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The Muslim Brotherhood and the Four "No"s

(World Affairs) - Alan Johnson - I was in Doha last week for the U.S.-Islamic World Forum. Held annually since 9/11, the forum builds "bridges of understanding between the United States and the Muslim World." The forum left me troubled in two respects. First by a pitch made by several speakers to throw Israel overboard, and the good ship "U.S.-Islamic Relations" will steam ahead. Second, by a naive approach among some participants toward one of the most ideologically driven political formations in the Islamic world - the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood doesn't mean what we mean by such words as "freedom," "equality," "democracy," and "rights," and they sense that we don't realize that! One participant asked the constitution writers present to say whether or not they agreed with the following four "no"s: No religious test for citizenship or for any public position, including president. No second-class citizenship on the basis of religion. No legal impediment or social restriction on the freedom of worship. No imposition of religious identity upon the individual by society or state. The silence was deafening. The writer is a professor of democratic theory and practice at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, England.
2012-06-07 00:00:00
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