In recent months, Egypt’s Sisi government has seemingly won its brutal, controversial fight against the Muslim Brotherhood in decisive fashion, decapitating the group by killing, jailing, or exiling most of its leaders, notes The Washington Institute for Near East Policy:
Yet many of the economic and political problems that helped fuel the Brotherhood’s original rise to power persist, and given that the organization has a long history of enduring crackdowns, it may yet resurface as a significant player.
In his new book Arab Fall: How the Muslim Brotherhood Won and Lost Egypt in 891 Days (Georgetown University Press), Eric Trager draws on extensive local research and interviews with Mohamed Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders to dissect the traits that helped the group win power — in many cases the very same traits that contributed to its rapid demise:
The Brotherhood’s intensive process for recruiting members and its rigid nationwide command-chain meant that it possessed unparalleled mobilizing capabilities for winning the first post-Mubarak parliamentary and presidential elections. Yet the Brotherhood’s hierarchical organizational culture, in which dissenters are banished and critics are viewed as enemies of Islam, bred exclusivism. This alienated many Egyptians, including many within Egypt’s state institutions.
Join a discussion on “The Rise and Fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.” Panelists: Michele Dunne, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East Program [and board member of the National Endowment for Democracy]; Nancy Youssef, senior national security correspondent at the Daily Beast; and Eric Trager, fellow at WINEP.
12:30 p.m. – October 18, 2016. Venue: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), 1111 19th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. Webcast here.
