The GOP Brotherhood of Egypt:: Egypt's Islamists are actually led by free-market businessmen

[Douglas Carpenter]

By Avi Asher-Schapiro for salon.com



While Western alarmists often depict Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as a shadowy organization with terrorist ties, the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers.

The Brotherhood, which did not initially support the revolution that began a year ago, reaped its benefits, capturing nearly half the seats in the new parliament, which was seated this week, and vaulting its top leaders into positions of power.

Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat Al-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda.

snip:

Speaking to Reuters in November, Hassan Malek, a textile mogul and Brotherhood financier, emphasized that the Brothers “want to attract as much foreign investment as possible … and this needs a big role for the private sector.” Just last week, Malek was tapped by the Brotherhood to head up the newly formed “Egyptian Business and Investment Association,” a coalition of leading Brotherhood businessmen working to promote private investment.



interesting article:

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/26/the_gop_brotherhood_of_egypt/singleton/