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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Jan-2011
29-Jan-11 News -- Fears of Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt

Web Log - January, 2011

29-Jan-11 News -- Fears of Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt

Will the turmoil in Egypt unleash Hamas to attack Israel?

Fears of Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt

Most of the mainstream press is treating the riots in Egypt as an almost blessed event. At last we'll have "regime change," goes the narrative, and Hosni Mubarak, who has been president for 30 years, will be forced to flee, just as Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had been forced to flee. "A new Egypt is likely to emerge from Revolution that seeks not Islam but Freedom," gleefully proclaims the New York Sun.

There are more sober appraisals, of course. One of them, put forth by Der Spiegel, is that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt could take power and start supplying arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist organization headquartered in Egypt, and linked to Muslim Brotherhood organizations in countries around the Muslim world.

Most news stories deal endlessly with what the Obama administration should do. Here's the statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think we have been answering those concerns for quite some time. And as President Obama said yesterday very clearly, and as I said in Doha, it is absolutely vital for Egypt to embrace reform, to ensure not just its long-term stability, but also the progress and prosperity that its people richly deserve.
Now, Egypt has been a strong partner of the United States on a range of regional and strategic interests. And as a partner, we believe strongly, and have expressed this consistently, that the Egyptian Government needs to engage with the Egyptian people in implementing needed political, economic, and social reforms. We have consistently raised this with the Egyptian Government over many years. We also have raised it with other governments in the region. And there is a constant concern about the need for greater openness, greater participation on the part of the people, particularly young people, which is something I was very clear about in Doha. And we want to continue to partner with the Egyptian Government and the Egyptian people.
Now, what will eventually happen in Egypt is up to Egyptians. But it is important for us to make very clear that as a partner of Egypt, we are urging that there be a restraint on the part of the security forces, there not be a rush to impose very strict measures that would be violent, and that there be a dialogue between the government and the people of Egypt. At the same time, we also would urge the protesters to engage in peaceful protests, which they have every right to do, and the deep grievances that they are raising deserve to be addressed.
But the real question we’re focused on is: How can we support a better future for the people of Egypt that responds to their aspirations? And as I’ve said before and as the President has also said, the Egyptian Government has a real opportunity in the face of this very clear demonstration of opposition to begin a process that will truly respond to the aspirations of the people of Egypt. We think that moment needs to be seized, and we are hoping that it is."

Clinton's statement had only the purpose of trying not to get blamed for doing the wrong thing, whatever happens. Still, the question of what the Obama Administration should do to make sure that democracy wins in Egypt has been a major topic of discussion on Friday.

Needless to say, what the Obama administration does will have no predictable effect whatsoever on what happens in Egypt.

I often characterize Gaza's population as a bunch of kids running around with guns and missiles. That's because the average age is 17, according to the CIA Fact Book, meaning that the majority of the population are from an earlier generation than the Hamas leadership.

Thus, it's not surprising that the latest poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) finds that these kids really have little faith in either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, and don't believe that either of them is telling the truth. These kids are like America's young Millennial generation (Gen-Y), who are sick and tired of the vitriolic fighting between Boomers and Gen-Xers, and don't particularly trust either of them.

The same kind of dynamic holds in Egypt. The median age is a little older than Gaza -- 24 -- but then again, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are older as well. And the young people in Egypt feel little connection with either the Mubarak government, or the main opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood.

For the West, the major event of the 20th century was World War II. News stories constantly talk about the "post World War II era," as if the world had been created in 1945.

But for most of the Mideast Muslim world, WW II was just another war. There were two other wars that were far more important.

The first was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, leaving Turkey as a secular state. The effect on the Muslim world can be compared to the effect on the Catholic world if the Vatican were suddenly to become a secular organization. Where there used to be an empire that tied all Muslims together, after the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Muslim world was nothing more than a collection of unconnected islands.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, filled that void. MB grew rapidly and had millions of members. Once again, there was a world Muslim community. The political goal was to expel the British from the Mideast.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood violent? They will tell you that outside of a couple of particular events, particularly their involvement in the war between Jews and Arabs following the creation of the state of Israel, that they are not violent. They will tell you that they completely renounced violence in the 1980s. Others disagree, and many in the West consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in Egypt, but with a huge membership, they are tolerated by the Mubarak government, as long as there is no violence. They field candidates in elections as "independents."

The second important 20th century war in the Muslim world was the Iran's 1979 Great Islamic Revolution, followed by the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s. This war electrified the entire Muslim world because it showed that it's possible to have an Islamic state to replace the Ottoman Empire in leading the Muslim world. But the Iran/Iraq war showed something else: that Shia Muslim Iran could never be the leader of the Sunni Muslim world.

Just as the Muslim Brotherhood came out of the wreckage of the Ottoman collapse, al-Qaeda came out of the wreckage of the Iran/Iraq war. Osama bin Ladin rejected the non-violent doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood. His political objective was to expel the British, the Americans, and the Israelis from the Mideast. Any means possible could be used, but the first step would be to trigger a revolution in some Sunni Muslim country, to replicate the success of Iran's Great Islamic Revolution.

It's worth noting that al-Qaeda has eclipsed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood both have organizations in many Muslim countries, but the Brotherhood is mostly viewed as a political organization, while al-Qaeda is the brand name of choice for anyone who wants to blow something up.

In the Palestinian territories, there are three clearly identifiable generations, as I first described in 2006:

The Old Guard. These are people born before 1949, including Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Having lived through and survived the genocidal 1940s war between Jews and Arabs, they've made it their life goal to keep any such war from occurring again. They negotiated the 1994 Oslo peace agreement with Israel. Arafat died in 2004, and Abbas is over 70 years old. This generation has all but disappeared, but is represented by Fatah / the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas Generation. Born in the decades following the 1940s war, they have no personal memory of its horrors. Hamas was formed in the early 1980s, with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. It began the first Intifada, starting in 1989. They agreed to a ceasefire when the Oslo agreement was signed in 1994, but refused to honor the agreement or recognize Israel. After the Israelis withdrew from Gaza they became the government in control of Gaza, while the Old Guard is the government in control of the West Bank.

The Young Guard. This is the "youth bulge" generation of young militants. Born since 1980, they consider violence against Israelis as an end in itself, and many are committed to the destruction of Israel. However, they have little faith in either Hamas or Fatah.

There's a smaller "youth bulge" in Egypt, as described above, but they too have little faith in either the Mubarak administration or in the Muslim Brotherhood. This has become clear from this past weeks riots, where the demonstrators are demanding change, the resignation of Mubarak, cheaper food and more jobs. But they have not so far named any political group to replace the Mubarak administration. In particular, they have not adopted the Muslim Brotherhood as their cause.

In fact, there are other political parties in Egypt. If Mubarak is forced to flee, as the protesters demand, then the Muslim Brotherhood will be an important political force, but not the only one.

Furthermore, the Egyptian army plays an important role. Every Egyptian male is required by law to serve in the army. This means that all the youthful demonstrators are quite comfortable with the army, and it also means that the army itself reflects the attitudes of the young demonstrators. Thus, there have been several news stories on Friday of demonstrators and soldiers talking and sharing food and water.

Such violence as has occurred in Cairo has apparently been at the hands Mubarak's security forces, who are apparently just as unpopular with the army as they are with the protesters.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, we make certain assumptions. Generally speaking, we assume that major policies in every country, including dictatorships, are made by great masses of people, entire generations of people.

Thus, we have to assume that 30 years of policies under the Mubarak administration must have had some kind of general approval from most of the general population.

I'm particularly thinking of the wall that separates Gaza from Egypt. This wall is portrayed in the mainstream press as a means of oppressing the Gaza people, and that may well be the case.

But I believe that if young Egyptians didn't want that wall there, then it would already have been torn down, or at least the rioters would already have demanded that it be torn down.

So I'm going to assume that the general population, including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, do not want the large Gaza population to be able to pour into Egypt, possibly destabilizing the country further. Nor do Egypt's general population, I assume, want to allow Hamas to have unlimited access to weapons, which could be turned again Egyptians as well as Israelis.

Thus, even if the Mubarak regime collapses, it's far from clear that the worst fears of the Israelis and the Americans, and the greatest hopes of Hamas, will be realized. Based on what I've seen so far, the young protesters and the army, the two major forces in Egypt today, do not feel that opening the wall to Gaza is in the best interests of the Egyptians themselves.

The real danger in Egypt is not that the Muslim Brotherhood will take charge. The real danger is total anarchy, especially if the viability of the Suez Canal were put in danger. Global food prices continue to surge to fresh historical highs, and unemployment continues very high. These are factors that could lead to total war -- in Egypt and in many other countries as well. And no one knows where the young protesters of Egypt will turn next, when it turns out that things are just as bad, or worse, even after the Mubarak regime is gone.

As usual, this analysis was based on clearly stated assumptions and can only be improved with additional information. If you're familiar with the situation in Egypt, and particularly if you've lived in Egypt, then I would be interested in your comments, privately or in the forum.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Jan-11 News -- Fears of Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (29-Jan-2011) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Jan-2011 29-Jan-11 News -- Fears of Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt

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