There are two types of people in the world: those that divide the world into two and those that don’t. Mostly we do, of course. For “one divides into two” is the natural order of things. As Mao said 一分为二 (yi fen wei er), ‘one divides into two” is the Hegelian dialectic and "holds ever true".[*]
And so there are two main views on the post-Tunisian uprisings in the Arab world. The optimists vs the pessimists; the glass half full vs the glass half empty; the idealists vs the realists. The naïve vs the sophisticated?
The half-full-optimist-naïve-idealists seem to have carried the day at least in terminology: the “Arab Spring”.
But why not the Arab Autumn? It doesn’t have the same ring, I admit, but it’s more likely the more apt metaphor.
But why not the Arab Autumn? It doesn’t have the same ring, I admit, but it’s more likely the more apt metaphor.
I’ve been in the latter category from the outset: the realist-pessimist category.
The lurking Brotherhood has always been my worry and it’s now coming out of the woodwork.
Those idealist/optimists – the likes of the awful dhimmi Roger Cohen and his cohorts – downplayed the Brotherhood all along. If they’d heard of it – and many clearly hadn’t – they said it was changing its spots, was becoming – indeed was, to the dummy head of national security Tom Donilon – secular. The Brotherhood was a pussy; don’t worry about it. Or, as last resort, it was “nuanced”, that favourite appellation of the postmodern left, liberally applied when confronted with something vaguely distasteful, but which they don’t want to acknowledge.
Now they can’t dismiss it. But still they prevaricate, these professional optimists: Hilary Clinton to Jeffrey Goldberg in the June issue of The Atlantic, “we don’t know enough yet to understand exactly what they’re morphing into. For me the jury is out.”
But they’re not “morphing into” anything. They are what they are. And if they have internal squabbles, they will resolve them by recourse to the basic doctrine. A characteristic of Islamists is that when in doubt they go back to their core documents. That’s precicely why we have a resurgence of Islamic militancy: it’s the result of hewing closer to Islam’s core documents.
And for the Brotherhood, that means recourse to its creed:
Allah is our objective.
The Prophet is our leader.
The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest purpose.
How scary is all that? Pretty, to me. Not nuanced at all, I’d say.
So that’s why I – and most other bloggerati in the Jihad-critical front – are convinced that these roilings in the Arab world can’t turn out well. They will be controlled by the Brotherhood in its various guises. That’s more Islam, more Islamism, more anti-western paranoia, more intolerance – of Christians, Jews, all non-Muslims, of women, of gays – more hatred for Israel (probably more war for Israel). The whole bag.
Already the Brotherhood in Egypt has upped the ante and said that it will field candidates in more than 50% of the seats in September, up from the 30% to which it was earlier committed.
In Jordan the Brotherhood is called the Islamic Action Front and is already warning the government of retributions to come when they’re in power.
In Tunisia the Brotherhood is Ennahda, already making women wear the hijab, threatening secular academics and saying that the revolution has “released the power of Islam”. Oh, great.
I was pessimistic from the beginning of these revolutions, because I’d read about the Brotherhood and knew them to be skilled at taking power in vacuums. And knew what a venal lot they are and that they will not be good for us in whatever guise, however “nuanced” they are.
Professor Timur Kuran of Duke University, gives a more detailed (“nuanced”?) picture of why there are vacuums in these Arab societies and why it is that the Brotherhood can make gains from them. These societies lack any civil structures. That’s the key to it all. And the reason there are no civil structures, as Kuran makes clear, is the fault of Islam itself. And the reason the Brotherhood can make gains is that they’re the only ones organised. They’re the only ones who have kept the mission since their formation in the twenties (see above), the only ones who have weathered being oppressed, used to working in secret, used to holding membership in torrid times; so that when they are legal again, as they now are, they can sprout like weeds in the summer rains. Well done for speaking the truth on this prof! And well done (for a change) to the Tribune, (aka the overseas edition of The New York Times) for carrying professor Kuran's analysis.
Kuran, by they way, is sound on these issues and I have mentioned him before in relation to Sharia finance, where he is one of the few Muslims critical of it because of its backwardness and inefficiency. Good on you Tim!
I happened to arrive in Peking to study Chinese when the controversy was still part of the background noise. Indeed, the phrase was -- surreally -- one of the first I learned, as I was shown round the campus by a sweet young girl in the Mao suit, hair in twin braids. "Why is the college here", I asked, as it was far away from the city. "Oh", she said, "one divides into two".
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[*] The Chinese leaders got its collective political knickers in a twist over this "one divides into two" biusiness, in the mid sixties. There was a "one divides into two controversy", with one faction for the motion and another faction against, maintaining instead that "two combine into one" (合二而一. He er er yi), and not only that it could. but that it must. Swiftian shades? Pointy eggs vs round eggs? Well, it was deadly serious political warfare by metaphor, and people died on both sides, is how serious it was. Still, two factions, note.... I happened to arrive in Peking to study Chinese when the controversy was still part of the background noise. Indeed, the phrase was -- surreally -- one of the first I learned, as I was shown round the campus by a sweet young girl in the Mao suit, hair in twin braids. "Why is the college here", I asked, as it was far away from the city. "Oh", she said, "one divides into two".
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