Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood: Regression, Decline and Division
In 2021, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood experienced weakening, decline, and regression, with self-destructive forces hitting the organization and dividing it on two fronts.
Between the Brotherhood’s loss of popular, political, and regional safe havens, the factors of “self-destruction” due to the struggle for power and money at the top of the organization’s pyramid, and the disintegration of its ranks among several groups, such as 2021, the terrorist organization’s “most difficult and painful” year in its history.
Observers believe that 2021 was not the hardest year in the group’s history, but the year 2013 in terms of losses to the group; it was the end of the dream of succession and empowerment project.
Self-destruct
The terrorist Muslim Brotherhood is in a state of self-destruction due to the war that is raging at the top of the “Head of the Brotherhood” between the camps of Turkey and Britain.
The Brotherhood split into two fronts because of the struggle over who would organize financially and administratively; the first is led by the group’s former secretary-general, Mahmoud Hussein, from inside Turkey, and the second by the group’s acting leader, Ibrahim Munir; London-based.
Dr. Hani Nasira, an academic and expert on political Islamist movements, said that 2021 is the most difficult and painful year for the Brotherhood; because of its loss of the popular, political, regional, and specifically the state of Turkey
In 2021, the Brotherhood received many blows from within, he said, and the organization lost external support, which weakened it considerably, as the money it received dwindled.
In another facet of the organization’s media landscape in 2021, Brotherhood podiums broadcast from Turkey in 2021 were hit violently; Ankara has decided to stop all inflammatory programs against Egypt that are being broadcast from its territory through El Sharq and Mekameleen satellite channels, in an effort to bring relations with Cairo back on a positive track.
Moataz Matar, Mohammed Nasser and other Brotherhood members announced they would stop broadcasting their programs on satellite channels broadcast from Turkey and broadcasting them through social media platforms before Ankara decides to ban all publications from its territory and notifies those journalists of the need to leave the country.
“Since 2013, the Brotherhood has been going from bad to worse, due to the division and disagreement among its leaders and the exchange of accusations of financial corruption among some of them”,”Nasira said.
“The biggest challenge for the Brotherhood in 2021 was the abandonment of the organization by the safe havens, whether Turkey or Qatar, especially after the Gulf-Qatar reconciliation, attempts at Turkish rapprochement, and improved relations with regional countries, which is the biggest challenge that further divides the group”, he said.
On the eve of the 41st Gulf Summit in the Saudi archeological city of Al-Ulaa last January to complete reconciliation and restore relations with Qatar, Saudi Arabia announced the reopening of its airspace and borders with Qatar, after a four-year closure as a result of the boycott imposed by the four countries on Doha for supporting terrorism.
He adds: As long as there are crises in society, the Brotherhood still has hope to reemerge.
To decline
Regarding the future of the organization in light of the ongoing war between Munir and Hussein, Nasira said that the differences will deepen further, especially since the organization no longer has the same classical and referential link. The organizational issue did not become a matter of consensus, after they had been calling on the leader, and the organizational idea is no longer the old one.
“The Brotherhood will never be the same again, and we might find new groups among them announcing themselves”, the political analyst stressed.
Nasira said he does not believe that the group will conduct revisions even if it is currently divided between two fronts. This group does not have the ability to review because the review also requires intellectual flexibility, and this quality is non-existent in this group.
In the eight years since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood following a popular revolution in Egypt, the terrorist organization’s attempts to sow chaos in the country and exploit events to return the group that was expelled by the order of the people to the political scene have not stopped.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s destructive machine failed to achieve its goals by spreading the calls of chaos and sabotage throughout the country, thanks to the vigilance of the security services and the awareness of the Egyptian people.
