http://www.syria-today.com/index.php/politics/20691-political-islam-revisited
Political Islam Revisited
August 2012
As Islamists emerge as winners in Arab Spring countries, Syrians are
debating whether the long-banned movement could gain a political future in
their country.
By Abdulhamid Qabbani and Alma Hassoun
Photo Adel Samara
The adrenaline of Syrian protester Samer rose to “unprecedented levels”
as he waited impatiently for the results of the Egyptian presidential election
to be announced on June 24. “I was much more excited than when watching an
important football match,” the 29-year-old said smiling. “I wanted [the Muslim
Brotherhood’s] Muhammad Morsi to win.”
Many other Syrians were also glued to their TVs watching the first
democratically elected Egyptian president get voted in eight months after
Tunisia’s free elections also brought Islamists to power.
Far from being merely curious, many Syrians were wondering if the results
in Egypt would affect the Syrian uprising, given the countries’ common history.
“History has taught me that we [Syria] and Egypt are always together at any
time,” Samer explained.
Indeed, both countries were led for decades by similar secular political
regimes; during the short-lived union of 1958, they even became one state with
a shared flag. In 1973, they jointly launched the October War on Israel, after
each lost territory in the 1967 Israeli offensive.
Now, media reports claim that Syrian Muslim Brothers plan to meet with
Morsi, who pledged in his first speech as president to “spare no effort” to
support Syrian rebels’ struggle against the regime.
Years of exclusion
Muslim Brotherhood members were persecuted in both countries. However, in
Egypt they participated in the country’s political life, and were represented
in its parliament when the revolution started there on January 25, 2011. In
Syria, however, the Brotherhood was banned in 1963, 18 years after it was
established, when a coup brought the Ba’ath Party to power. “Syria is not an
Islamic country,” Syrian analyst Eiad Wannous explained; thus, “all religious
parties and assembly were banned.”
Indeed, membership in the Syrian branch of the pan-Islamic movement,
established in Syria by Moustapha Siba’i 17 years after its founding in Egypt,
was not only banned but, with the introduction of Emergency Law 49 of 1980, was
punishable by a mandatory death sentence. Two years after this law was passed,
many members were exiled or killed when the army besieged Hama, then a
Brotherhood stronghold, resulting in the deaths of up to 25,000 people from all
sides, according a 2012 Amnesty International report.
Until 2000, millions of public school students were taught to chant
against the organisation as an agent and criminal tool of “imperialism,
Zionism, and backwardness.”
“Generations of Syrians have been brought up to hate the Brotherhood,” a
university professor who requested anonymity said.
Many Syrians also revile the Muslim Brotherhood’s history of violence.
“Algeria, Egypt and Syria, for instance, were targeted by terrorist attacks
[orchestrated by the brotherhood],” Hussein al-Odat, a member of the opposition
National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, told Syria Today.
Political Islam is back
While some say the Muslim Brotherhood’s chances of realising any
political power in a future Syria are slim, others believe its arrival to the
Egyptian presidency raises this possibility.
The Brotherhood currently holds a quarter of the 310 seats in the Syrian
National Council (SNC), giving it the most clout in this opposition umbrella,
according to the US-funded Carnegie Middle East Center. Crucially, it has
“gained control of the SNC’s aid division and military bureau,” – committees
which distribute money and aid to anti-regime rebels – Fawaz al-Tello, a
veteran opposition figure, told Reuters.
Seven years before the Syrian uprising started, the Brotherhood published
on its website a detailed political project for a “future Syria” aimed at
establishing a “modern Islamic state” guaranteeing “individual freedoms”
allowing people to choose their leaders and enjoy political pluralism.
This March, the organisation published a manifesto pledging to establish
a modern, democratic state based on a civil constitution, to guarantee human
rights and to reject terrorism. “The Syrian [Muslim] Brotherhood’s program is
more progressive than that of Egypt’s,” Odat argued.
But although the phrase “Islamic state” does not appear in its new
proposal for Syria, this has not alleviated everyone’s fears. “I am afraid of
religious rule because it stirs sectarianism,” Rana, 27, from Homs said. “How
can you guarantee that the Brotherhood would treat people equally?”
Rana, a devout Muslim whose modest dress includes a headscarf, said she
would not vote for this party for fear it could impose fundamentalist
interpretations of Islamic principles, such as gender segregation in schools,
the restriction of women’s movement, and mandatory face veiling.
However, Sawsan Zakzak, a political and women’s rights activist, played
down such fears, arguing that as Syrian women do not enjoy equality under the
current regime, they do not stand to lose much if the Brotherhood came to
power. “Syria hasn’t achieved any legal gains [in women rights]. We don’t fear
losing something we don’t have in the first place.”
Zakzak added that while Egyptian law prevents underage women from
marrying and allows children to receive their mothers’ nationality, no such
legislation exists in Syria.
Nevertheless, many Syrians remain wary of the Muslim Brotherhood due to
the memory of assassinations of prominent officers and public servants in the
late seventies and early eighties, and a massacre at the Aleppo Artillery
School in 1979, all attributed to the Muslim Brotherhood by the regime.
Others feel reassured by the organisation’s avowed political platform. “I
used to be terrified by the mere thought that the Brotherhood would rule
Syria,” said Abdullah, a fourth-year undergraduate. “However, after reading
their programme, I changed my mind.”
Future prospects
Zakzak argues the Brotherhood could take power, since “no party in Syria
enjoys wide public support” given that the country’s political life was
destroyed for more than forty years.Abdullah agreed, saying he would consider
voting for them if they had a clear reform programme. Odat, however, pointed
out that decades earlier, as a nascent movement, “they were given two chances
in the 1961 and 1956 [parliamentary elections] but did not get many seats,” he
said, insisting “there is no fear of them.” He added that since Syria is more
ethnically and religiously diverse than Egypt, “in Syria, they aren’t qualified
to be leaders of society.”
Although many see them as a well organised political party, some say the
Syrian Brotherhood’s lack of promotional tools lessens their chances of
advancement, arguing that the Egyptian Brotherhood’s years of charity work is
what earned them popularity and ultimately political success. In Syria, by
contrast, the anonymous professor said, their political isolation has prevented
them from earning any public support. Odat concurred. “Although the [Syrian]
Brotherhood is distributing aid in northern Syria, as the Egyptian Brotherhood
did for long years which made them popular, a year won’t change [Syrian]
people’s opinion [about them].”
Many from the younger generations driving the Arab Spring have a
different take on the political future. “People are fed up with corruption,
communism, and autocratic regimes – the only new trend is the Islamic movement,
which has always been an opposition,” Abdullah declared.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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