Solidarity 194, 23 February 2011

Some reports suggest that the upheavals in Egypt have created ferment within the Muslim Brotherhood, the political-Islamist movement which was the largest visible political opposition force under Mubarak and also the oldest of the Middle East's Sunni-Islamist movements. Groupings such as Hamas, among the Palestinians, originated as offshoots of the Brotherhood. A 2009 study by Husam Tammam and Patrick Haenni, written for a Swiss-based research institute, sets a baseline for assessing the more recent reports by giving an overview of the Brotherhood and the "social question". In line with the...

According to a startlingly frank interview given by Khaled Hamza, editor of the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language website, to the Swiss-based researcher Patrick Haenni, the upheavals in Egypt have provoked major dissent - with which Hamza plainly identifies himself - in the 80-year-old Brotherhood. The interview suggests that if secular socialists can organise themselves rapidly and strongly enough in Egypt, and present a sharp alternative to the Brotherhood's historic demand for an "Islamic state", then they can win over sizeable numbers from the Brotherhood's youth. Hamza says that the...