Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Brotherhood

Recently the Persian Gulf states and surrounding areas have experienced wide spread political turmoil and revolution.  Egypt deposed their former president, Libya plunged itself into a NATO backed civil war (not our finest hour but that is a debate for another time) , and Syria has begun their own violent uprising.  The old regimes have begun to fall out and with “the domino effect” in place; one has to wonder what the future holds.
                In the west we currently lack the popular support necessary for any real means of intervention and can do little more than hope for a pro Euro-American democracy to take hold in the new states.  Recent political evolutions in the region do little to firmly support this hope however, but lead down another path.
                The path I refer to is the newly popular political party of, “The Muslim Brotherhood”. The Muslim Brotherhood is a political organization created in the early twentieth century but legally rationalized and recognized in the major nation states of Egypt and Libya after the 2011 revolutions. In Egypt the party has taken the majority in the newly formed parliament and is poised for control over the new Libyan government. With military and popular support it seems unlikely that the party will have any significant rival in the region but continue down their current path of success.
                As a westerner it is in our nature to question the outcome of these recent elections and what this means for our corner of the world. I think however only time will be able to tell. All religious prejudice aside, the Muslim Brotherhood presents an interesting conundrum to the western world. The Brotherhood has recently advanced their political influence and after the 2011 revolutions controlling the Egyptian government and, poised for victory in both the Syrian conflict and Libyan elections. Furthermore with a growing influence in the Shia community the brotherhood continues to become an international player.
                Westerners are uneasy with this change in power however intervention seems both unlikely and unwise. After the Iraq war the Western world is actively opposed to any military intervention in the region especially for political purposes. Furthermore what difference could a western intervention make? The brotherhood holds a majority of the regions popular support and has grown via this new system of democratic elections not conquering despotism.  The brotherhood has also taken an incredibly political stance regarding their 21st century views.  The organization advocates for democratic reform and a free press but, there still remains a call for Islamic reformation and religious profiling.
                Should The Brotherhood continue their road to political domination it is an unclear and foggy future for the western world.  Would a united Persian Gulf and Islamic region be able to co-exist with the westernization occurring across the region, and more importantly with West backed Israel? What does this new trend mean for the 21st century and global relations? 

No comments:

Post a Comment