Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Thinks It's Winning the War for the Future

Western media may be finally getting it. This is a fair article. I quoted the section that I found most interesting. If you would like, you can read on here.

New Republic, by Eric Trager

Second, Brotherhood leaders believe—despite all available data—that they are winning. “The aim of the coup was to eliminate political Islam,” said Brotherhood leader Gamal Heshmat, who fled to Istanbul in December. “But the coup in Egypt had the opposite effect. … It restored confidence in the Brotherhood, when people compared [their experience] under Dr. Morsi to what happened afterwards.” Touson, Morsi’s lawyer, was similarly upbeat. “I don’t believe there’s a coup in the world that faces resistance like this,” he said, referring to the ongoing—and increasingly sparse—Brotherhood-led demonstrations against Morsi’s ouster.

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The Brotherhood’s lack of realism is nothing new. Claiming to represent “true Islam,” the Brotherhood has long overestimated its popularity within Muslim-majority Egypt, and its leaders therefore cannot believe that Egyptians actually rebelled against an Islamist president. (“On June 30, nothing happened on the streets,” Heshmat said, flatly denying that many millions of Egyptians participated in the anti-Brotherhood protests that preceded Morsi’s ouster.) And precisely because the Brotherhood believes that it is winning, it sees little reason to compromise.

Yet the Brotherhood isn’t winning at all—in fact, it’s at its weakest point in nearly four decades, and its notoriously rigid organization is in total disarray. Within urban centers, the Brotherhood’s five-to-eight-member cells, known as “families,” haven’t held their weekly meetings since Morsi was ousted, and Muslim Brothers say they can only meet each other one or two at a time.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood’s top leadership hasn’t met since late July. And although new leaders have been promoted to replace those who have been imprisoned, Muslim Brothers don’t actually know who is strategizing on their behalf. “Those who manage, I don’t know them and nobody knows them,” said Heshmat, the Brotherhood leader exiled in Istanbul. While Mohamed Ali Bishr, a former Brotherhood executive who served as a governor and minister under Morsi, often speaks on behalf of the Brotherhood within Egypt, Muslim Brothers and their allies are unsure whether top Brotherhood leaders have entrusted him with any actual authority. One Brotherhood leader said that deputy supreme guide Gomaa Amin, who is currently exiled in London and chronically ill, is running the organization. But Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Riad al-Shaqfeh, who is based in Istanbul, says that secretary-general Mahmoud Hussein has presided over the Muslim Brotherhood’s international meetings since Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie was arrested in August.

Even without knowing their leaders, however, young Muslim Brothers continue to follow the orders that they receive through Brotherhood-affiliated social media sites. On campuses, for example, Muslim Brothers receive information about upcoming “anti-coup” demonstrations through Facebook, and they promise to continue fighting the current regime despite the significant risk this entails. “Everybody is looking [to be a martyr],” said the Muslim Brother at Cairo University, whose brother was killed during last summer’s crackdown. “There are [people] younger than me looking for paradise. And when I did not get that honor, I said God did not let me [become a martyr] because I made many mistakes.” Al-Mehy, the Brotherhood youth in Istanbul, was similarly

resolute: “We will continue to resist the coup until the last drop,” he said. “Because we tasted freedom and we will not accept to go back and taste slavery again.”

This is perhaps the main reason why “reconciliation” won’t happen: Many Muslim Brothers would rather die fighting the current regime than sit with it.