The Production
and Potential of the Islamic Alternative:
Neoliberalism and
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
When you hear
‘political Islam’ what comes to mind? There is perhaps the standard story of
terrorism, or of an oppressive Islamic regime, up against the modern and
all-powerful forces of the West. Journalist Thomas Friedman tells this story,
characterizing the rise of political Islam as a manifestation of Arab
frustration and humiliation with the West and with the impacts of neoliberal
globalization (Friedman, 2005, pg. 392). This paper envisions an alternative
story. The Muslim Brotherhood is a centrist Islamic group in Egypt. As a social
movement, it is now the largest provider of social services, and as a political
party, it is now the largest opposition group to President Hosni Mubarak’s
twenty-six year long, state-of-emergency autocracy (Stacher, 2007). Over the
past thirty years, the Muslim Brotherhood has steadily risen in prominence. In
this story, the Brotherhood does not exist because it has reacted to
neoliberalism or western Influence Egyptian elites. The Brotherhood has been
produced, surely, in relation to these, and yet it has identity and legitimacy
that are viable in their own right. While the Muslim Brotherhood gained legitimacy
and power in the neoliberal moment by providing the people with the social
safety net that Mubarak and neoliberal policy did not, the Brotherhood’s
potential as a real political alternative challenging the hegemony of Mubarak
and of neoliberal globalization, stems from the Brotherhood’s ability to forge
an identity that is not simply reactionary, an identity of its own, of
manufactured consent.
The efficacy of The
Muslim Brotherhood as a group in Egypt has been shaped from its inception by
its relationship with religious
tradition, with working-class Egyptians, with Western influence and with
Egyptian ruling elites. The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by six laborers and
a schoolteacher employed by the British in the Suez Canal Zone. Founding member
Hassan
al-Banna (the schoolteacher)
said, “We are weary of this life of humiliation and restriction. We see that
Arabs and the Muslims have no status and no dignity. They are not more than
mere hirelings belonging to foreigners...All that we desire now is to present
you with all we possess” (Al-Yassini, 1986, pg. 112). According to present-day Brotherhood leader Abul Futouh, the
group’s current long-term goal is to “create a participatory, democratic
country, based on the principles of Islamic law” (IRIN, 2006). The Brotherhood
is committed to effecting these changes through the existing system, not by
violence; unlike other Islamic groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Egypts’s
Muslim Brotherhood has no armed wing (Stacher, 2007). Secular nationalist laws
prohibiting religious political parties were enacted in the 1950s, effectively
banning the Brotherhood (IRIN, 2006), and still the Brotherhood has retained
its commitment to nonviolence. Even though it is illegal, the Brotherhood has
continually manufactured popular consent to its legitimacy by invoking and
engaging with its relationship to multiple identities. While the
founders of the Brotherhood were
inspired to create a counter-movement to British Imperialism, their movement
did not originate “solely from elite politics nor did its existence depend on
[them]” (Escobar, 1995). While it may be possible in some instances to
view the Brotherhood as a reactionary group responding to Western hegemony or
the hegemony of Egyptian elites, the Brotherhood is also constantly engaging
with its undeniable tie to Islam (which is greatly important and ever present
in Egypt) and its ties to the Egyptian people and the Egyptian nation. The
meanings of these ties and identities change as society changes; new meanings
change the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood changes meanings. Thus, through the Brotherhood’s
history we see its identity manifested as an unbounded creation, constantly
being reshaped through its interaction with multiple, constantly changing
dynamics that it itself shapes. What is important as we delve into The Muslim
Brotherhood’s changing role in the context of neoliberalism is that we continue
to view the Brotherhood’s identity as a constant creation at a dynamic
crossroad.
Structural adjustment
and austerity, part of a neoliberal IMF reform program agreed to by Egypt’s
elites, produced structural inequality and government corruption in Egypt. Subsidies were
removed on basic goods while wealth is increasingly concentrated through
privatization in the hands of a few. Under the 1980s and 1990s reform programs,
the budget deficit did fall to less than one percent of GDP and the inflation
rate below five percent (Mitchell, 2002, pg. 272). These statistics are widely
cited as proof of the efficacy of neoliberal principles, and indeed, if
Development success means reaching monetary and fiscal balance, then Egypt is
neoliberalism’s poster child. The statistics often cited by the IMF however,
ignore other changes going on in Egypt such as drops in real wages in the public
sector and increasing inequality. Reforms didn’t remove the state from market;
new wealth was just moved into private hands, the hands of increasingly corrupt
elites, those who were already in a position to take control of industry and
capital prior to privatization (Mitchell, 2002, pg. 286). In a 1995
ethnographic article, Mary Ann Weaver, paints a picture of Cairo that reflects
what in many ways could be considered the ravages of neoliberalism: “The city’s
once astonishing diversity of cultures and social strata had seemingly been
reduced to two starkly contrasting poles: poverty, which appeared everywhere,
and extraordinary wealth. All across Cairo...it was easy to spot soaring new
apartment buildings of glass and polished chrome and, immediately behind them,
narrow labyrinthine lanes where half naked children played...” (Weaver, 1995).
Thus we see how, while neoliberalism did much to improve the face of Egypt’s
macroeconomy, it did the little to improve actual living conditions for the
majority of lower and middle class Egyptian families. And while Weaver’s
ethnography portrays in important ways the ravages of neoliberalism, it is
important to keep in mind that the picture of socioeconomic polarity is a
dichotomy to be wary of; both are produced. The glitter of new wealth for
elites and the labyrinthine quandary of increasing poverty for lower classes
are spun in the hub of the same wheel at the intersection of the same spokes.
In
the 1990s the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood spun neoliberal policies as
un-Islamic and un-Egyptian. They pointed out that by imposing conditions on
debt relief structural adjustment programs violated the Islamic prohibition of
charging interest on debt. The Brotherhood also claimed that elimination of
subsidies for basic needs under structural adjustment violated the fifth pillar
of Islam, zakkat or giving alms to the poor (Lubeck, 1998, pg. 299).
Additionally, the Brotherhood could easily characterize the reforms as
unegyptian due to the evident role of institutions like the IMF in implementing
the program. Their rhetoric pointed to IMF conditionality requirements as
instruments of foreign control over Islamic society (Lubeck, 1998, pg. 317).
People, both within the Brotherhood and among its audience of working class
followers, were receptive and drawn to the message that Mubarak’s agreement to
the IMF reform package was not an Islamic or an Egyptian move. The
Brotherhood’s message garnered strength from the context of the historical
moment in which it appeared. Mubarak and the elite’s surrounding him were
increasingly perceived by lower class Egyptians as corrupt, poverty was
increasing in light of the reforms, and distaste with colonial influence still
hung heavily with Brotherhood and working people alike.
In
addition to their discursive spin on reforms, The Muslim Brotherhood reshaped
the face of the neoliberal moment through shifts in their own policies. In the
context of decreasing government provision of social services, the Brotherhood,
building on its own historical legacy of accountability to Egypt’s working
class, focused increasingly on providing social services for everyone. Over the
1990s the Brotherhood built up a vast system of wide-ranging social programs,
running, for example, 22 hospitals throughout Egypt and schools in every
governate in Egypt (IRIN, 2008). For its own members, the Brotherhood provided
full health benefits (Walsh, 2003). After the 1992 Cairo earthquake, at a
moment when natural disaster exposed and amplified the structural inequalities
produced by neoliberal policy, at a moment when the government did little, the
Brotherhood was the main responder, providing shelter, food, medical services,
and 1000 US dollars to every newly homeless family in Cairo (Walsh, 2003). The
Brotherhood attained funding for its infrastructure by invoking zakkat (the
same Islamic tenet of alms-giving that they accused government elites of
violating) to collect donations among its members. The Brotherhood’s services
were made available to all Egyptians, regardless of their political or
religious affiliation, allowing the Brotherhood to continue to cultivate its
identity as both an Islamic and Egyptian organization, accountable to the
working classes.
In
the neoliberal moment, Egypt’s working class embraced the Brotherhood’s
rhetoric and actions, producing increasing legitimacy and popular support for
the Brotherhood as an alternative to Mubarak’s majority party. The Muslim
Brotherhood gained huge amounts of support from students, young professionals
and the working class. With government spending on public goods decreasing
drastically, the cost of education increasing, and subsidies for basic goods
disappearing, students were hard-pressed to pay the high costs of food,
transportation, and textbooks, and turned in larger and larger numbers towards
the Muslim Brotherhood (Walsh, 2003). The Brotherhood was a networking tool for
students to find the resources they need, and in turn the students became a
networking tool for the brotherhood. Young professionals developed a similar
relationship with the Brotherhood. The government’s privatization of public
sectors of the economy effectively dismantled Nasser’s long-standing policy of
guaranteed government jobs for rising professionals, and groups of professional
that had previously been strongholds of secularism increasingly supported the
Muslim Brotherhood. For example, in 1987 elections the Brotherhood gained
control of the Engineers’ Syndicate, a 200,000-member trade union (Walsh,
2003). What is evident is that while the majority of Egyptians felt the effects
of neoliberal economic reform due its inability to provide a social safety net,
their experience was at the same time reshaped by the ability of the Muslim
Brotherhood to provide the safety net and remain accountable to all Egyptians.
In this way, in the neoliberal moment, we see the Egyptian populace
manufacturing consent for the Muslim Brotherhood as a social movement and as a
political party. As expressed by one Brotherhood member, “The organization
[sustains] two mutually reinforcing wings: the political and the social” (IRIN,
2006). Although the Brotherhood is still officially banned, Muslim Brotherhood
members who ran as independents, currently hold 20% of the seats in parliament,
making them the largest opposition bloc.
In
the new moment, we see the Brotherhood emerging from a changing relationship
between itself and the government as increasingly legitimate, while Mubarak’s
government is increasingly losing legitimacy as it reacts to the Brotherhood’s
increased power with more and more militarism and coercion. In the initial
years of structural adjustment an unspoken cooperation between the Brotherhood
and Mubarak was mutually beneficial. Mubarak’s tacit alliance with the Muslim
Brotherhood presented Mubarak as Islam-friendly thus preventing his criticisms
of radical Islam and alliance with the United States from being politically
explosive. The Brotherhood was able to build up its network of social services,
getting its foot in the door politically despite its official illegality, and
filling a hole in Mubarak’s policy, thus quelling political uprising in light
of his implementation of IMF austerity policy (Walsh, 2003). As Mubarak began
to perceive Brotherhood
as a real threat to his power, he ended cooperation, and increasingly cracked
down on the Brotherhood, implementing mass-arrests of any reputed Brotherhood
members and suppressing peaceful protests with violence (Walsh, 2003). The
Egyptian government’s attempts to maintain its legitimacy through coercion
illustrate a poor reorientation to new realities and increasing reliance on the
ability of its military to quell popular protest by force. The jump in the
Egyptian government’s human rights abuses that this generates increasingly
undermines the government’s legitimacy in the eyes of the world community and
Egyptians alike (Lubeck, 1998, pg. 306). The Muslim Brotherhood converges on
this moment as a group with integrity whose legitimacy has been produced not by
violence but by people’s consent to its authority, a much more stable backbone
of legitimacy. Additionally, since many government elites retained wealth
through the privatization process, the majority of Egyptians increasingly view
the government as corrupt. The Brotherhood however, is developing an increasingly
informal administrative structure in order to operate in spite of its illegal
status (IRIN, 2006). The decentralized nature of the Brotherhood’s power
structure is not a manifestation of their focus on the local as a source of
power or the way of the future; it is a manifestation of their operation at the
convergence of civil society, economy, and government. The power of the Muslim
Brotherhood is legitimate because it has been created at the meeting place of
the multiple identities and moments- Islamic, Egyptian, socially supportive,
accountable -that a dynamic group of individuals ascribe to it.
While
the Brotherhood has power through identity that is not merely comprised of what
it opposes, the hegemonies of the Egyptian elite and neoliberal policy are
limited by their reliance on forces that
embody other energies, methods, and goals (Mitchell, 2002). For example,
Mubarak’s regime initially maintained a tacit alliance with the Muslim
Brotherhood, a social service provider, to prop up his own legitimacy while he
removed social service programs; we’ve seen how Mubarak’s legitimacy is
crumbling. Additionally, western desire to maintain free-market capitalism can
be conceptualized as originating with a desire for access to oil in Arab world
(Mitchell, 2002). While we habitually and mistakenly may perceive Islamism as a
reaction to all-powerful forces of capitalism, in reality both must be actively
produced. What emerges from this is a picture of markets as produced by a
combination of very uncapitalist forces, by the “rule of experts” (Mitchell,
2002). When we see both the Brotherhood
and neoliberalism as active productions that have produced each other, we see
that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a local movement resisting a top-down impact
from elite or global forces. Through this paper we have conceptualized the
Muslim Brotherhood as an autonomous and non-reactionary movement. This does not
mean the Brotherhood stands like an island, unmoved and unrelated to what is
going on around it. It means instead that it is constantly interrelated,
constantly adopting multiple identities and adapting to multiple moments, thus
powerful beyond its reactions to opposition.
While the Brotherhood has most
definitely responded accountably in the neoliberal moment by providing
much-needed social services, its rising power and legitimacy is produced by the
consent of the majority of Egyptians as more than a responder. The identity of
the Brotherhood exists at the meeting place of its success in light of
neoliberal failure, of Islamic culture, of Egyptian nationalism, of civil
society, economics, and government. While we may be concerned about the
Brotherhood’s ability to uphold non-violent democracy with space for civil
society and religious freedom and plurality, these are some of the very values
and traditions that the Brotherhood’s authority rests on. As such, Brotherhood
leaders have made no mention of changes such as a ban on alcohol or mandatory
veiling for women (Williams, 2006), and have a consistently expressed a desire
not for power itself, but for Islamic-oriented democracy. As a current
Brotherhood member reiterates, “The Brothers consider constitutional rule to be
closest to Islamic rule” (Walsh, 2003). And given the Muslim Brotherhood’s
proven success in upholding these values through its rise to prominence over
the past thirty years, we should consider it a viable alternative to Mubarak’s
crumbling regime which remains undemocratic, failing to provide to services to
poor populations and employing violence arbitrarily. There is little doubt
among scholars that if free elections were held in Egypt, an Islamist
government could arise under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood (Lubeck,
1998, pg. 306). The Muslim Brotherhood, as a political party and a social
movement, presents an opportunity for state-led development in Egypt, capable
of acting in solidarity with the majority of people. With this in mind, we look
towards the future.
Works Cited
Al-Yassini, Ayman. (1986). “Islamic Revival and National
Development in the Arab World”, Journal of Asian and African Studies p. 104-121. Sage Publications.
Escobar, Arturo. (1995)
“Imagining a Post-Development Era”, Power
of Development.
Friedman, Thomas. (2005). The World Is Flat: A Brief History
of the Twenty-first Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
IRIN: the Integrated Regional Information Network. (2006).
“Egypt: Social Programmes bolster appeal of Muslim Brotherhood”. UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs.
Lubeck, Paul. (1998). “Islamist Responses to Globalization:
Cultural Conflict in Egypt, Algeria, and Malaysia”. University of California
Press, p. 293-319
Mitchell, Timothy. (2002). Rule
of Experts. University of California Press.
Mitchell, Timothy. (2002). “McJihad: Islam in the US Global
Order”, Social Text, Duke University Press.
Stacher, Joshua and Shehata, Samer. (2007). “Hear out Muslim
Brotherhood”, American University in Cairo and Georgetown University for the
Globe Newspaper Company.
Walsh, John. (2003). “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood:
Understanding Centrist Islam”, Perspectives on the United States Journal
Article published in the Harvard International Review.
Weaver, Mary Anne. (1995). “The
Novelist and the Sheikh.” The New Yorker, p. 52-69.
Williams, Daniel. (2006). “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood May Be
Model for Islam’s Political Adaptation”, Washington Post Foreign Service.
