The Trends Center for Research and Consultation concluded a series of seminars and activities for the second annual “Trends Forum for Political Islam” titled: “Brotherhood Expansion Project: Limits of Retreat and Fate.”
It organized on Tuesday, the 3rd and final symposium of the forum entitled: “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab World: Manifestations Fading and attempts to survive”, with the participation of a group of experts and specialists from different countries.
A group of experts, researchers and academics specialized in political Islam movements participated in the symposium, and its activities were moderated by Hani Al-Aasar, Executive Director of the National Center for Studies in Egypt, who referred to the four themes of the symposium; The manifestations of the decline of Brotherhood ideology in the Arab world, the impact of the Tunisian situation on the future of the Brotherhood, the group's strategies for survival and continuity, and a future vision for the group's fate.
Dirar Belhoul Al Falasi, Member of the Federal National Council and Executive Director of the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, emphasized in an intervention entitled: “The Fate of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab World… A Future Vision,” in which he explained that the UAE was the breaker of the so-called “Arab Spring” and that "The Brotherhood" was one of the components of this "spring".
Al-Falasi stressed the need to dry up the Muslim Brotherhood’s funding sources, the most important of which are charitable associations that the group exploits to raise money through donations, noting that the only refuge that will remain for the Brotherhood is London, expecting that they will also be uttered after they were expelled by Turkey, which is no longer a haven for the brotherhood members.
He stressed that the Muslim Brotherhood would disappear from the political scene completely if we could dry up their funding sources, pointing out that the Brotherhood isolated themselves because of their racism and their practice of political assassination of many political figures who disagreed with them.
For his part, Dr. Ali Mustafa, associate professor at the Catholic University of Lyon in France, said in a working paper entitled: “The Group’s Strategies for Survival and Continuity” that the impact of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology on Moroccan Islamic parties and movements is a subject of a permanent political and intellectual debate between two camps; The first camp believes that Moroccan Islamism stems from the inside and has nothing to do with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, while the second camp asserts that Islamic political parties and movements have always been influenced by an Islamic ideology imported by these parties and movements in the sixties and seventies of the last century.
In turn, Dr. Amani Fouad, a research associate at the Center for Research on Migration, Race and Citizenship at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, confirmed in a working paper entitled: “Manifestations of the Decline of Brotherhood Ideology in the Arab World” that the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt sheds light on the radical foundations of the group’s ideology, noting that these principles , which includes direct violence against non-Muslim citizens, has long been confined to the theoretical side, but after the revolutions of the “Arab Spring” in 2011 and the arrival of Islamists to power in many Arab countries, the socio-political arena witnessed the application of these principles She pointed out that the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood had a direct ideological impact on the most violent jihadist movements such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Dr. Farid Ben Belkacem, Professor of Civilization and Islamic Thought at the Higher Institute of Human Sciences in Tunis, spoke about “the impact of the transformation in the Tunisian situation on the future of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region,” noting that the event of July 25, 2021 represented a turning point in Tunisia’s history, and raised important questions about the fate of the Islamist movement. In Tunisia, and its impact on the future of Muslim Brotherhood groups in general in the region.
he indicated that the July 25 event directly affected the situation of the Ennahda movement in Tunisia, reviewing the Brotherhood’s experience in governance in terms of its outcome and its consequences, stressing that the measures implemented by Tunisian President Qais Saeed had repercussions on the internal organizational situation of the Ennahda movement, and on its social and political position and role, as well. It had repercussions on the situation of the Brotherhood in the region, considering Tunisia was the last areas of their influence.
Dr. Belkacem stated that the experience of Arab societies with the Brotherhood after the Arab Spring is different from previous experiences, especially in Tunisia, when the society experienced their project and saw their failure in managing state affairs and governance, but he cautioned that these groups have experience in dealing with such situations and the ability to adapt to them, And that its history is a process of fluctuations up and down, and that it has a great experience in how to take advantage of the factors surrounding it.
An open dialogue took place on the axes of the symposium, where the speakers unanimously agreed on the importance of drying up the Brotherhood’s financial sources, and that there are a number of elements that indicate that the group is going to decline and dispersal, and that deep differences within the group will lead to its end, but they warned against the group’s experience in transformation and trying to survive.
After that, Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Al-Ali, CEO of the Trends Center for Research and Consultation, presented; Thanks and appreciation to the participants in the symposium for the useful information they provided, and stressed that Trends is continuing to confront extremist ideology, and to present thought based on goodness, tolerance and coexistence, and it seeks to provide comprehensive knowledge of society and decision makers.
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