By Fawaz A. Gerges, Princeton, 483 pages, $22
At the turn of this century, the Arab National Conference (ANC) tried to incorporate the so-called political Islam and became the Arab and Islamic National Conference (AINC) in a failed attempt to reconcile the Islamist/Nationalist clash that shaped the post-independence Middle East. ANC became diluted and AINC didn’t work, mainly as the so-called ‘Islamists’ had one goal in mind: to control the reference group that became a notorious Arab nationalist institution for more than three decades.
In his new book, LSE professor Fawaz A. Gerges presents a thorough and comprehensive account of the two currents that have dominated Arab politics for more than half a century. Drawing on his extensive work on the Islamist movement, evident via previous books he has published on political Islam, Gerges focused on Egypt as a main example of the political dynamics in the post-colonialism Arab countries. Utilising the huge raw material he accumulated while researching his previous works and academic contributions, the author paints one of the best accounts of the two personalities representing the two currents: Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sayyid Qutb.
Main chapters of the book are true to what is stated in the introduction: “The body of this book follows a broadly historical-thematic structure, utilising historical sociology to illuminate the struggle between the two leading social movements in the Arab world. The study concentrates on the ideas and actions of individual personalities, with the core analysis being a double biography of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sayyid Qutb, based on interviews with their contemporaries aa well as textual sources”.
The first two chapters cover the period preceding the Free Officers movement ousting of the monarchy in Egypt on July 23, 1952. The following 10 chapters is the bulk of the book focusing on Nasser-Qutb antagonism. Yet, the author emphasises more on Qutb, and Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) probably because of his extensive expertise on the subject of political Islam. While the account on Nasser is somehow limited to its correlation to Ikhwan and Qutb, probably because a lot has been written about Nasser in English as much as in Arabic.
Of special interest among those is Chapter 9 about the relationship between Qutb and Ikhwan and is leadership of the armed wing of the group. The narrative here is more based on Ikhwani accounts, even those who are so-called not ‘hardcore Islamists’. Considering the academic approach of the author, and sort of apolitical analysis, the book is lenient on Qutb in a way that stops short of justifying the fanatical, terrorist dogmatic ideas of the man who started his life as a vicious opportunist thirsty for prominence.
The author devotes a good chunk of his account on Ikhwan to the so-called division between ‘old guard’ and groups of reformers and modernisers. That relates to the mother group, not to the factions that adopted Qutb militant ideas — which is the ideological foundation for all terrorist groups, not only in Egypt and Arab countries but all over the globe. Since its inception earlier in the 20th century, Ikhwan — working as a cult seeking political role — deceived many by this duality: traditional/reformer, compromising/militant, fundamental/modernist etc. It always helped the structure of the group to survive repression by regimes or weathering any opposite tide in society they’re active in.
Later on, towards the end of the book, you can come to the conclusion that the lack of development of the group was a main factor in its failure in power when an Ikhwani president ruled Egypt for a year in 2012-2013. Actually, it was not only the rigidity of the group and its lack of transparency or even political expertise as they claim when accusing the state of driving them exposure to public life. The main reason was the exposure of a cult-like group and the drop of the thin-veiled ‘religious’ exploitation curtain that kept its vices away from public eyes. Since early 80s, Ikhwan had the opportunity to be a part of mainstream politics and their opportunism led to destroying every party or group that helped them get into the parliament.
Also, the notion that the group made a mistake in 2011 by allying with military and not the people is not that much the case as a repetition of the mistake of 1952. It’s an integral part of the group mentality to ‘ally with devil’ and then destroy the allies once the group is ‘empowered’. They managed to do this with political parties, activists, and else other than the military and security apparatus.
Though one admits that reading into the book with a political eye is not a fair judgment for the author, I can’t overcome the fact that I’ve know some of what the book is about first-hand from a different perspective — definitely not academic. Such remarks are not discounting at any rate the sheer interest with which I read the book. So, I recommend it for any reader keen to know why the building of post-independence state in Egypt and probably the Arab world was not a success.
Dr Ahmad Mustafa is a noted journalist based in Abu Dhabi.
