Kuala Lumpur Forum restores Brotherhood plan to fragment nations

Doaa Emam

In an apparent attempt to politically exploit the corona virus pandemic, the international Brotherhood’s Kuala Lumpur Forum for Thought and Civilization organized an intellectual symposium titled “The World After Corona: Position of the Muslim Ummah” on Thursday, April 16, by means of distance lecturing technology. Wadah Khanfar, head of the Al Sharq Forum, will be lecturing, accompanied by Anis Matta, Ashraf Rashid and Mohammad Makram.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had called the forum the “Islamic Summit 2019”, in which the leaders of only four countries participated in the five-way summit on December 18-21, 2019, to discuss the most escalating Islamic issues.

In 2014, after the collapse of the Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt and prior to holding his current position, Mahathir Mohamad established the Kuala Lumpur Forum for Thought and Civilization to be hosted by pro-Brotherhood countries such as Turkey, Sudan and Tunisia, in the presence of nearly 190 personalities belonging to Islamist currents, especially the Brotherhood.

The forum’s activity is based on four main axes: the annual conference in which researches and studies are presented on one of the issues identified by the guests; the Mahathir Mohamad Prize for Thought and Civilization, which is valued at $20,000 and is considered as partial funding for personalities and entities affiliated with the group; releasing global advertisements in which the forum outlines its outlook, standards, and directives on some intellectual issues; and the Network of Researchers in Islamic Thought, which is a network for intellectual exchange between personalities who embrace the idea of radical fundamentalist currents.

A Jordanian and North African presence was also evident throughout the forum’s sessions. Abdel Rahim Shaikhi, head of the Brotherhood-affiliated Movement of Unity and Reform (MUR) in Morocco; Mohamed Talabi, a chief member of MUR; Zaki bin Arshid, former general secretary of the Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front (IAF) in Jordan; Mohamed Jamil Ould Mansour, head of the National Rally for Reform and Development (Tewassoul) in Mauritanian; and Abderrazak Mekri, secretary general of the Brotherhood’s Movement of Society for Peace in Algeria.

Meanwhile, Said Sadek, a professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo, previously told the Reference that such summits and conferences organized by the Kuala Lumpur Forum contribute to feeding the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which is caused due to the violent acts committed by extremist groups and their sponsoring countries such as Iran.