The Islamist opposition has vowed to “respect the will of the Egyptian people” if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime falls, amid concern from Western leaders that religious extremism might proliferate following the anti-government uprising.
On Monday, former British prime minister Tony Blair, the Middle East peace envoy, warned that Egypt might take a backward step “into a very reactionary form of religious autocracy,” but his words carried limited resonance in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood — the country’s largest opposition force — has played little more than a walk-on role in the unprecedented protests.
“There is widespread exaggeration about the role of the Brotherhood in Egyptian society and I think these demonstrations have exposed that,” said Khalil al-Anani, an expert on Egypt’s political Islamists at Durham University in northeast England.
Photo: AFP
Egypt’s ongoing uprising has been largely leaderless, planned initially by secular online activist groups and quickly gathering a momentum of its own, as protesters managed to beat riot police off the streets and inspire belief that Mubarak’s security forces could be overcome.
“Like many others, I participated in these protests not as a Brotherhood member, but as an Egyptian, even though both labels apply to me,” said Mohamed al-Assas, a 35-year-old media production worker in Cairo. “Many of the older political leaders, not just of the Brotherhood, but of other formal parties as well, were not so enthusiastic about the demonstrations, but that doesn’t matter because this is a youth revolution — we don’t need leaders to tell us what to do.”
The group was formed in 1928 and is still officially outlawed. Hundreds of Brotherhood members have been jailed in periodic crackdowns, yet it is from the existence of the Brotherhood, and the regime’s perceived ability to suppress it, that Mubarak has derived much of his legitimacy in international circles.
“The Mubarak regime was adept at inflating the influence of the Brotherhood, and painting them as a threat to Egyptian society and to the West,” Anani said. “It was the pretext for Mubarak’s rule and it was a lie. I think that if Egypt held free and fair elections tomorrow, the Brotherhood would not get a majority.”
Anani believes the protests have shifted the balance of power within the organization, boosting the influence of younger reformists.
“The revolution has brought us into much closer contact with other secular protest groups with whom we’re working now on a regular basis,” Assas said. “All of Egypt is changing and, of course, the Brotherhood is part of that. Youth is leading the way and leaders are heeding our call.”
A coalition of civil rights groups on Tuesday asked a New York State judge to order one of its largest suburban counties to stop its deployment of nearly 600 license plate readers, calling it a warrantless and “indiscriminate surveillance system” that violates the state constitution. The class action lawsuit also alleged that Westchester County never got proper authorization to launch the program, which has amassed a database of 1.6 billion plate scans that has been shared with more than 50 outside law enforcement agencies. The complaint said the network “records the long-term travel patterns, daily habits, and intimate information of millions of
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday blessed a giant new tower at Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia Basilica after celebrating mass inside what is now the world’s tallest church. A fireworks and light show illuminated the exterior of the temple at the end of the ceremony, bathing the unfinished basilica in shifting colours that highlighted its towering spires. A choir of 600 singers performed at the service which lasted around 90 minutes and was attended by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as well as King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The stained-glass windows in various colours shone brightly in between the tree-like
Scientists have discovered communities of marine life — including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars — thriving on a whale graveyard. The graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, which is up to 7km below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area, and is so far the deepest found. A whale’s sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Song Xikun (宋希坤), a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering
Voters in Switzerland yesterday cast their ballots on an initiative championed by the top right-wing party to cap the Alpine country’s population at 10 million. As of press time last night, early results showed that Swiss voters were leaning against it. The populist Swiss People’s Party, which has the most seats in parliament, has stirred up and fostered anti-migration sentiment over the years, notably about an influx of workers from the neighboring EU. Critics called the bid a self-inflicted wound, saying the boom in migration over the past generation has brought foreign labor and skills to sectors such as healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals
RSS