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Muslim
Brotherhood 'Democracy'
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Prior to Egypt's presidential elections, Islamists
made clear that the electoral process was an obligatory form of "holy
war." Then, any number of Islamic clerics, including influential ones,
declared that it was mandatory for Muslims to cheat during elections—if
so doing would help Islamist candidates win; that the elections were
a form of jihad, and those who die are "martyrs" who will
attain the highest levels of paradise. Top Islamic institutions
and influential clerics, such as Yusuf
al-Qaradawi, issued fatwas decreeing that all Muslims were
"obligated" to go and vote for those candidates most likely to
implement Sharia law, with threats of hellfire for those failing to do so.
The point was simple: democracy, elections,
voting, even the individual candidates, were all means to an end—the
establishment of Sharia law. Cheat, fight, and kill during elections, as long
as doing so enables Sharia; vote only for whoever will enable Sharia; avoid
hell by enabling Sharia. (It is precisely for this reason that the very first
demand made by Islamic leaders is that President Morsi implement the totality
of Sharia law in Egypt. That is, after all, why so many voted for him.)
That many Egyptian Muslims heeded these
commands to lie, cheat, steal, and kill in order to empower Sharia, there is
no doubt. Story after story appeared in the Egyptian media—much of it missed
in the West—demonstrating as much.
Those dealing with brutal violence speak for
themselves. For example, a Muslim man "beat his
pregnant wife to death upon learning that she had not voted for the
Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Morsi." According to police
reports, "despite her pleas," the husband "battered and
bruised" her after discovering she had voted for the secularist
candidate, Ahmed Shafiq. She died later in the hospital "from injuries
sustained."
Likewise, a farmer was "stabbed" by a
"supporter of Morsi," simply for putting up a picture of the
secular Shafiq on his motorcycle. Another 52-year-old man and "supporter
of Morsi" slapped
his mother for voting for Shafiq. The man took his elderly mother to the
voting booth, informing her that she must vote for Morsi; after she voted, he
pressed her to confirm that she did in fact vote for the Islamist—only to be
told that she did not. The man "lost his temper" and slapped her in
front of the other voters and electoral supervisors.
Finally, and in accord with the Muslim
Brotherhood's own
directives, whole segments of Coptic Christians were prevented from
voting. According to Al Ahram,
Egypt's national newspaper, in Upper Egypt, where millions of Copts live,
"the Muslim Brotherhood blockaded entire streets, prevented Copts from
voting at gunpoint, and threatened Christian families not to let their
children go out and vote."
Three observations:
1. Many
analysts would like to rationalize these anecdotes away as byproducts of
"third world culture"—not the Islamic religion per se. Yet it is
curious to note that all the violence and threats of violence that revolved
around Egypt's presidential elections were committed by the supporters of the
Muslim Brotherhood candidate, not the supporters of the secular
candidate, who instead were at the receiving end of the abuses, including
death, violence, humiliation, and injustices in general. This fact speaks for
itself.
2. Noteworthy,
too, is that most of those abused were either women (including wives and
mothers) or "dhimmi" Christian Copts—both members of society that,
according to Sharia, are treated as "second-class citizens," to be
kept in subjugation by Muslim males, the only "full" citizens of an
Islamic state.
3. Despite
all these concrete facts and more, including further documentation of electoral
fraud at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration's
only response was to pressure Egypt's ruling junta into declaring a
victor—the administration's favorite, Muhammad Morsi—thereby making the
United States an accomplice of the Brotherhood's electoral holy war.
Raymond
Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center
and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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