Rethinking militancy
Why has the change of heart on the part of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya's jailed leaders been given such extensive press coverage? Jailan Halawi investigates
For years, journalists who wanted access to the incarcerated leaders of Egypt's most militant group, Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, were squarely rebuffed. It was clear that the Al-'Aqrab Prison (literally "scorpion") was off limits to the press.
Most of the militants in question are serving time for their roles in the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981. Recently -- thanks to a clear governmental green light -- they have managed to work their way into the media spotlight. In fact, the extensive press coverage of their most recent pronouncements has left the public questioning the motives behind such a novel posture.
The fact that these hardened militants have softened their ideological stances is certainly a primary factor. Their harsh criticism of Al-Qa'eda and retreat from their own militant group's violent approach to spreading their call have all been amply highlighted by the media. Perhaps even more surprising has been the apology they have proffered for assassinating El-Sadat, and the fact that they now refer to the man they helped kill as a martyr.
Karam Zohdi, one of the so-called historic leaders of Al-Gama'a, has been quoted as saying, "We long ago stated our rejection of Al- Qa'eda's ideas. They have turned the whole world, including the house of Islam, into a house of war. They have waded in blood and have not earned a single benefit for Islam or Muslims."
The statements made by Zohdi and other incarcerated leaders of Al- Gama'a appeared in a series of interviews with pro-government publications, as well as in several London-based Arabic papers. Zohdi also announced the imminent completion of a book -- entitled A New Jurisprudence for a Changing World: A Contemporary Outlook on the Issue of Divine Governance -- co-authored by Zohdi and other Al- Gama'a leaders.
According to Zohdi, the process of ijtihad (interpretation of the Qur'an and Sunna, or Prophet Mohamed's teachings) "must be suited to exigencies, and changing realities. [With the current situation in Iraq and the pressures imposed on Arab governments from the powers of global hegemony], Al-Gama'a reviewed its stance, since now national autonomy itself is at stake."
While five other Al-Gama'a members were sentenced to death in the Sadat assassination case, Zohdi is serving a life sentence. During his incarceration, he has managed to earn two law degrees.
According to security analysts speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, the recent interviews given by Zohdi and other jailed Islamists represent the fruits of long-running government attempts to give moderate Islamists a louder voice, primarily as a way of countering latent threats from those who still espouse violence.
Many of the interviews have focussed on new interpretations of Al- Gama'a's core ideologies, reiterating the jailed leaders' commitment to the group's six-year-old unilateral cease-fire initiative. Perhaps the most infamous chapter in the group's history was the massacre of 58 tourists in the southern town of Luxor in 1997, an act carried out by a faction of the group opposed to the truce. Since then, there have been no Gama'a Islamiya attacks in Egypt.
With one of the most militant of Islamist movements now declaring that killing Jews, Christians and Americans is wrong, and the government allowing the group's new views prominent space in the public arena, analysts are considering the implications of the radical change that has occurred on the part of both the militants and the state. Many are wondering whether the new dynamic represents an attempt to establish a more peaceful coexistence between the Islamist movement and society as a whole, or whether it is more of a high-profile move meant to prove to the United States that Egypt is an admirable model when it comes to methods of containing terrorism.
In either case, experts said, it is definitely a sign -- on the part of both the government and the militants themselves -- of a more "sophisticated" way of dealing with militancy.
Seen in a more global context -- in light of a continuing stream of militant attacks on American and Western targets, combined with the US's wide-reaching and merciless "war on terror" -- analysts interpret Egypt's primary and most militant clandestine Islamist group making clear its desire to avoid being a part of that particular war, as well as the state's utilisation of that change of heart and mind, "as a clever move from both sides".
According to Nabil Abdel-Fattah of Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, after the 9/11 attacks, it was imperative for Egypt to exert efforts to prove that it was not an exporter of Islamist militancy, especially considering US investigators' charges that the attackers' ringleader was an Egyptian identified as Mohamed Atta. The fact that Al-Qa'eda leader Osama Bin Laden's main deputy, Ayman El- Zawahri, and seven of 22 people on a Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] "most wanted" terrorist list, are Egyptian as well, certainly made that task yet more grave.
These factors, said Abdel-Fattah, catalysed a number of leading US publications into questioning why the US's "moderate" Arab allies -- Egypt and Saudi Arabia (the country from where a lion's share of the 9/ 11 perpetrators hailed) -- had produced these people. These influential publications consequently accused both countries of having dysfunctional, undemocratic regimes, which provide a fertile breeding ground for the spread of religious fanaticism in their societies.
This paradigm helped establish a pretext for the US to launch a "war on terror" -- ostensibly in self-defence. In doing so, the US administration made clear that its war would be "tireless and relentless", with no "margin for error". Any country suspected of hosting, financing or providing its soil as a base for terror elements to function could find itself becoming a direct or indirect target of war.
As such, opined Abdel-Fattah, Egypt's security and political apparatus found it necessary to distance the regime from any possible attacks. One way of doing this was to highlight the differences between the ideologies of the Egyptian Al-Gama'a and Al-Qa'eda.
Domestically, Abdel-Fattah said, it became important for the government to promote the new, more peaceful approach adopted by the influential group's leadership, in the hope that it would have a positive effect on the ideological formulation of its "new recruits".
It also helped to prove that the government was willing to include those who renounce "deviant" thought into mainstream society. According to Abdel-Fattah, this could also serve to "encourage moderate Islamist trends to surface and play more active roles on the political scene".
On the global level, meanwhile, said Abdel-Fattah, it was also beneficial to portray an Egyptian Islamist ideology that fit better with the US need for a "softer" Islamism.
This ideological revision, however, has not played well with Al- Gama'a's expatriate leaders. From his London-based Centre for Historic Studies, lawyer Hani El-Siba'ie criticised the statements made by the jailed leaders, arguing that they could not be sincere "since they were launched from prison and promoted by the state security apparatus". El-Siba'ie has said that his centre is putting together its own interpretation of Shari'a in response to the ideological revisions being promoted by Zohdi and others.
El-Siba'ie suggested -- sarcastically -- that the incarcerated leaders should dissolve their group and declare it a "charity association" instead. He said that instead of spending money on the publication of books, the jailed leaders should have used these funds to help the families of the victims of violence, "who were killed based on orders given by these same leaders".
For his part, Abdel-Fattah dismissed El-Siba'ie's criticism as emerging from the "luxury of living abroad". According to Abdel-Fattah, so- called leaders like El-Siba'ie "had never really played an effective role within the movement, nor had they provided solutions to the group's complex status, or formulas for handling the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks". These same elements, he said, describe westerners as infidels who should be killed wherever they are, while they themselves "take refuge on Western soil and live under those 'infidels' rule".
While most analysts are convinced that Egypt has been able to destroy the infrastructure of major militant groups, they also suspect that pockets of sympathisers may lurk beneath the surface. For this reason, said Abdel-Fattah, it was important to keep in mind the circumstances (namely prison) from which these ideological revisions appeared. "An author's environment should not be ignored, since it undoubtedly affects his ideas. Politicians are known for their ability to manoeuvre based on their circumstances, and hence, whatever they say should be dealt with carefully," he said.
Other experts said the revisions should only be seen as a temporary, tactical success for the Egyptian state. They doubted that a propensity towards violence would disappear altogether, since at bottom, religiously motivated violence is rooted in dismal living conditions. And, they warned, those conditions only appeared to be getting worse.
