Rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood Association: political pass of the movement in connection with Egyptian society

Abstract

Born in Egypt in 1928 and labeled as a community of religious enlightenment confronting westernisation, economic instability and the widening gap between the political elite and the society, the Muslim Brotherhood Association or the Brothers, Brotherhood (hereinafter – MB) has now completed a full life cycle. The MB struggled with the monarchy during king’s Farouk rule in the 1940s, then it was outlawed and repressed by G. A. Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s. Again, the MB raised from the ashes under A. Sadat in the 1970s, managed to enter the official political arena of Egypt and to gain the upper hand over professional syndicates before participating in parliamentary elections. It gradually expanded into a full-fledged political stakeholder in the 1990s and 2000s under H. Mubarak, and became the leading opposition group in Egypt. Finally, at the apex of its political trajectory, the MB enjoyed a landslide albeit short-lived victory in the aftermath of the Arab spring in 2012, losing power even faster in 2013. However, the loss of power was not the most dramatic milestone in the organisation’s history. Indeed, borrowing the methods of G. A. Nasser towards the organisation, the new president of Egypt, A. F. el-Sisi, benefiting from the support of the military brass, sealed the fate of the MB, which leaders were either sentenced to death, imprisoned, or forced to emigrate. The focus of the present article is twofold. On one hand, it examines the process of the gradual political ascent of the MB and their arx Tarpeia Capitoli proxima (pride comes before a fall) moment after gaining power. The author argues that the most prominent reason of the organisation’s political success was their proficiency in maintaining a constant connection with Egyptian society, which was broken after the conquest of power. On the other hand, the investigation shows that nowadays the MB faces new challenges, implying a loss of self-identification and a tangible shortcoming of its ideology. These setbacks make the current debacle even more dramatic in its consequences than during the wilderness years under G. A. Nasser.