Europe’s policies towards Brotherhood full of double standards

Aya Abdel Aziz

Relations between the Brotherhood, on one hand, and Europe, on the other, are complicated and contradictory. This is specifically true in the case of the Brotherhood and the UK. This European state sometimes treats the Brotherhood as a group that has the seeds of extremist thinking in its ideology. It deals with it at other times in fighting more extremist ideologies.

The history of relations between the Brotherhood and the West is full of cooperation and collusion as well. In the 1030s, the UK sought to cooperate with the Islamist movement in the fight against political parties that opposed British presence in Egypt. The UK, however, worked to neutralize the Brotherhood after World War II, lest they should cooperate with Germany and Italy once they reach the Egyptian border.

The fact was that the Brotherhood did not participate in protests supporting German general Erwin Rommel as he fought the UK in 1942. The Brotherhood also took overtures to the West by introducing itself as a counter pole to the nationalists and liberals in Egypt. The Brotherhood also tried to demonstrate its abilities in fighting the communist expansion.

Brotherhood in Europe

The number of Brotherhood followers has increased noticeably inside European societies, especially in the second half of the 20th century. This increase was induced by the rise in the number of Brotherhood students in Europe. It was created also by the escape to Europe of Brotherhood members from some of the countries of the Middle East.

Here are the different types of Brotherhood members in Europe:

First, original groups, namely members of the group who decided to turn European societies into launch pads for Brotherhood presence in Europe.

Second, Brotherhood offshoots, namely those groups that have links to the mother Muslim Brotherhood organization, but ones that tend to act independently.

Third, ideological groups, namely groups that emerged because of Brotherhood influence, even as there are no organizational links between them and the mother organization.

The Brotherhood worked to have presence everywhere in Europe. In 1973, the first unified Islamist current was formed.

Nature of relations between Brotherhood and Europe

The most important feature of relations between the Brotherhood, on one hand, and Europe, on the other, is that the group does not follow a leftist thinking that stands in contrast to the European liberal way of thinking. The Brotherhood follows a pragmatic strategy that allows them to shift positions according to changes in the balance of power every now and then.

This might explain why the Brotherhood always adopts contradictory positions toward foreign interference in the Arab region. They demonstrated this clearly during the Second Gulf War (1990) and the American invasion of Iraq (2003). During those two events, the Brotherhood was of the view that Western interference was necessary to protect Arab peoples from the “the despots” who ruled them. The Brotherhood backed foreign military interference in Libya and Syria and called for the overthrow of the regimes in these states.

The West, meanwhile, views the Brotherhood as an important ally, given the fact that they back many of the Western policies in the Middle East region. The West, in general, is badly in need of an interpretation of the Islamic religion that serves their interests in the region. This is why the Brotherhood introduces itself as the one Islamist group most capable of presenting a moderate interpretation of Islam that satisfies the West.

Brotherhood and Islamization of Europe

The Brotherhood succeeded in gaining a foothold in the European continent. In the early 1990s, the group founded a number of Islamist organizations and federations. These organizations and federations aimed to unite Islamist movements in Europe. The Brotherhood also founded private institutes for the training of mosque preachers. It also established several economic entities that generated money from the Middle East for the construction of mosques and Islamic centers in Europe. This was given the name “economic jihad”.

Relations between the Brotherhood, on one hand, and Europe, on the other, are full of ebbs and flows. The Brotherhood used successive regional and international developments after the 9/11 attacks in introducing itself as an ally to the West against extremist movements. It used this position to serve its own agenda.