which retains a place of key importance in Europe, not only because of its location at the heart of Europe, but also because it played host to the first major wave of Muslim Brotherhood immigrants and is host to the best-organized Brotherhood presence. The German government’s reaction is also instructive if only to show the dangers of accepting Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric at face value, without looking at the broader scope of its activities.

Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism

DALE C. EIKMEIER

The recently published National Military Strategic Plan for the War onTerrorism (NMSP-WOT) is to be commended for identifying “ideology”as al Qaeda’s center of gravity.1 The identification of an ideology as thecenter of gravity rather than an individual or group is a significant shift froma“capture and kill” philosophy to a strategy focused on defeating the rootcause of Islamic terrorism. Accordingly, the plan’s principal focus is on attackingand countering an ideology that fuels Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately,the NMSP-WOT fails to identify the ideology or suggest ways tocounter it. The plan merely describes the ideology as “extremist.” This descriptioncontributes little to the public’s understanding of the threat or to thecapabilities of the strategist who ultimately must attack and defeat it. The intentof this article is to identify the ideology of the Islamic terrorists and recommendhow to successfully counter it.Sun Tzuwisely said, “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundredbattles you will never be in peril.”2 Our success in theWar on Terrorismdepends on knowingwho the enemy is and understanding his ideology.While characterizing and labeling an enemymay serve such a purpose, it is only usefulif the labels are clearly defined and understood. Otherwise, overly broadcharacterizations obscure our ability to truly “know the enemy,” they diffuseefforts, and place potential allies and neutrals in the enemy’s camp. Unfortunately,theWar on Terrorism’s use of labels contributes a great deal to themisunderstandingsassociated with the latter. The fact is, five years after 9/11 theNMSP-WOT provides little specific guidance, other than labeling the enemyas extremist.3 This inability to focus on the specific threat and its supportingphilosophy reflects our own rigid adherence to political correctness and is beingexploited bymilitant Islamists portraying these overly broad descriptionsas a war against Islam.As David F. Forte states “Wemust not fail . . . to distinguishbetween the homicidal revolutionaries like bin Laden and mainstreamMuslim believers.

Terrorist and Extremist Movements in the Middle East

Terrorism and asymmetric warfare are scarcely new features of the Middle Eastern military balance, and Islamicextremism is scarcely the only source of extremist violence. There are many serious ethnic and sectarian differencesin the Middle East, and these have long led to sporadic violence within given states, and sometimes to major civilconflicts. The civil wars in Yemen and the Dhofar Rebellion in Oman are examples, as are the long history of civilwar in Lebanon and Syria’s violent suppression of Islamic political groups that opposed the regime of Hafez al-Asad. The rising power of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) led to a civil war in Jordan in September1970. The Iranian revolution in 1979 was followed by serious political fighting, and an effort to export a theocraticrevolution that helped trigger the Iran-Iraq War. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have both had civil clashes between theirSunni ruling elites and hostile Shi’ites and these clashes led to significant violence in the case of Saudi Arabia.There also, sepandan, has been a long history of violent Islamic extremism in the region, sometimes encouraged byregimes that later became the target of the very Islamists they initially supported. Sadat attempted to use Islamicmovements as a counter to his secular opposition in Egypt only to be assassinated by one such movement after hispeace agreement with Israel. Israel thought it safe to sponsor Islamic movements after 1967 as a counter to thePLO, only to see the rapid emergence of violently anti-Israeli groups. North and South Yemen were the scene ofcoups and civil wars since the early 1960s, and it was a civil war in South Yemen that ultimately led to the collapseof its regime and its merger with North Yemen in 1990.The fall of the shah led to an Islamist takeover in Iran, and resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan triggeredan Islamist reaction that still influences the Middle East and the entire Islamic world. Saudi Arabia had to deal withan uprising at the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. The religious character of this uprising shared many elementsof the movements that arose after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Gulf War in 1991.Algerian efforts to suppress the victory of Islamic political parties in a democratic election in 1992 were followed bya civil war that has lasted ever since. Egypt fought a long and largely successful battle with its own Islamicextremists in the 1990s, but Egypt has only managed to have suppressed such movements rather than eradicatedthem. In the rest of the Arab World, the civil wars in Kosovo and Bosnia helped create new Islamic extremist cadres.Saudi Arabia suffered from two major terrorist attacks before 2001. These attacks struck at a National GuardTraining center and USAF barracks at Al Khobar, and at least one seems to have been the result of Islamicextremists. Mawòk, Libya, Tinizi, Lòt bò larivyè Jouden, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen have all seen hard-line Islamistmovements become a serious national threat.While not directly part of the region, the Sudan has fought a 15-year long civil war that has probably cost over twomillion lives, and this war had been supported by hard-line Islamist elements in the Arab north. Somalia has alsobeen the scene of a civil war since 1991 that has allowed Islamist cells to operate in that country.

Lanmò Islam politik la

Jon B. Alterman

Nekroloji pou Islam politik yo te kòmanse ekri. Apre ane nan kwasans san pèdi enstopab, Pati Islamik yo te kòmanse bite. Nan Maròk, Pati Jistis ak Devlopman an (oswa PJD) te fè pi mal pase sa te espere nan eleksyon septanm pase yo, ak Fwon Aksyon Islamik Jordan la pèdi plis pase mwatye syèj li yo nan biwo vòt mwa pase a. Manifesto fratènite Mizilman peyi Lejip la te espere anpil, yon bouyon ki te parèt nan mwa septanm pase a,pa te montre ni fòs ni kouraj. Olye de sa, li sijere ke gwoup la te anvayi pa kontradiksyon entelektyèl ak boule nan batay entèn. Li twò bonè pou deklare lanmò Islam politik la., kòm li te twò bonè pwoklame therebirth nan liberalis nan mond lan Arab nan 2003-04, men kandida li yo sanble miyò dimmer pase yo te fè menm yon ane de sa.Pou kèk, tonbe nan favè Bondye te inevitab; Islam politik te tonbe anba pwòp kontradiksyon li yo, yo di. Yo diskite sa, an tèm objektif, Islam politik pa t janm plis pase lafimen ak miwa. Relijyon se sou lafwa ak verite, ak politik yo se sou konpwomi ak aranjman. Wè konsa, Islam politik pa t janm yon antrepriz sen, men senpleman yon efò pou ranfòse kandida politik yon bò nan yon deba politik. Te sipòte pa otorite relijye ak lejitimite, opozisyon ak volonte Islamis yo te sispann jis politik-li te vin erezi-e Islamis yo te benefisye.,bèf ènmi politik, ak rasanbleman sipò. Kòm yon estrateji gouvène, sepandan, yo diskite ke Islam politik pa te pwodwi okenn siksè. Nan de zòn kote li dènyèman leve topower, Otorite Palestinyen an ak Irak, gouvènans te anemik. Nan Iran, kote molla yo te sou pouvwa pou prèske twa deseni, relijye yo ap lite pou respè epi peyi a ap bay lajan nan Doubay ak lòt mache lòt bò dlo yo ak règ pi previzib ak plis retounen pozitif.. Eta ki pi avowedly relijye nan Mwayen Oryan an, Arabi Saoudit, gen mwens libète entelektyèl pase anpil nan vwazen li yo, ak gadyen orthodoxi la ak anpil atansyon sikonskri panse relijye yo. Kòm savan franse nan Islam,Olivier Roy, obsève memorab plis pase yon dekad de sa, fusion relijyon ak politik pa t sanktifye politik, li politize relijyon.Men, pandan ke Islam pa te bay yon teyori aderan nan gouvènans, se pou kont li yon apwòch inivèsèl aksepte nan pwoblèm yo nan limanite, sayans nan relijyon kontinye ap grandi nan mitan anpil Mizilman., which have become more conservative for both women and men in recent years, andbeyond language, which invokes God’s name far more than was the case a decade ago. It also goes beyond the daily practice ofIslam—from prayer to charity to fasting—all of which are on the upswing.What has changed is something even more fundamental than physical appearance or ritual practice, and that is this: A growingnumber of Muslims start from the proposition that Islam is relevant to all aspects of their daily lives, epi pa sèlman pwovens teyoloji oswa kwayans pèsonèl. Gen kèk ki wè sa kòm yon retou nan tradisyonèlis nan Mwayen Oryan an., lè diferan mezi sipèstisyon ak espirityalite gouvène lavi chak jou. Plis presizyon, menm si, sa n ap wè se monte "neo-traditionalism,"nan ki senbòl ak slogan nan tan pase yo te enskri nan pouswit prese antre nan tan kap vini an.. Finans Islamik-ki vle di, finans ki depann sou aksyon ak retounen olye ke enterè-ap en, ak branch labank dous yo genyen antre separe pou gason ak fanm. Slick jenn televangelists konte sou twop yo nan sanktifye chak jou a ak chèche padon., atire dè dizèn de milye nan reyinyon yo ak odyans televizyon yo nan plizyè milyon. Music videos—viewable on YouTube—implore young viewers to embrace faith and turn away froma meaningless secular life.Many in the West see secularism and relativism as concrete signs of modernity. Nan Mwayen Oryan an, many see them as symbols ofa bankrupt secular nationalist past that failed to deliver justice or development, freedom or progress. The suffering of secularism ismeaningless, but the discipline of Islam is filled with signficance.It is for this reason that it is premature to declare the death of political Islam. Islam, increasingly, cannot be contained. It is spreadingto all aspects of life, and it is robust among some of the most dynamic forces in the Middle East. It enjoys state subsidies to be sure,men eta yo pa gen anpil pou wè ak kreyativite ki fèt nan domèn relijye a. Danje a se ke Islamizasyon lavi piblik sa a pral jete ti tolerans ki rete nan Mwayen Oryan an., apre plizyè syèk asa—fondamentalman Islamik—entrepôt miltikiltirèl. Li difisil pou imajine ki jan sosyete Islamize yo ka fleri si yo pa anbrase inovasyon ak kreyativite, divèsite ak diferans. "Islamik" se pa yon konsèp ki evidan, jan zanmi m nan Mustapha Kamal Pasha te obsève yon fwa, men li pa kapab yon sous fòs nan sosyete modèn yo si li mare ak nosyon osifye ak pawasyal sou nati li. Fè fas ak diferans se fondamantalman yon travay politik., epi se isit la ke Islam politik pral fè fas a vrè tès li yo. Estrikti fòmèl gouvènman an nan Mwayen Oryan yo te pwouve dirab, epi yo pa gen anpil chans tonbe anba yon vag nan aktivis Islamik. Pou Islam politik yo reyisi, li bezwen jwenn yon fason pou ini divès kowalisyon divès kalite lafwa ak degre lafwa, pa sèlman pale ak baz li. Li poko jwenn yon fason pou fè sa, men sa pa vle di ke li pa kapab.

TERORRIST DIASPORAS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

Shannon Peterson

David Goetze

Ever since the Bush administration’s declaration of a global war on terror after 9/11,academics and policymakers have sought ways to counter the global terrorist threat. However asJeffrey Record (2003) has noted, treating terrorism monolithically and failing to discriminatebetween terrorist groups and other actors reduces the ability to produce effectivecounterterrorism strategies. Desizyon an pou transfere yo nan tribinal militè yo pa respekte vèdik tribinal sivil yo te kondane pa òganizasyon entènasyonal dwa moun., it can set actors “on a course of open-ended andgratuitous conflict with states and nonstate entities that pose no serious threat.” If terrorism andterrorist groups are not homogenous entities, then understanding the differences and similaritiesbetween groups is a crucial first step in constructing an effective counterterrorist response.This research seeks to better discriminate between terrorist groups by examining thegoals, tactics and images embedded in the narratives of terrorist or terrorist spawningorganizations. We define narratives as shared understandings of historical events and relevantactors that are used to justify past political actions or mobilize people for contemporary politicalactions as generally expressed through descriptions or charters issued by organizations orthrough statements of organizational leaders.2 Narrative, as noted by Benedict Anderson, formsthe underbelly of an “imagined community:” the glue binding a group of like-minded individualswho, “will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet inthe minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson 6). Consequently, we believethat narratives are excellent sources for uncovering group conceptions of “self” and “others” thatare key in attracting and maintaining ties to diaspora communities, as well as related group goals,strategies and tactics. We argue that by comparing the goals, images and tactics embedded in thenarratives of these different organizations, we can shed insight on crucial differences andsimilarities between these terrorist groups. These insights not only help discriminate betweenterrorist groups and other organizations, but also shed insight on the evolution of suchorganizations themselves.Specifically, this research examines the narratives of four groups: the MuslimBrotherhood, Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Tamil Tigers. Two of these groups, Hamas and AlQaeda, have roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore can be viewed as diasporas of thelatter. Sepandan, while the Muslim Brotherhood takes an evolutionary and nonviolent approachto goal attainment, Hamas and Al Qaeda advocate violence and terrorism to advance their cause,tactics that are also promoted by the fourth group in the analysis, the Tamil Tigers. Since theTamil Tigers have no connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, their inclusion in ourcomparative analysis allows us to determine how much of the commonality of goals acrossterrorist organizations pertains to common roots and how much pertains to commonality oforganizational type, function or tactics.

Islamic Movements and the Use of Violence:

Esen Kirdis

.

Despite recent academic and popular focus on violent transnational Islamic terrorist networks,there is a multiplicity of Islamic movements. This multiplicity presents scholars with two puzzles. The first puzzle is understanding why domestic-oriented Islamic movements that were formed as a reaction to the establishment of secular nation-states shifted their activities and targets onto a multi-layered transnational space. The second puzzle is understanding why groups with similar aims and targets adopt different strategies of using violence or nonviolence when they “go transnational.” The two main questions that this paper will address are: Why do Islamic movements go transnational? And, why do they take on different forms when they transnationalize? Premye, I argue that the transnational level presents a new political venue for Islamic movements which are limited in their claim making at the domestic level. Second, I argue that transnationalization creates uncertainty for groups about their identity and claims at the transnational level. The medium adopted, i.e. use of violence versus non-violence, is dependent on type of transnationalization, the actors encounter at the transnational level, and leadership’s interpretations on where the movement should go next. To answer my questions, I will look at four cases: (1) Turkish Islam, (2) Frè Mizilman yo, (3) Jemaah Islamiyah, epi (4) Tablighi Jamaat

The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States

The leadership of the U.S. Fratènite Mizilman yo (MB, or Ikhwan) has said that its goal

Steven Merley

The leadership of the U.S. Fratènite Mizilman yo (MB, or Ikhwan) has said that its goal was and is jihad aimed at destroying the U.S. from within.

The Brotherhood leadership has also said that the means of achieving this goal is to establish Islamic organizations in the U.S. under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since the early 1960s, the Brotherhood has constructed an elaborate covert organizational infrastructure on which was built a set of public or “front” organizations.

The current U.S. Brotherhood leadership has attempted to deny this history, both claiming that it is not accurate and at the same time that saying that it represents an older form of thought inside the Brotherhood.

An examination of public and private Brotherhood documents, sepandan, indicates that this history is both accurate and that the Brotherhood has taken no action to demonstrate change in its mode of thought and/or activity.