The Muslim Brotherhood: Political Struggle and Disintegration

an article by Kivanc Ozcan

ABSTRACT

This article aims to examine the Muslim Brotherhood organization, which is founded by Hasan Al-Benna in 1928 in Egypt, in relation to its struggle with the Mubarak regime and to the disintegration of the organization itself. Today, in respect to its popular support and political achievements, the Muslim Brotherhood can be defined as the biggest mass opposition movement in Egypt.
First, the repression that the organization has been facing in recent years and the strategies that have been developed to respond to the authoritarian regime are going to be discussed in this article. In this context, political strategies of both the Mubarak regime and the organization are presented for a comparison.
Second, this article, in general, try to read the internal divisions within the organization and factors which led to these divisions. In particular, it seeks to explain the disintegration of the organization between radical, conservative and old guard, and moderate, pragmatic and young generation.
Third, debates, which are continued between the Brotherhood, the Mubarak regime and the West, over the concept of democracy, are taken into consideration under the subtitle Sincerity Tests. In this part, suspicions and main arguments of these actors towards each other are shortly given.