Islamist youth differ on how to respond to current crisis

On Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood released a statement preemptively absolving itself from “plans to shed blood and spread sectarianism” while simultaneously warning of possible violence against opposition protesters at Tahrir Square and Ettehadiya Presidential Palace.

Protesters have flocked to streets and squares since June 30 to demand President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster.

In its statement, the organization asserted that said “plans” were part of a plot to vilify the Muslim Brotherhood and incite violence against its members, further contributing to national instability.

The official statement has not been the only response from the Muslim Brotherhood, or its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, to Monday’s military statement, which has been widely interpreted by political analysts and protesters alike as siding with the demands of the people. The military statement gave a 48-hour ultimatum, due to lapse on Wednesday afternoon, for Morsi to respond to people's demands. 

On Tuesday afternoon, general secretary of the FJP Mohamed al-Beltagy called on the president’s supporters to “martyr” themselves “in defense of the regime’s legitimacy.” Likewise, a wide cast of official spokespersons from various Islamist factions have been taking to the stage at their Nasr City rally to make similarly provocative appeals to supporters of the embattled regime.

For its part, the president’s office took several hours to issue an official response to the statement, which came in the form of a complaint about not being informed by the military about its decision before it was announced to the public.

The presidency further criticized the statement for its wording, stressing it could potentially “cause confusion regarding the current convoluted national situation.”

A more determined response came from Morsi himself who appeared in the late hours of Tuesday in a televised address where the word “legitimacy” was repeated at least 74 times. Morsi said that he wouldn’t accept any attempt to rule out his electoral legitimacy and that not all opposition to him is honorable and respectable.

But beyond public discourses, the military’s statement seems to have fractured internal relations within the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly among the youth.

Speaking to Mada Masr under condition of anonymity, a high-ranking member of the Muslim Brotherhood youth described a situation rife with internal conflict. “The leadership has no control over the current situation on the streets,” he says. “The younger members have been receiving messages and emails from the leadership, reminding them of the sanctity of blood and the importance of keeping their protests peaceful, but the youth feel like a mass injustice has been committed against them.”

“They’ve lost faith in the democratic process,” he explains. “From their perspective, they’ve won five elections but have not been able to truly rise to power. Many of them are now saying ‘Bin Laden was right—there is no such thing as democracy.’"

For him, the danger posed by a disillusioned Islamist youth is immediately evident in “their increasing rejection of their elders. The leadership is afraid that, not only will it no longer be listened to, it’ll also be attacked if it attempts to reach out any more than it already has.”

The situation, he explains, is similar to the events of 1954, when the Brotherhood was all but crippled by President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime and internal strife led to a schism in the group, and a consequent wave of violence carried out by younger radicals.

“I am afraid,” the young Islamist says, “of history repeating itself.”

Some of these rifts have become public through social media. Accounts belonging to young, strongly committed supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood regime—or, as many of their number refer to it, the “Islamic project”—have indicated a growing rift between those suggesting renewed dialogue with the opposition and other calling for immediate, violent retaliation against the army, the police, and the people standing in the way of the promised Islamic state.

Compounding the confusion further is a third faction of Islamists who feel they can no longer support a president whose weakness in dealing with enemies of the state, and Islam, has resulted in the current predicament.

While anti-Morsi protests erupted across the country following the military’s statement, Twitter user Sameh al-Khotary, who operates under the handle @Truthcaller felt compelled to send out a flood of tweets with the hashtag ‘Islamic revolution’—which was promptly hijacked by the opposition and used to report alien invasions and massive pro-Morsi rallies in public bathrooms. Meanwhile Mamdouh Jalal (@FinalRule)’s attempts at unifying all pro-Islam/anti-Morsi tweeters with a shared avatar of a Jihadi flag have yet to find any significant success. 

Less amusing, though, are the likes of Shady Aly (@Shidzz) and Anan ElBatanoni (@AnanElBatanoni), the latter stating “If you’re afraid of [Armed Forces Commander in Chief Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi, I’m afraid of God,” the former explaining, “there are some clueless individuals who are under the assumption that we’re taking to the streets to defend Morsi”—a tweet sent out from a late Monday night rally of supporters of firebrand Salafi cleric Hazem Abu Ismail, rapidly organized in response to the perceived double treachery committed by the army and the ruling regime.

Only a few mouse clicks separate the above tweets from calls for an all-out war against those allegedly waging one on Islam. Poster children of the ruling Islamist regime, such as Abdurrahman Ezz and Ahmed Mogheer have used their social media accounts in the past 24 hours to threaten the involvement of Al-Qaeda and vow to deliver “thousands of martyrs” to their cause. Meanwhile, independent militants such as Wild Boar Hunter (@magickay2010) and his comrades continue to promise blood and the fulfilment of “the dream which we have waited so long for.”