The criticism and self-criticism of the Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood, which spread rapidly in a short time after its founding and has today become the most organized and most widespread political and civil society movement in the Islamic world, is being branded a terrorist by today's Egyptian administration. Yet it is the very administration of today's Egypt that, using the state's armed forces against Muhammad Morsi, a member of the Ikhwan who was elected President by the votes of the people, and thus betraying the trust of those who appointed it to that office, carried out a coup.

There can be no greater corruption than a coup, no more immoral terror than a coup. Coups are terrorist movements that have succeeded. Like today's Israel. Overpowering a people through terror, massacres and acts of terrorism, and being placed at the head of its administration, only raises its terrorist quality to the state level; it does not abolish its terrorist quality and character.

The strange and tragic side of the matter is that when this state is recognized by the UN administration of today, which consists of 5, its terrorist acts and quality also receive international legitimacy. The dangerous and unjust side of this is that, as if it were not enough for these terrorists to deem every kind of oppression fit for their own victims, they also gain the advantage of labeling them terrorists.

Yet the terrorist label suits them most of all. When today's Sisi administration massacred three thousand people by opening fire on defenseless people in Rabia Square during the coup, as if its crime against humanity had gone unpunished, it tries to brand those who survived that massacre as terrorists too.

Yet the Ikhwan movement, even that day, in the words of its leader Muhammad Badie, is a movement whose "peaceful line is far stronger than the bullets of those who oppose it." Because it continues its actions without deviating from the line of legitimacy in any way, it has sometimes been prepared to be criticized by its own members for cowardice and inadequacy. Ikhwan history is full of examples of those who could not bear the organization's insistence on a peaceful and legitimate political line breaking away from it and turning toward more radical or armed lines of action. Because of these breaks, impressions have even at times formed that the Ikhwan would be finished and exhausted. But the Ikhwan has never given up this line.

The Egyptian administration's labeling of the Ikhwan as terrorist is not very surprising. In any democratic election in its own country, the Ikhwan is the undisputed sole candidate for power. This frightens the coup plotters. To exclude it, they try to get by by presenting some ballot-box farces as elections. How far? Where is the escape? Eynel mefer?

The Ikhwan is not an organization that can simply be eliminated by putting a lock on the doors of its organizations. As the name says: "Muslim Brothers." All Muslims fall within this definition. Unless you destroy all Muslims from Egypt or from any other Islamic country, you cannot have destroyed the Ikhwan, whose quality of brotherhood is a necessary consequence of their being Muslim.

The UAE also labels the Ikhwan as terrorist. So are we surprised at this? Of course not. Wherever in the Islamic world there is an anti-democratic development, the UAE supports it and, in the name of destabilizing that country, feeds every kind of terrorist group and sends it into the field. It supported all the terrorist coup processes in Turkey and still continues to support them. What great lobbying activities and pressure it has exerted to get the US to place the Ikhwan on the terrorist list is known to everyone.

On this point, look how strange: the US stands more objectively and has the sense to ask for which actions the Ikhwan should be considered terrorist. Its asking this question is in fact enough. Because there is no convincing answer that can be given to it. The enemies of democracy in the Islamic world are naturally trying to strangle a social movement that could be democracy's strongest carrier and engine. They put forward the most valid label that can be used against it but cannot substantiate their claims. It is impossible for them to do so anyway. On the contrary, each time they accuse the Ikhwan of terrorism, they bring more to mind the crimes they themselves have committed against democracy and human rights. How many journalists, how many intellectuals, how many political people are there right now in Egyptian and UAE dungeons, arrested without question and under torture? This question must of course be asked to the UAE and Egypt alike.

THE IKHWAN IS ON THE LINE OF PEACE AND DEMOCRACY, WHERE ARE THE COUP PLOTTERS WHO CRITICIZE IT?

Does the Ikhwan have no faults at all? Could it be otherwise? As Khaled Meshaal also stated at the 90th Anniversary Commemoration Meeting, the Ikhwan is first of all a human movement. It is one formation among all the formations that claim to represent Islam and, like all of them, is afflicted with human errors. No one can see it as free of error.

Meshaal's speech was like a 90-year manifesto. But he did not neglect to stick the needle into the Ikhwan itself too. One message was thanks and prayer to Turkey, one message to the enemies of the Ikhwan, one message to Muslims who criticize the Ikhwan, and one message turned to the Ikhwan itself. He addressed each of them separately. He said the Ikhwan is not a movement beyond criticism. But, without letting go of fairness, it very much deserves to be criticized.

We must absolutely give up perceiving criticisms directed at the Ikhwan or at any Islamist movement as criticisms directed at Islam itself. Those who criticize the Ikhwan are not criticizing Islam; they may merely be criticizing the possible mistakes of the Ikhwan as a political movement, and this is extremely natural and possible. 90 years and the countless accumulation of political experience flowing from every part of the Islamic world in fact provide it with the strongest source of reason. Even so, it may need a reason outside this reason; they must listen. At the same time, within a 90-year-old movement, age and experience may produce, as much as an advantage, the disadvantageous effect of making it sluggish and conservative. It is necessary to care about solving this with measures that will better ensure communication and integration between generations.

In short, rejuvenation, updating, self-criticism are subjects on the Ikhwan's agenda.

But where are the Ikhwan's enemies? No one is asking that. Can they think about and discuss giving up coups, terror, dictatorship, human rights violations, takfirism, collaboration with occupiers?