I have written a number of pieces recently examining the efforts of the self-described human-rights organization Alkarama (whose head the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a terror financier) to advance the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood inside the United Arab Emirates.
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, a one-stop shop on articles and analysis relating to the Muslim Brotherhood (and which regularly breaks news days ahead of other press outlets, such as President Obama’s reception of Anas Altikriti, the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood figure), flags this article from the United Arab Emirates’ Gulf News which claims the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the United Arab Emirates is in decline.
The most interesting element in the article revolves around the Muslim Brotherhood’s recruitment and structure in the region:
Most members of the movement are recruited during high school or college years and, in many cases, serve in top administrative positions within the Brotherhood’s nationwide structure before being promoted to the Guidance Office, the organization’s top executive authority. They also could be nominated for political office to ensure leaders have all been vetted over the course of decades in their willingness to comply with the internal Shura committee’s decisions, said Tharwat Al Kherbawi, a lawyer who has written memoirs exposing the secrets of the Brotherhood after he left the movement, addressing a recent symposium titled ‘Challenges and threats posed by the Muslim Brotherhood to UAE and countries of the Region.’
“Emirati members of the Muslim Brotherhood take a proxy allegiance oath, where these members swear allegiance before another veteran leader in the UAE, who in turn swears allegiance before the Supreme Guide in Cairo,” said Al Kherbawi, who is among the most vocal critics of the organization. He said that young initiates were taught that joining the movement was a religious obligation, like prayer, and that the supreme guide is above any mistakes. “These novices are raised on obedience and allegiance to the supreme guide, accepting no critique of him or his acts. They are taught to regard the movement as their home and that standing to the national anthem of their country is polytheism,” he added.
The notion of recruitment in schools, hierarchy, and demands for strict obedience seem consistent from country to country. Indeed, the strict hierarchy and autocratic internal political culture are what repelled so many young Egyptians who once saw the Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative to the corrupt regime of Hosni Mubarak.
While the transnational nature of the movement is well-known to those familiar with the Brotherhood, the notion of a supreme guide with international reach also depicts the Muslim Brotherhood as in many ways the Sunni equivalent of the political and religious structure which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sought to establish inside Iran.
Recognizing this fact has implications for U.S. policy. First, blanket funding of schools in the region, whether directly or through United Nations organizations, should cease unless those schools can certify they are not beds for Muslim Brotherhood recruitment (especially as teachers often identify targets for recruitment). Second, engaging national Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, for example, as diplomats or NGOs work with political parties in each country, is naive and akin to engaging Hezbollah without recognizing that organization’s ties to Iran. Lastly, the decline of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UAE suggests that investigating Brotherhood organizations with the aim of driving them underground, if not eradicating them, can work.
That does not mean cheerleading repression, but rather recognizing that not all opposition is legitimate or desirable. There are many flavors of political opposition that do not act as transnational or religious insurgencies. Only those political oppositions that accept national sovereignty, seek tolerance and equality under the law for all citizens regardless of religion, and practice democracy within their own political hierarchies should be engaged and encouraged by the U.S. government.
