“Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are not the voice of dissent in the Egyptian or Palestinian political scene, but actually they are the voice of disintegration”
While Most Arabs seem to agree to disagree; there are few things they don’t argue over like Israel being the primal enemy of the Arab nation – well, after the so called Arab Spring even that is arguable now.
But the Arab’s number one enemy has, over the last century, consolidated and grown into a sovereign country and a UN member with an influential worldwide Zionist lobby and a formidable arsenal of traditional and atomic weapons – beyond reach or inspection of course (this is the real bad deal actually)
The fact that Israel is winning the conflict with the Arabs is due to many factors, mainly the US/EU political and military alliance.
But the Israeli advance and its conquest of the Arab land wouldn’t have been possible without the division and fragmentation of the Arabs, and Hamas is but another blatant and unfortunate example of fragmentation and managed division in the Palestinian front.
Hamas’ rise – mockery of democracy
The Arabs and Palestinians considered the establishment of an Israeli state over the Arabic land of Palestine a catastrophic setback or “Nakba” in Arabic, and I believe that the establishment and empowerment of Hamas over the narrow strip of Gaza is no less catastrophic.
Things would have been much harder if the Israeli side had to deal and negotiate with the PLO “Palestinian Liberation organization” as the sole and solid representative of the Palestinian people and conflict, but thanks to the sweeping- misleading and totally undemocratic- victory of the Islamists and extremists in the 2006 parliamentary election the so called “Islamic resistance movement” aka Hamas was born and started messing up the already messed up Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
If you are keen to find out why the parliamentary victory of Hamas was misleading and undemocratic I urge you to temporarily overlook the ballot boxes result and take a peek at how they ran for parliament; how they promoted and presented themselves during the election campaign.
Democracy is not just about the ballot boxes’ moment but most importantly about the pre and post- ballot boxes’ scenario. That is of course if you recognize democracy as a political conduct and performance and not just a hunting trip on the voting day and then everybody goes back to the jungle.
In other words take a look at Hamas’ electoral propaganda and slogans and it won’t take you long before you’ll find out that they only used religious verses and excerpts from the Muslim scripture, the Koran, to promote their candidates, e.g., “No god but Allah and Mohamed is the true prophet of God”
Now, what kind of slogan is that, and moreover what on earth has Allah or Mohamed to do with what is supposed to be a political process. In other parts of the land where the church is separated from the state this conduct would sound as a major violation to the process of democracy.
If we are talking democracy and free elections then how could we expect any so called democratic voting to be fair and equal when one of the candidates is running as a delegate /representative of God and his prophet? Who could vote no to God, and consequently who could stand to compete against God almighty and his true and beloved prophet?
Furthermore, how and who could argue with the one who is uttering the words of God? And what kind of democracy are we talking about when opposition is not only not allowed but also condemned as blasphemous – contradicting with the sharia law and Sheikhs of Fatwa. The last thing any society needs is to divide along religious lines.
Hamas candidates did not run as politicians and never gave promises and programs like politicians often do and that’s simply because they were no politicians. Hamas members ran as jihadists and extremists under the cloak of free elections and the lure of democracy-albeit misused and also misinterpreted by the gullible crowd.
And in a place like Gaza jam-packed with poverty, ignorance, occupation and corruption extremism wins it all, and not only the so called parliamentary elections.
In any sports game the referee never starts the game before he makes damn sure that the two contestants are real and registered athletes and that they play the same game with the same agreed-upon international rules and only after the two contenders pledge a fair play does the referee start off the game.
But Hamas never played the game of politics with the democratic rules and norms. They never played fair and square, and still they were unfortunately allowed to start the painful game of detaching Gaza apart from the Palestinian body (with the help and pleasure of the Israelis of course)
So when we are referring to the sweeping victory of Hamas in 2006, a process that was never repeated and never will be, we are actually looking at a foul play that no one took notice of. In other words, we are looking at an absolute mockery of democracy.
That’s why Egypt’s new constitution outlaws the founding of political parties based on religious grounds, the right step towards separating religion and the state affairs.
You can’t let a Catholic priest (who is not an athlete) lead a team of football players because he is dressed up like Lionel Messi, you wouldn’t let a Jewish Haredi(who is not a surgeon) operate on your wife/son because he is wearing a medical gown and gloves and moreover we shouldn’t let religious clerics and extremists ( who embrace anti-democratic dogma like Jihadists and Islamist militants) run as politicians for parliament and presidency under the guise of democracy.
If we let such thing happen it would be a twist of logic. For discussion, the core of democracy, is foreclosed when one appeals to religious tenets or dogma. If we let such thing happen, then we’re either ignorant and misinformed or we are complicit and profiting from this mockery of democracy.
MB fall – Will of the people
That mockery of democracy and twist of logic happened in Egypt with the sweeping parliamentary victory of the Muslim Brotherhood MB- the mother ship of all Islamist terrorist groups around the globe- and as in the case of Hamas- the Palestinian MB offshoot- the voters were manipulated by the cheap exploitation of religious slogans and verses.
Like Hamas, the MB used the misleading line “Islam is the solution” as their favorite propaganda line and it really worked like magic amongst the gullible, the needy and the uneducated.
Courtesy of A. F. Branco
But Unlike Gaza, Egypt was no narrow strip of land. Egypt, the land of one of the greatest and most ancient civilizations on earth still harbored, despite decades of corruption and fundamentalism, some wisdom.
On June 30 2013, millions of Egyptians erupted like a volcano of anger over the rule of MB and the people demanded early presidential elections and when the MB government declined, the president and his government were sacked by the will of the people and their national army.
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