The Policy Of The Muslim Brotherhood Of Egypt, The Mubarak Regime

The Secularization and Islamization are one of important problems for Middle East . Egypt is a traditional islamic big power of the Middle East which is deeply influenced by the Western countries. It's conflict or the fusion of Secularization and Islamization exists simultaneously , which is representative and typical. The relationship between politics and religion affects the direction of political development in Egypt. The relationship is mainly between two different forces, the worldly force represented by the regime and the Islam organizations, like Muslim Brotherhood. Both of the two forces play an important role in the progress of the political development. The paper is principally about the policy of Mubarak regime in dealing with Muslim Brotherhood and demonstrates the policy in the field of politics, civil society, economy and the like. In addition, this paper will analyze the variables in choosing policy on the foregoing basis, and in the meantime, set forth the evaluation of the policy's effect.The feature of Mubarak regime's political structure is exclusively-strong administrative power. The regime is the potentate of Egypt and insists on secularization on the road of political development. Thus, the country has gradually realized the separation of state and church, law and religion, and education and religion. Mubarak regime has led the political process and obtained the absolute advantage in parliamentary elections, while MB (Muslim Brotherhood) is Egypt's largest political opposition. Its mainstream has basically given up violence policy and its orientation of political behavior tends to be moderate. Moreover, Muslim Brotherhood actively participates in parliamentary politics and it has entered a new period of evolution and development., but it is still regarded as a threat by the regime. MB has asked to enhance the role of Islam in Egypt and put Sharia law in the center of the political agenda. MB has considerable legitimacy in the field of civil society and superior mobilization capability. These constitute the basic features of both sides in the interactive framework.When Mubarak first rose to power, the regime adopted the tolerance policy, which in the aspect of political tolerance is mainly performed as the permission for MB to take part in parliamentary election indirectly. Also acquiescence was taken by the regime in Muslin Brotherhood's development in the social field, in which it plays the role of complement and compensation of the civil society. In the early 1990s, Mubarak regime's policy on MB transformed from tolerance to control. The transformation in the political field basically lied in the slowdown of the democratization process, which was to avoid the situation where MB would change the regime through the Parliament. In the social field, the regime tried to restrict the penetration of MB into the civil society, for fear that the civil society would become the bargaining chip of MB to play the political role. The government establishes and supports business associations, further exacerbating conflicts with MB in the economic field. Under the control of the government, the strategy of MB is mainly to strengthen its influence on the civil society and to create the image of an Islamic moderate. However, it not necessarily means that MB is entirely in a passive state, though it doesn't choose to confront with the regime directly.Mubarak regime had shown a posture of both tolerance and antagonism, which was decided by three groups of fundamental strengths: the democratic reform procedure against the revival of MB; the inner force of the nation and the civil society against the appeal of the nation for a civil society. Since the relations of the two sides are usually defined on their differences, the cooperation seems to be temporary. In terms of this relationship, the regime is more initiative thus has made MB the part to endure and to respond. The attitude towards MB in the perspective of Mubarak regime and its successor may change, when the three groups of strengths once out of balance.Mubarak regime's policy towards MB will influence the political development in Egypt since it will speed up the secularism and may achieve the"three separations"while MB's decision is just to start a renovation under the framework set by the regime without the appeal for overthrowing the secularized regime. However, Mubarak regime cannot fix all the political or religious chaos now Egypt is faced with. The power of MB has been temporarily suppressed, but the regime is reluctant to involve it in the political system. As the biggest opposition, MB's penetration into Egypt is all round and it has popular support, thus leaving a threat against the secularization procedure. The regime's attitude may also have an influence on democratic procedure: tolerance will speed it up while domination may slow it down. Mubarak regime's policies on MB do not hinder the MB's development and in the Egypt crisis, MB still plays an important role, which means that MB is still an important power of political development of Egypt. Mubarak regime and its successors still need support from MB in the political process. Egypt government also needs MB to play a complementary role in the social area. MB will not probably achieve its political demands by means of violence.The main points of each character in this essay are:The introduction introduces the significance of the topic and the differences of related concepts, puts forward the angles of the research and makes a systematic review of documents.Chapter 1 explained the evolution of the relation between politic and religion in Egypt from historical pespective. The modernization of Egypt starts the process of secularation. The relation between politic and religion has changed. Religion began to be affiliated to politic and nationlism became the dominant ideology. This builds the foundation of secular nation in Egypt.Chapter 2 analyzes the political structure characteristics and political development direction of Mubarak regime. The former mainly embodies in the executive represented by the President, the only big for the opposition which has a powerful control. Egyptian civil rights have further promotion space, but the regime has opened up some channels of democracy. The latter mainly reflects in that the Mubarak regime follows the direction of secular development, which are practiced in the political, legal, educational and other issues, but the Islamists still have a certain influence in the field.Chapter 3 mainly elaborates political views of Muslim Brotherhood. The resurrection of Muslim Brotherhood was closely related to the Egyptian Islamic revival. The key element of political views of Muslim Brotherhood is inheritance of Hasan Bana's thought. However, there was once a trend for extreme thought of Sayid Qutb to develop into Islamic constitutionalism. So far the main stream of Muslim Brotherhood has been achieving political views in a moderate way.Chapter 4 approaches the background and manifestation of the Mubarak government towards Muslim Brotherhood's tolerance policy. There was a certain correlation between integrated development of Muslim Brotherhood when Mubarak first came into power and tolerance policy of the government.Chapter 5 mainly analyzes the background and measures of the Mubarak government towards transformation of Muslim Brotherhood's tolerance policy to restriction. The growing trend of the Muslim Brotherhood power went beyond the range of the government control. The Mubarak government controlled the process of the parliamentary election. At the same time, the government suppressed the expansion of Muslim Brotherhood in social fields through trade association law and league organizational law; it continually restrained Muslim Brotherhood's space.Chapter 6 tries to explore the decision dimensions of the Mubarak government towards Muslim Brotherhood, namely the crucial elements behind the policy choice. The policy choice of the government between tolerance and restriction towards Muslim Brotherhood basically depends on the following three aspects: the correlation between democratization process and the rejuvenation of Moslem, a declared policy of separation of church and state and validity conferred by Moslem, and tension and unification between the state and society.The epilogue points out that as the representative of secularism, although the Mubarak government reinforced the secularization of Egypt and influenced the democratization process of Egypt, it didn't solve the dilemma of state and church in essence. There was a certain correlation between the downfall of the Mubarak government and Muslim Brotherhood. Looking forward to the post- Mubarak Era, Muslim Brotherhood will continue to be an important power in political development of Egypt, and politico-religious relationship will still be a significant problem facing political development of Egypt.