LEAVING THE BROTHERHOOD

Transcript

 

00:00:00:24

CROWD CHANTING: Charlie! Charlie!

 

00:00:11:09

MOHAMED LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] It's awareness. The awareness of the public, unfortunately after a certain number of dramatic events, that is to say terrorist attacks in France, at least since the attack at Charlie Hebdo. And since, they have followed, we had the Paris attacks, the Brussels attacks, Madrid, London... which catch the attention of the public opinion and to ask themselves the right questions. Actually, what is this Islam that is generating such violence?

 

00:00:51:03

DR LORENZO VIDINO: Over the last three years, we've seen an unprecedented number of attacks throughout Europe. I think it's clear that Jihadism attracts a statistically insignificant, but relevant from a security point of view, number of European

Muslims. That leads to not only security problems, but deep polarization in society. That

polarization is an environment in which Isis and Islamists will thrive.

 

00:01:19:22

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] My name is Mohamed Louizi. I am 39. I was born in Casablanca in '78. I joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 13, until October 2006. In October 2006, I left the Brotherhood for good and I began a new life.

 

00:01:42:05

GFX: LEAVING THE BROTHERHOOD

 

00:01:47:09

GFX: Dr Lorenze Vidino,

Author: The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West

 

VIDINO: What Mohamed and other people like him, who have abandoned Islamist ideology and spoken about it have talked about their history, their life, why they embraced it in the first place. They do so, in many cases, at great personal risk. It's not easy, what he and other people have done.

 

00:02:09:14

GFX: Dr Noha Mellor

Author: Voice of the Muslim Brotherhood 2017

 

MELLOR: If that member like Mohamed said, "OK, that's it. I'm leaving. I'm out." they would face complete isolation.

 

00:02:18:10

GFX: Magnus Norell

European Foundation for Democracy

 

NORELL: It's people like him, who've seen it from the inside, who decided that this is not the way we want to go, this is not the way for Islam to develop – to support them fully and to realize that's where the answer lies.

 

00:02:33:14

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] So, to make that understood within the Muslim Brotherhood, it's a battle which is still ongoing today. So, I separate myself. I decide to leave, to go, to resign. Understand that it is very difficult to draw a line, to rip out a page which has lasted for 15 years of one's own life. One looks back. What does one see? Waste.

 

I grew up in a working-class neighbourhood that's called Hay Mohammadi, if you know Casablanca. In this kind of neighbourhood, there were not enough activities for young people. And those who came to fill this free time of the youth, it was the Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, amongst others. So the Muslim Brotherhood came to offer extra-curricular activities, activities which attract the youth. And I was a part of it. So, at

the age of 13 –was only 13 at the time when I started frequenting the Muslim Brotherhood – the first time, in a circle of religious education.

 

00:03:49:14

NORELL: I would say that, to understand Islamism, both militant Islamism and non–militant Islamism, you need to understand the Muslim Brotherhood, because it's such a key ingredient to the involvement of political Islam after the Second World War – in modern times.

 

00:04:09:09

VIDINO: One of the main reasons why this is important…

 

00:04:12:03

GFX: Islam: The religion of 1,800,000,000 people. Those

who believe in Islam are Muslims, not Islamist.

 

Islamism: Opposes the distinction between private

faith and public religious duties.

Might lead to radicalisation and radicalism.

 

00:04:15:04

VIDINO: ..is to make Western audiences understand the difference between Islam and Islamism – the difference between their religion and the politicized version of it, which has been created by the Muslim Brotherhood a century ago. And then has taken different directions, has been used by groups like Isis and Al-Qaeda and has spread globally.

 

00:04:35:01

NORELL: The crux of the matter is to separate religion from politics – this is the key thing.

 

00:04:41:03

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] Islam can be defined very simply: it is a religion that bases itself on a faith, and this faith has several interpretations. Islamism is the manipulation of this religion to fulfil a political objective.

 

00:05:04:15

VIDINO: There's an Islamist ideology, which, basically, sees in its foundation the idea that the only legitimate system of government is the one that implements Islamic law, the Sharia fully.

 

00:05:17:03

MELLOR: But they still try to present themselves as the only viable Islamic community so, obviously, people like Mohamed or others who left or want to leave the group, will always be labelled as apostate or infidels, rejecting Islam.

 

00:05:34:17

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] I was an adolescent, and when you're an adolescent, you don't choose, but rather you are carried by, let's say, by the attraction of this movement that comes, that offers things for free, and can even sometimes give help to people. And on top of that, the Muslim Brothers were examples of social successes.

 

00:05:58:16

VIDINO: They are very good at mobilizing people. They attract young people and in many cases, it's through very mundane activities. They're a very well-funded organization, so they will have a lot of field trips, and organize cool activities that

attract young people – in most cases, without really knowing they are attracted to a

Brotherhood.

 

00:06:16:24

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] Most of them were educators, they were teachers. For the parents, they see in their success, to some extent, the success that they want to transmit as an idea. They say that, "If I want my 13-year-old son to be able to become somebody in ten years, I must leave him in the hands of these people who have already succeeded in their lives."

 

00:06:44:14

MELLOR: They call themselves Muslim Brotherhood, which, basically, implies that members are brothers in Islam. And so non–members would be not really true brothers to them. This, basically, excludes so many Muslims in society.

 

00:07:01:04

NORELL: And if they're not like them, they're not real Muslims. This is very dangerous, and to a frightening extent it's been efficient in European countries, to put that message across.

 

00:07:16:07 00:07:43:16

 

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] We must remember that the Muslim Brotherhood, when they go and fetch the youngsters of 13, 14, 15 years old in the working-class neighbourhoods, they don't tell them at the start. They will teach them the bases of the religion and, little by little, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has targeted a whole group of young people, they are not going to take all these youths. No, they will choose, they will select a few, and it is from that moment onwards, that one will start to study not just the religion, but the writings of the Brotherhood.

 

00:07:52:19

VIDINO: Only a few who are attracted will become Brotherhood members. The Brotherhood is a very selective group.

 

00:07:59:06

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] They will choose the elements who can carry the ideological project in the future.

 

00:08:06:04

GFX: CAIRO EGYPT 1928

 

00:08:15:05

MELLOR: The Muslim Brotherhood is a group that started in Egypt and founded by someone called hassan al-Banna.

 

00:08:21:17

GFX: Hassan al-Banna

1906-1949

 

00:08:23:01

MELLOR: He was very keen, during the 1930s and '40s, to meet with Arab and foreign students. He had some charisma and he could extract people, particularly from the lower classes.

 

00:08:36:04

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] When Hassan al-Banna created his foundation, his Brotherhood, he said my project is to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate.

 

00:08:46:15

GFX: NEWSPAPER: Cairo, Feb. 12 1949

Hassan al-Banna

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADER KILLED

 

00:08:50:09

MELLOR: Huge efforts were put into building and consolidating this network after al–Banna's death, via his son–in–law Sayed Ramadan.

 

00:08:57:17

GFX: Dr Sayed Ramadan

1926-1955

 

00:09:00:12

MELLOR: He started writing about the global mission of the Brotherhood. He and others in the group no longer saw the group as a local movement, but one with a global mission.

 

00:09:12:02

CROWD CHANTING: Nasser!

 

00:09:13:13

VIDINO: Everything changes when Nasser comes to power, cracks down on the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood takes a violent approach.

 

00:09:21:06

NEWSPAPER: 29 August, 1966

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION ON GAMAL ABDEL NASSER

 

00:09:22:12

MELLOR: When they were suppressed under Nasser's rule in Egypt, they used this suffering as a kind of a tactic to compare their mission to that of the Prophet. They always say that they are the bearers of the banner of Islam after the Prophet.

 

00:09:39:23

GFX: Sayyid Qutb

1906-1966

 

00:09:41:02

VIDINO: It's the era of Sayyid Qutb which becomes incredibly important, from an ideological point of view, in really shaping militant Islamist ideology...

 

00:09:49:23

NEWSPAPER: August, 1956

Sayyid Qutb sentenced to death

 

00:09:51:17

VIDINO: ..and Sayyid Qutb is the quintessential godfather of contemporary Jihadism.

 

00:09:55:16

NORELL: They don't make stuff up. It's all there written down. They know exactly how to argue from out of a religious context that many Muslims understand, or at least are familiar with.

 

00:10:08:11

VIDINO: He had created a system that would engage in politics. It would do grassroots activities. It would Islamize society from the bottom up.

 

The Brotherhood in the West started in the 1950s and '60s, when we have some pioneers, some core Brotherhood members from Egypt, from Syria, from other countries in the Middle East and north Africa that came to the West, in some cases sought political asylum or came as students. They set up the very first Muslim organizations in the West.

 

00:10:40:09

MELLOR: They will be encouraged to detach themselves from mainstream society and live in, you know, live in their own kind of society within society.

 

00:10:52:09

NORELL: They need their own schools, their own health clinics because, that way, they can keep educating, if you like... and arguing that they shouldn't integrate.

 

00:11:03:21

VIDINO: Their idea was, "We can actually play..." This is what Yusuf al-Qaradawi openly says in some of his writings: "We can play the role of leadership of these communities. We have an unprecedented opportunity of being the guides of these communities. We're not bound by the same limits that regimes in the Middle East and North Africa put us under. We have freedom here in the West.

 

00:11:24:03

GFX: "Some went to Europe and some went to America. And they began to establish Islamic activity, with low volume at first. And they continued to work and now we see what we see in the West: the Muslim student associations..."

Yusuf al-Qaradawi

 

00:11:26:23

VIDINO: “We can spread our interpretation of Islam to Muslim communities here."

 

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is, arguably, the spiritual leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood.

Qatar-based, very influential, has for a long time had a show on Al Jazeera, has written countless books which are distributed by Brotherhood networks worldwide.

 

00:11:50:07

MELLOR: But it is interesting that Qaradawi himself, in his memoirs, wrote briefly about his experience in the Brotherhood, and he, himself, acknowledged that the weakest trait about the group was that they never had a strong intellectual project. And the only thing available for them to read was the al-Banna's Messages.

 

00:12:11:00

VIDINO: So, there's sort of a second generation, that's why I call it a Western, new Western Brotherhood, where these organizations have taken, of course, a somewhat different ideology. They to some degree adapted it to the West but, of course, retained the same core world view, which is very much problematic and very much at odds with

Western values and with human rights in general.

 

00:12:37:20

GFX: THE DNA OF THE BROTHERHOOD

 

00:12:40:08

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] So, the ideological structuring comes as a second step. We enter the training stage: that is to say the people who will carry the Islamist project within society. And when they become teachers, doctors, policemen, soldiers etc, they already have the DNA of the Brotherhood.

 

00:13:02:23

NORELL: The Brotherhood is as much a political organization as a religious one. It's the

personification of political Islam, where religion and politics are intertwined. For them, the end goal, if you like, the kind of society they want... And they've been saying this clearly since 1928. It's non–democratic. They are against equality between the sexes. They are for separation of ethnic and religious groups.

 

00:13:36:06

VIDINO: They seek to polarize the political environment in which they operate, and create sort of a siege mindset in the community they want to mobilize. The idea is, "The others are out to get us! We as Muslims" or, as Islamists would put it, "Islam itself is under attack from outsiders. There's a giant conspiracy against us. We should stick together and we should fight back aggressively."

 

00:14:01:14

GFX: VIOLENCE

 

00:14:04:20

NORELL: Many varieties of the Brotherhood in Europe is non–violent, for sure. It's not a

terrorist organization. It's not an organization per se at all because there are many

organizations, it's a movement. But depending on the context, they can absolutely be, and they are violent. Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood, is very violent.

 

00:14:26:14

MELLOR: I think violence is not just about carrying a weapon and harming someone here and now. It's also violence by words and deeds. What they do is that they always urge their members to kind of detach themselves from other groups in society. So, basically, isolate themselves.

 

00:14:48:08

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] They viewed us as tools. They fed us the ideology, and then... So I said to myself, no, my 15 years, certainly, there are beautiful things, but not only. I gave lots and lots of time to the Muslim Brotherhood and we really need that this

experience be transmitted, explained.

 

00:15:09:15

VIDINO: We can go back 20 years and we would see the Brotherhood groups would argue that there was a war against Islam and that the West was out to get Muslims. Now, their solution might be different from that of Isis and Al-Qaida, but the narrative that leads to polarization was the same.

 

00:15:26:15

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] That the Muslim Brotherhood are dangerous, it's a fact. That the Muslim Brotherhood feed Islamist radicalisation by their talks of hate and rupture, it's a fact.

 

00:15:41:03

GFX: QUESTIONING

 

00:15:45:12

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] The rupture with the Muslim Brotherhood took place in two stages. In 1996, when I started reading a book in Arabic by a Syrian.

 

00:15:57:03

BOOK COVER:

Jawdat Said

The Islamic ways to non-violence

 

00:15:59:22

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] I name him in my book, Jawdat Said, and this Syrian asks the question of the relation between religion and violence.

 

00:16:12:01

VIDINO: The Brotherhood has strategically decided to go more for a political solution – without shunning violence. It's more of a strategic decision. They argue that they will use violence selectively, only when they assess that it will be more conducive to their goal. So, if they think that ballots will be more useful, they will run in elections. If they think that bullets are more valuable, they will be engaged in violent activities.

 

00:16:38:10

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] After 11th September, after a number of terrorist attacks, namely the Casablanca attacks, we started to really ask ourselves the question, is this vision of non-violence, is it not a choice that has become paramount? So then I started to talk about this around me. We try to create the debate within the Brotherhood. No, they will not understand.

 

00:17:02:07

NORELL: They're not interested in a dialogue or a debate – they don't want to talk to you, they don't want to listen to you. They absolutely don't want you to get your voice heard.

 

00:17:13:01

MELLOR: The point of Mohamed's story and the stories of other dissenting members in Egypt is, basically, that it calls for a debate.

 

00:18:10:22

VIDINO: There's a part of the Islamist movement that, in order to achieve the goal of creating an Islamic society, engaging in politics, engaging in proselytism, is sort of a waste of time and only violence will bring about the aspired goal.

 

00:18:28:00

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] After 15 years of militancy, during which I gave my life, my health, my money, I left. I decide to leave, to go, to resign.

 

In October 2006, I was in charge of the cultural branch of the Mosque in south Lille. So I had responsibilities. So I wrote resignation letters to my president, "Here, I resign from..." I didn't give my reasons. I said "for personal reasons". "I am no longer part of the Muslim Brotherhood. I no longer carry your DNA. I leave this heritage behind that you instilled in me during the past 15 years. I don't want it. I don't want it any more.”

 

00:19:20:20

GFX: AFTERMATH

 

00:19:24:08

MELLOR: Those who speak against the Brotherhood are certainly brave. It's like people who are members of cults, of cult culture, and they leave that cult culture.

 

00:19:33:16

NORELL: He's running a risk. I mean, you don't necessarily just walk away from it, right?

 

00:19:39:15

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] From that moment, there is the Imam of the Mosque who starts to preach that the Prophet is said to have said, "He who changes his religion, kill him."

 

00:19:55:09

MELLOR: But all of a sudden, if that member, like Mohamed, said, "OK, that's it. I'm leaving. I'm out." They would face complete isolation.

 

00:20:05:05

 

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] However, worse than that, what I consider to be worse than that, is when they attack the family unit.

 

00:20:12:18

MELLOR: People like Mohamed or others who left or want to leave the group, they will always be labelled as apostates or infidels.

 

00:20:21:07

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] They went to see my family to tell them that I am an apostate, but you see the manipulation because I left the Muslim Brotherhood, I have fallen into the religious prohibitions, that I make my wife take off her headscarf, that I have started spreading nonsense about the religion, that I am working hand-in-hand

with the secret services. I heard loads of things. I heard incredible things.

 

From one day to the next, the Muslim Brotherhood decides that you are no longer allowed to have this social relationship. On my mobile, I had maybe 300 contacts, 300 friends – lots of Muslim Brothers, Muslim Sisters. All of a sudden, I had maybe two contacts left. You see, the violence of this choice?

 

00:21:14:11

MELLOR: Mohamed's experience is not unique. There are many people, especially the young members who wrote their memoires recently, and they, basically, kind of say similar things to what Mohamed said. Brotherhood members interfering between a man and his wife, that happened also in Egypt.

 

00:21:33:12

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] On 18th October 2006, my wife was about to give birth. We are having a baby, a boy. The Muslim Sisters, the members of the Muslim Brotherhood

here in France, wanted to come and visit my wife to congratulate her for the birth. Except that the real reason was quite different. They came to tell my wife that a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim, an apostate. They wanted to separate me from my wife. Let's say things clearly, from my love and from my children.

 

That, I admit, that even today, when I think about it, I am sad... I would even say disgusted.

 

00:22:34:01

GFX: THE FUTURE

 

00:22:37:01

NORELL: For the Brotherhood, it's important to blur the lines between religion and politics, in a sense, because when you hear, as a Westerner... when you hear "Islam" or "Muslim", they want you to think of them.

 

00:22:52:16

VIDINO: Over the last few years, societies in the Muslim world, particularly in the Arab world, have fought back against Islamism. If we do see this as a civil war within Islam, it's obvious if we look at the attacks that we see, the reality is that the majority of people within Muslim societies are fighting back.

 

00:23:15:16

MELLOR: The Muslim Brotherhood has been sending contradictory messages. Some members would promote violence against security forces in Egypt, while others would call for reconciliation with the present government.

 

00:23:32:21

GFX: Victims of terrorist attacks worldwide 2004-Now

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria

 

00:23:33:16

VIDINO: The vast majority of victims of terrorism over the last few years are Muslims, because those groups are attacking the Muslims who are not supporting them – the majority of people in the Muslim world. A lot of the efforts that we have seen at reinterpreting religious texts – it's not the only solution. It's one of the many things that need to be done.

 

00:23:55:09

NORELL: Unless we really change tack here, like stop funding these organizations. That would be a first, you know. Stop giving them money!

 

00:24:04:11

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] I believe I am an optimist that the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood will disappear. It's a question of a few years. It will disappear first demographically, because the sociology of the Muslim Brotherhood in France and Europe, we have most of the leaders today, they must be between 55-80 years old. Those people will die out naturally.

 

Furthermore, I believe that the ideology is destined to fail because of people's growing

awareness.

 

00:24:45:08

VIDINO: The idea of creating a more tolerant interpretation, and more flexible and less

literalist interpretation of the text – which is what drives Islamist and Jihadist ideology – it's one thing that is quite encouraging. And it comes from within Muslim communities, from within the Muslim world.

 

00:25:04:14

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] Today, I can share my testimony and tell these youths who might be 13, 14 years old, be careful. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. And today I am extricating myself from it. Do not allow your youth to be stolen from you by he Muslim Brotherhood. If it's not with you, they will find others.

 

00:25:26:15

MELLOR: The courage to embark on a journey, to find their own identity and discover their own identity away from this cult culture.

 

00:25:36:02

NORELL: Listen to people like Mohamed – again, I'm re–emphasizing this – who knows the story from the inside. Terrorism is not necessarily the major effect. It's the separation of people that are the big threats.

 

00:25:51:11

VIDINO: Over the last 15, 20 years, there's been a generational change. A lot of these individuals, for a variety of reasons that mostly have to do with age, are no longer active in these organizations. We have a new generation who are more adapted to the environment in the West. They know how to talk to Western elites, they know how to behave in interviews, but little has changed when it comes to the core ideology.

 

00:26:16:16

NORELL: One of the reasons that they're so strong and powerful is that they always base themselves on the scriptures. That's why people like Mohamed and others are so courageous when they say, "Yeah, but I have a different, another interpretation."

 

00:26:33:06

GFX: HOPE

 

00:26:39:08

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] This book, I'm very proud of. I mean by this I express myself through this book, my testimony. I explain why I left the Brotherhood.

 

I would say the happiest moment was when my editor

accepted to publish my testimony.

 

00:27:11:19

BOOK COVER:

Mohamed Louizi

POURQUOI J'AI QUITTÉ LES FRÈRES MUSULMANS

RETOUR ÉCLAIRÉ VERS UN ISLAM APOLITIQUE

 

00:27:12:04

LOUIZI: [in-vision subtitles] To give my testimony another dimension, that was a happy moment. When I go to the library and I see my book amongst the books, I say this, "This book, this is a truly good thing." And it makes me happy because I gave substance. After my 15 years, certainly, people had suspicions. They were speculating things, so I show them a point of view from the inside.

 

And the day they said to me, "Mohamed, here is the first copy of your testimony", I cried with joy. And that was, for me, a foundational moment symbolising a new life. God knows that since 2006, I have quite a few young people, students, who were part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and who, four years later, then send me in an email: "It is thanks to you that we are taking the decision to leave."

 

They are not very many, but if I manage to convince three, four, five people, it's already a lot. Because one radicalised person is one too many.

 

00:28:31:24

GFX: LEAVING THE BROTHERHOOD