Re-Evaluations By Islamists in Egypt

Re-Evaluations By Islamists And Theories By Analysts
Mohammad Salah Al-Hayat 21 Nov, 2007

Once again, re-evaluations by Islamists in Egypt have come to dominate the scene. It seems natural, since the radical actions of Islamists have affected everyone, whether these are their victims or those who have paid the price in terms of their lost loved ones, incomes, security or standard of living. Thus, interest in the Islamists is no longer limited to themselves or the political, economic or military analysts, as it concerns even those who aren't involved in politics and don't want anything other than to live in safety.

What's interesting is that the scenario has repeated itself; the contrasting views of supporters and opponents are taken up by analysts and the current and former Islamists among them, who have unleashed a commotion upon the world, either affirming the truthfulness of these self-evaluations or trying to prove the error of their comrades, by warning that they are engaged in deception and will leave behind these self-evaluations once again, if their conditions change. This point of view is argued despite the fact that the former experience of another organization in Egypt succeeded and proved that violence, or at least most of it, can stop, if those involved change their ideas and if others call for a transformation toward peaceful courses of action to achieve the same goals for which these fundamentalist groups were established.
In fact, there was violence by Egyptian Islamists, which began in the 1960s and continued over various periods and expanded, moving from one Egyptian city to another and then to other countries.

Organizations that were responsible for this violence relied on interpretations by their leaders regarding the meaning of jihad.

Whatever the intellectual dispute between supporters and opponents of the self-evaluations, it is certain that there is no dispute over the fact that the issue of violence by Islamists has affected them and those around them, as well as causing serious harm to their societies and states. Also, the debate over the intentions behind the authors of these self-criticisms is useless as long as violence actually stops in some countries and is on its way to being halted in other countries. Thus, the most important issue that is posed by the self-evaluations, and one that deserves the debate by analysts and their theories, is their impact on these people, who retain their convictions about the benefit of violence as a means of changing political regimes and confronting the governments of their countries; they have placed Arabs and Muslims in a dispute over theory and interest with the forces of the west, granting them the opportunity to combat Muslims with both their ideas and acts.

The theorist of the Egyptian Jihad organization, Sayyed Imam Sharif, put forward his ideas, opinions, and self-evaluation while in prison, as their peace initiative was put forward by the leaders of Islamic Jihad in 1997, becoming a final decision in 1999 as military operations inside and outside Egypt were halted. Then, five books were published, reaching the conclusion that their peaceful transformation was in line with religious law. As a final result, we saw the positive initiative by al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya, but the Egyptian authorities and research groups only rarely monitored the involvement of members of this organization in military operations. The growth of the group and its spread were halted and we saw a change in life in Egypt's cities, neighborhoods and provinces.

The authors of the initiative, who were locked in a struggle with those who opposed them while they were involved in violence, also opposed them when they turned to peaceful action.Certainly, members of Egypt's Jihad group who supported Sharif's initiative will take up the same struggle to prove their intentions and peaceful logic, but the question remains: would the situation have changed if al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya didn't put forward a re-evaluation of its ideas, principles and program? The question can be extended to include Jihad as well: if Sharif had not put forward his self-evaluation, can Jihad regain its strength and return to military operations?In any case, the irrefutable truth is that the classic Egyptian organizations changed after they became certain that violence would not bring down the regime, while the random killing carried out by some desperate individuals because of difficult political, social and economic conditions continues to constitute the greatest harm to their cause. The perpetrators of such acts have not put forward re-evaluations because their actions were not based on ideas, but rather anger at their societies, to which they did not feel they belonged.