the most important debate in egypt since the july 3 ouster of the democratic government is taking place behind closed doors and on websites and chat rooms, and it revolves around this question how will followers of political islam respond to the brotherhood s ouster? for decades there s been a dispute among these groups on whether to embrace democracy or work through underground means and methods. the brotherhood has renounced violence for some 40 years and chose to work through social and political organization since then, pressing for democratic change. this stance was actively criticized and opposed by many of the more extremist groups in egypt and beyond like al qaeda, which advocated violent struggle as the only way forward. these groups now feel vindicated. somalia s al qaeda-affiliated al shabba movement weighed in with a series of tweets. yes, it has a twitter account. they went like this when will the muslim brotherhood wake up from their deep slumber and realize the futi
demonstrations in tahrir square to ask for elections, not sharia law. the leader of al qaeda, ayman zawahiri, an egyptian, certainly saw this danger, and he denounced the brotherhood for participating in the democratic process. now morsi s government, a disaster in many dimensions, was almost certainly to be roundly defeated in the upcoming parliamentary elections. had it failed politically, electorally, and democratically, that would have been a huge boost for the forces of liberalism and reform in the arab world. it would have sent the signal that political islam may be a heartwarming, romantic idea but it is utterly unsuited to governing, that mullahs can preach but they cannot manage an economy. instead, the great danger of what has happened in egypt is that the followers of the muslim brotherhood will once again become victims, gaining in stature as they are jailed, persecuted, and excluded. and some of them will decide that democracy is a dead end.
illegitimate because it doesn t represent all the people but then an opposition that becomes more extreme because it s underground. i don t know what pactly is going to happen. i will note that your viewers can go on the muslim brotherhood s english language website where they ve actually put up a poll. they said now that elections have been abrogated should we ever run in elections again, yes or no, and you can vote on this issue on their website. look, i think that the muslim brotherhood, that this organization has been committed to running in elections for the last 30 years and it s very makeup now. it s a political party. so for them to move to become a kind of violent actor i think is unlikely. especially since i think there will have to be some accommodation that s made with the brothers at some point in this process. you saw that the interim government tried to put the im brotherhood, give them some cabinet positions. i mean that will not be the last of these moves that they l
negotiation process happens is there a way that they ll come on board. and if i had to bet, i d say yes, there is. do you believe that this will strengthen or weaken the appeal of the brotherhood and political islam? because now they are being seen as victims. a month ago they were seen as the corrupt, you know, incompetent administrators of egypt. is there a danger that they now go back to being seen as these romantic victims? i think there is a danger. i think that their strength was always when they were underground and didn t have the burden of having to govern. had they been actually beaten in an election, had they actually been kicked out of office in the next parliamentary election, for example, then we would have truly seen the diminishing of that roemtimanticism. but the more the government cracks down, the more it puts brings about violence rather than accommodation, reconciliation, the more we have a danger of further
efforts at instituting change? and it s time for the brotherhood to revise its policies, adjust its priorities, and turn to the one and only solution for change, jihad. in egypt the muslim brotherhood ruled terribly, even unconstitutionally. were i an egyptian, i would never vote for the party. but it did win at the polls three times. it won in the parliamentary elections and the presidential election and then in its referendum for the new constitution, which passed with 64% of the vote. and what came of all that? well, last year a judge dissolved the lower house of parliament, and now the constitution has been suspended and the former president is in jail. egypt does have a second chance. the military has done some things right since the coup, quickly scheduling elections and the drafting of a new constitution. but the central challenge it faces is to bring the forces of political islam, the muslim brotherhood, back into the political process. remember that they still represent mil