Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the Muslim Brotherhood's resurgence in Egypt, and its wider implications:
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks its Total Answer in Islam. The problems it addresses may be those that all countries experience -- a ruthless, corrupt, completely worthless regime. In a non-Muslim country, the answer would be Clean Government, and Civil Service Examinations, and an Anti-Corruption Squad and Throw the Rascals Out. In a Muslim country, where the prism of Islam is ready, the Answer of Islam is ready, the discontent with the government (Mubarak, the Al-Saud, this or that despot or petty ruler) will always and everywhere be expressed in Islamic terms, with Islam as the Solution. That would be fine for Infidels if Islam, more Islam, did not mean also something else, and what it means is this: more hatred of the Infidels, unmitigated by worldliness and corruption. And it would be fine if the Infidel world is ready to take upon itself indefinitely the entire burden of ensuring that everywhere Good Government and an Honest and Efficient Civil Service will reign throughout the Muslim lands, and of supplying aid to any Muslims who might feel that they are poor and should not be. And many of them are poor, but the reasons are in the despotism that Islam encourages, and the habit of mental submission that Islam encourages, and the habit of inshallah-fatalism that Islam encourages.
And more Islam always means more hatred of Infidels, so that any protest is channeled through Islam -- and in a Muslim country it will always end up being channeled through Islam for all but a small enlightened or quasi-enlightened group (no more than 2-3% of the population). Yet since Islam itself is the main reason for their troubles, for their unresponsive political system, and for the rumors, nonsense, and lies that come so easily to Muslim societies that have never encouraged and cannot encourage skepticism as a way of mental life but rather foster credulity at every step, things will never get better until Islam itself is weakened, constrained, divided, demoralized, seen not as The Answer but, as Ataturk and Bourguiba did, as The Problem.
The Muslim Brotherhood may have won nearly 20% of the seats in Parliament. But in Egypt, the Muslim vote essentially went 100% for Islam. Mubarak is Muslim, leader of a corrupt, meretricious, vicious regime, but a regime of Muslims, sharing Muslim attitudes that shape their worldview, and that are scarcely hidden, save for the few hours a week that are spent meeting with Western dignitaries, or for the odd state visit (that waiting Blair House, or that suite at The Mayflower or at the Hotel Raphael! How eagerly these tin-pot potentates, propped up with Western money, look for an excuse to travel abroad). Those attitudes are well-reflected, are on display, in the viciousness of the official press, which is imbued with anti-Israel, anti-American, an
