tv British House of Commons CSPAN August 11, 2013 9:00pm-9:31pm EDT
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in all of my writing and recording. >> nikita stewart, we are out of time and we thank you very much for joining us. >> for a d.v.d. caller: of this program call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this rogram visit us at q-and-a.org. >> next a discussion about the future of political islam in egypt. then former pennsylvania
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senator rick santorum and donald trump speaking at the leadership summit. >> on the next "washington journal" mat bennett discusses the economy, immigration reform, national security and other issues. then a look at how the healthcare law will affect hospitals serving medicare patients. then the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the british parliament is in recess for the summer. on monday two middle east experts talked about the future of islam groups and the future
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of politic after president morsi was removed from power. the middle east institute and johns hopkins school of advanced international studies hosted this event. it's about 30 minutes. >> welcome to you all. i want to urge those in backs to come up front. it's really a great honor to moderate today's panel. these are two serious experts on the question of religion and olitics. the professor of religious
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studies and islamic law and egyptian law. i asked him just before the eent what he did in the last life to deserve being a professor at santa barbara which is one of the best things that can happen to you. professor jonathan brown is a professor at georgetown. his research focuses on conflicts between traditionalism and self-ism. as keith mentioned this session was conceived before the july 3 coup and yes, i did call it a coup. it takes on an additional significance with the removal of president morsi from power. proffs brown will focus on the muslim brotherhood and reactions to his ouster, how
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this will affect their thinking about pluts and religion. how this will affect their thinking about democratic engagement. professor ahmed will broaden the focus a bit to how the morsi episode will shape islamist ideology and egyptian attitudes more broadly. i hope he also takes a peek at the reaction beyond egypt's borders and how recent events might affect u.s. policy, a subject on which some of you ill know that our own dean has commented recently. so without further ado, let me ask professor brown to take the podium and start us off. we will at the end have a q&a session.
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>> thank you very much. i think the last time i spoke at one of their events was in november at an annual conference and a very different atmosphere, very different setting. first, i want to preface this by saying obviously events that are taking place in egypt right now are tremendous and there is a huge amount of personal suffering. so when we look at things through an analytical lens we can seem inside or cynical but it's important to remember there are real people who suffer. from an analytical perspective i would probably choose the phrase of the best laid plans of mice and men as a good way to lens through which to view the islamist experience from 2011 to today. despite that i am actually optimistic about the future.
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>> this is an interesting sometime in egypt and across he spectrum of islamist groups to you see the same question presented to all these islamist organizations. what is going to be your organizations relationship to involvement? this is a phrase and a question about are you going to left a political party? what is the relationship going to be to your religious organization? they do teaching and social servicing and medical work and legal work. you do all of these activities. what is going to be the activity between the local wing
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and the actual core organization? what you see is in the case of he muslim brotherhood, the voices that say we are religious organizations, we are not political organizations, those voices lose out. the muslim brotherhood goes whole hog into political activism. there is the freedom of justice party and that is a legal fig leaf because -- it is not an independent entity. it takes its direction from the muslim brotherhood guidance counselor. the one group that approach this issue from a theoretical he sophisticated point of view and came up with the best model for the relationship was the party, the political manifestation of the alexandria-based rganization.
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it was the most popular organization in egypt. they had a plan. he party would draw on the support of the organization but it would be completely separate. if things took a turn for the worse, it could simply be jettisoned and at no cost to the original religious rganization. if you look at the next two ears, you see a lot of close calls where people almost rescued themselves from
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medicaments or fall victim to very tragic circumstances. when the freedom of justice party is presented with the question of whether they are going to run presidential candidates, at first the general body of the organization votes against running presidential candidates. it was after several rounds of voting in which the forces hired the most powerful person in the organization. those forces committed to running a presidential candidate keep calling more rounds of voting and bringing in supporters making sure everybody is there and you get a close vote to run a presidential candidate. that is when the muslim brotherhood's fate was sealed. if they won the election, one success is not an option.
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success was never going to be an option. when you know you're going to fail, this raises serious questions for the future of your organization. a strategy -- a tragic moment with one party. the personalities in charge of the religious organization are simply too strong to be contained. they have no formal position in the political party. they exceed the balance and they are in effect directing political activism. this is the case for maybe one of the most people. what happens is the party -- the structure starts crumbling. there are defections.
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you can trace this decomposition of the party up until present day. the party today is really a hell that provides it does not provide a fig leaf for the close government. it quickly backtracks from supporting the military options. the leadership of the party is no longer willing to support the crackdowns of the military in cairo and other places. some of their offices have closed down and they have oined another party that are supportive of the muslim brotherhood.
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so the nour party is not going to be a force in any independent way in the future. what about the present situation? we are at a point of intense risis. here has been so much focus on the number of people who came out on june 30, how many people were supporting the coup? we have to pay attention to what has happened since then. ramadan is almost over. ramadan in egypt is not very pleasant.
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it is very hot. people throughout the country in alexandria and other provincial areas have come out n protest and sit-ins in support of law and order. law and order. the rule of law. hey have come out in support of this. f you were to count the number f people who came out in support of law and order and
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president morsi, you'd probably find it is into the millions since the coup happened. his complicates things tremendously. there is not just this one side of the equation that the egyptian people have spoken and hey want morsi gone. if that were the case, the ituation would be much easier. the options would be much more limited. the cause has enjoyed so much popular support. they have not had mobs of liberals and secular politicians coming to support them. there have been former judges who have gone to the square and
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said that they support the cause. what does this mean for the current situation? the military and the transitional government has a problem. these people will not go home and their numbers are increasing. so what do you do? you either go in with tanks and water guns and kill people and help they do not come back, or you have to kill more and more people until they do not come back. a big question as to whether egyptian people and the overnment have the stomach for further let shed. several hundred people have been killed already. i am not sure there is going to be the kind of support for that. the muslim brotherhood and people who support the pro-morsi cause have so much support. the platform consistently on which they have stood has been to call for a return to the constitution or a return to rule of law or democratic process, which i think is very ironic. if you watch from morsi's final speech until today, i never
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heard the word "law and order.' very ironic considering the way the questions have been phrased. if the leadership decides that his is not working and we need to acknowledge the coup is a legitimate fact and we go home and get back to things like that, they are all going to get arrested. certainly the senior leadership will be in jail. having shown so much of their net worth and their activities to the light of day, they are now even more vulnerable than they were before. the protests that ousted mubarak. in addition, if having stood on
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the argument for law and order, if they say the coup is legitimate and we are going home, they are going to be under threat of arrest and they will have lost all of their ideological legitimacy. here is a big question about whether the muslim brotherhood would continue to be a real force. the sentiment to egypt would have to find other homes to exist in, other networks. it would not be the muslim brotherhood network. what are possible ways forward? the sides are so far apart.
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the military/government says to accept to be safe, and to go home and continue your nonpolitical activities, you need to accept the legitimacy of this coup. that is not going to happen. supporters cannot make that concession. the muslim brotherhood says you need to accept that morsi is still the legitimate president and acknowledge that this coup was not legitimate. it seems unlikely or difficult for the egyptian leadership to a knowledge this. i think there is some hope for the future, however. in issues by some of the intellectuals that are proposing things like, morsi returns to power simply as a transitional role so the constitutionality of the democratic process can be preserved. he hands over power to a powerful prime minister and some group of deputy prime
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ministers who represent some government. arliamentary elections are held. the egyptian political future proceeds in a constitutionally legitimate fashion. i think there is no possibility for morsi to return to power in ny meaningful way. the compromise they would be making is acknowledging that returning to the democratic process and the compromise was to say, we are out of power for now and i think if we go back to the original moment of decision making in the spring of 2011 about whether the
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i think jonathan did everything that could be done. we will chat about something lse. gypt today, the egyptian population is characterized by division, confusion, and the willingness to go from one xtreme to another and in a relatively short period of time. the history of this -- you can always do a lot of things with history. modern egyptian history is fantastic drama.
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i can find some precedents to undo years ago for some things that are happening today. the history of the last three years has the most impact about what is going on today. the source of the division, go back to the initial uprising. one question that was not raise sufficiently was why did the initial uprising happened? we know why it happened. there were so many problems. what did the majority want? the uprising is not one thing. here were people willing to go rom day one or week one or week two. there were a lot of people who watched the revolution and thought they were part of it. forget about the international cene for a second.
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i will go back to the question about any insight feast united states my jaw from this. ven egypt and is might disagree. how the initial uprising was interpreted differently. people saw in it what they wanted from it. i think that is legitimate for individuals are dissipating in a society. they speak in the name of other people. the division goes back all the way. the willingness to go to extremes -- just look at how people looked at the army. they like it very much in february, 2011. i was personally surprised. they dislike it very much by
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may, 2012. they liked it very much by june, july and they could dislike it again. what if the army calculates only a small number -- maybe a thousand at the maximum would die and they wind up being wrong by five orders of magnitude. is not improbable the attitude toward the army would change again. it will come back. the people are really vulnerable. the confusion results in a way naturally. people look at themselves and ask, am i sure about this? do i have access to get information? some people are fine with that. ome people are not fine with hat.
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so what does this tell us? we identify the islamic ctors. there was a division because it was a new choice after 2011 whether to our dissipate in politics or not. the many people in the islamic groups who were very happy with social and moral utopia. they are very much utopias to the participants. people are just happy to look a certain way and to dress a certain way. they feel happy and are comfortable. they do not talk to other people the same way. that is one expression. that will continue maybe for a lot of people. they will say, i told you so. it doesn't do anything for us. i want to feel i can for phil more of my religious
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obligations within my community and avoid the outside world. and some of them go back and forth and vacillate within these parameters. if we're asking about the slamist actors, some of them might think about -- this is a hard question. to what extent did egyptian society change and then change in a way irreparably so. it cannot go back to accepting the news about people being hit and killed in the 1980's right in front of cairo university. somebody got killed and we saw traces of the blood. the police were chasing somebody and they killed omebody on the motorcycle.
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what did we do? some people were curious. you see something like that, ou're terrified. lood is cheap. blood is now a normal. we are not afraid anymore. is that true? that is a certain prejudice. but i do not know. i am leaning toward it didn't change sufficiently. a return to this would be impossible. i keep looking at modern egyptian history. i know these moments of history happened. i can give you the evidence. there was an assassination. the whole world war -- self-determination was
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coined. self-determination but i do not mean i will fight an empire for you. the agitation tends to go down. it can be looked at suspiciously from a political science point of view. i keep thinking some acceptance of what is going on will happen. political energy will run out. back to my question. slamic actors will react differently to whatever conclusion. some will go back to their nclaves.
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some believed that triumph was possible and now see it is difficult. gangs disband. but some cannot help themselves. some people will want to go back and run for city council. they will be in the legislative bodies. or if they get an offer to be on the executive authority, they will accept it. they will think of it as something given to them as individuals. think this is a goal of the army and liberals. it would be great if these people come back and participate in politics and lose. they can succeed as individuals do not as a group anymore. it was that moment when people
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realize, i can win national elections. can they go back? i think they will go back to something that is a hybrid of this high that people have now and something else that is more sustainable. so society is divided and confused. this can go on for a while. this is one set of discoveries. there are other things that move everybody in the direction of settling down. ow about excepting that you do not understand? the last point will be about the united states. of course it is hard as we agree. before you got more by doing less. this is painful because it is new to the united states.
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