Second Part of SEENews Interview with Michaël Prazan

SEENews interviewed the French writer and filmmaker Michaël Prazan. He wrote a book that describes the Muslim Brotherhood (MB): An Inquiry into the Last Holistic Ideology.

And his latest book on the Muslim Brotherhood came about the history and establishment of the group and the most important stages of its political development, reaching the stage when the group assumed power in Egypt.

The first part of the interview was published before and here is the second part:

Do you think Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections is a “disaster” for the Muslim Brotherhood and what is Trump's First Step vs. them?

Mamdouh Al-Muneer, a member of the supreme body of the Freedom and Justice Party, wrote on social media that the results of the elections were a catastrophe as a “racist” has ascended to the White House.

It is true that the relationship between the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood is very old. It dates back to the Cold War, and there are many examples of this partnership with the American administration, whether republican or democrat, to the establishment of the frerist network abroad, in particular.

This started with Said Ramadan, it continued in Munich in the 1960s - the first western base in the West - and, in a way, regarding the destabilization of the region after 2011, this partnership pursued during the mandates of Barack Obama, who made the choice of the Muslim Brothers against Sisi! However, I think we need to bring some nuances.

During the first honeymoon between America and the brothers, it was a question of finding for the US allies abroad to face the expansionism of the USSR, and there was between these two partners so different, so opposed, an objective and a common enemy.

Why CAIR, ISNA, and other Brotherhood front groups should be shaking in their boots?

Whether there is anxiety about the unknown Trump's election is a certainty. Whether this election radically changes things, I am not so sure.

It is very difficult today, and this in all the western countries - from this point of view, the United States is not a unique case - to put down the associative network of the Muslim Brothers who, patiently, during the last decades, has established itself as the de facto interlocutor of the Muslim communities with the public authorities.

The ISNA in America, or the UOIF in France, both emanations of the Muslim Brotherhood abroad, not only chased away the other chapels of Islam that existed before their implantation, such as Sufism, for example, to impose themselves on these new territories, but they have taken over prerogatives, such as the training of imams and the management of religious schools, which it will be difficult to do without.

The outright prohibition does not seem to be possible. It would produce uncontrollable riots and radicalization phenomena, not to mention the economic and social aspects that make these networks live a lot of people today! Despite Trump's voluntarism on these issues, I doubt that there will be a real upheaval and total restructuring of the religious leaders of the various Muslim communities in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West.

Would Clinton’s Victory had made it different for Muslim Brotherhood, Huma Abedin was the keyword?

Quite frankly, I do not know. Ms. Huma Abedin has had links with the Brotherhood, it is undeniable. This has led to an investigation by the FBI that did not really establish these links.

Having said that, it seems to me that she was able to evolve and emerge from her dependence on the Brotherhood.

One cannot say that the sex messages that have caused a scandal, sent by her ex-husband to her mistresses on social networks, are truly in accordance with the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood! It is not of the best effect and I am not sure that the Brothers appreciate too much the publicity of these sexual scandals.

I agree with you that even though she has moved away from the Brotherhood, Huma Abedin keeps, at least from an emotional point of view, certain meekness, and perhaps a form of Identification with certain members or certain frerist associations.

Do you think the Congress pass H.R. 3892 to instruct the State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization?

There was, obviously, a jolt of governments and Western governments in the period following the Arab revolutions and the outbreak of the war in Syria on what the Muslim Brotherhood really is.

It was understood that they were the ideological matrix of globalized terrorism, and they were placed under surveillance in different countries.

This is particularly true in the USA, following the vote of the Congress of Decree HR 3892, and this is also true in Great Britain.

Are these new warnings and parliamentary warnings radically changing things? Did the frerist networks collapse as a result of these resolutions?

No. But we must admit that it is a progress, a first step rather encouraging and reassuring.

It is more difficult since this awareness has also touched France, that the UOIF continues, as every year, to invite to their big annual meeting which is held in Le Bourget each spring, to invite Yussef al-Qaradaoui and Other sulphurous preachers, who call for the killing of several categories of population and encourage Muslims to become foreigners, even enemies from within, in those countries where for the most part they were born.