Ennahda's links with Brotherhood stronger than what appears
The Ennahda Movement is an embodiment of the progress political Islam is making in North Africa.
As a state, Tunisia has
a strategic geographic location. It is located in close proximity to Islamist
movements in North and West Africa. It is also so close to Europe.
Ennahda emerged in the
early 1970s. It came officially to light in 1981.
Relations between the
movement and the Tunisian regime have been full of ebbs and flows. There were
occasions on which both parties also clashed.
Ex-Tunisian president
Zine al-Abidine ben Ali used a security approach in dealing with the movement. Ben
Ali's ouster gave the movement the chance to rise to the top on Tunisia's
political stage. In this, Ennahda used rampant unrest in the country, following
the downfall of the ben Ali regime in 2011.
Ennahda is an
ideological and organizational offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Hmida
Ennaifer, one of the leaders of Ennahda, swore allegiance to Muslim Brotherhood
supreme guide Hassan al-Hodeibi in 1973. That was at the time of the hajj (the
annual ritual Muslims perform in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia).
Ennahda tried more than once to distance itself
from the Muslim Brotherhood. Nonetheless, the movement's thoughts and
literature prove its affiliation to the Islamist movement beyond all doubts. The
same literature shows that Ennahda is also a branch of the International
Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ennahda did not cut off its ties to the
Brotherhood at any moment. The movement only maneuvers in order to get into a
position of control.
The Tunisian movement has the power to color
itself in a way that suits the conditions on the ground every now and then. The
Brotherhood of Egypt had a deep effect on the movement in Tunisia.
This paper includes the following points:
First, the political activities of the movement
Second, relations between Ennahda and the
Muslim Brotherhood
Third, position of Ennahda toward the overthrow
of the Brotherhood in Egypt and the effect of this overthrow on the movement in
Tunisia
Fourth, whether claims by Ennahda that it cut
off its ties with the Brotherhood are sincere
First, the political activities of
the movement
The beginnings
of Ennahda go back to the year 1969 when Rached Ghannouchi, Abdelfattah
Mourou, and other Islamist
leaders met for the first time and founded what was known then as the
"Islamic Group". The movement was pro-government at first. This was
why it was welcomed by the then-ruling Socialist Constitutional Party which
believed the new Islamist movement would be a rival to the leftists who made up
the bulk of the opposition at the time. In the same year, Abdel Qadir Salama,
one of the leaders of the new movement, launched what was known as
"Knowledge" magazine. The magazine started promoting the thoughts of
the movement as of 1972 in an indirect manner. By 1874, the magazine had turned
into the main intellectual hub of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia.
Tunisia's
Islamists strengthened their contacts. In 1972, the
first founding congress of the Islamic Group was organized in the northern
Tunisian province of Manouba. Around 60 figures attended the congress. Those
attending approved the basic law of the Islamic Group as well as its
organizational structure. The group also changed its name into the
"Islamic Direction Movement". It maintained that name all through the
rule of the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba.
The movement clashed
with the Tunisian regime several times in the 1980s. The year 1985 witnessed
improvements in relations between the two sides. This was when the Tunisian
government approved the founding of the General Association of Tunisian
Students which was affiliated to the movement. Some of the leaders of the
movement also seized the opportunity of these improving relations in getting
government approval to their travel to other countries to get financial and
political support. Mourou
travelled to France and met then-French president Francois Mitterrand and
German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Both leaders refused a demand by the Tunisian
Islamist to offer him political asylum.
The movement used the political openness
created by ben Ali's coming to power and changed its name to the current
"Ennahda". That was in February of 1988. It changed its name with the
aim of getting a license for the construction of its political party for the
first time. Nevertheless, it failed to found a party, because Tunisia banned
the construction of political parties with religious backgrounds. This was why
Ennahda did not field candidates in the legislative elections which were held
in April 1988.
The movement signed the National Charter
Document to curry favors with ben Ali. Ben Ali, however, accused the movement
in 1991 of attempting to stage a coup against him. This opened the door for a
crackdown on the movement, one that continued until 2011.
Second, relations between Ennahda and
the Muslim Brotherhood
The Islamic
Direction Movement became an active member of the International Organization of
the Muslim Brotherhood was founded by the fifth Brotherhood supreme guide
Mustafa Mashhour. The movement was represented in the organization by Ghannouchi
who liaised between the movement and the organization.
The conditions in which Ennahad was founded
were very similar to those in which other Muslim Brotherhood organizations in
other countries were founded. Like other Brotherhood offshoots, Ennahda likes
to claim that it was founded in reaction to rampant political oppression and
economic deterioration.
At its beginnings, the movement was very
similar to the Sufis and, at times, the Salafists. This was, however,
substituted with the Muslim Brotherhood ideology which does not mind the use of
violence to effect change. The movement adopted the thoughts of Sayyed Qotb,
Hassan al-Banna and Pakistani scholar Syed Abul A'la Maududi.
Third, position of Ennahda toward the
overthrow of the Brotherhood in Egypt and the effect of this overthrow on the
movement in Tunisia
Ennahda and
its leader, Rached
Ghannouchi, strongly denounced
the ousting of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Mursi in Egypt, following
the 2013 uprising. They described his ousting as a "military coup". Ghannouchi
even rejected the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a
"terrorist" movement. The movement, he said, rejects all forms of
violence. Abdelfattah Mourou, Ennahda's deputy head, participated in a meeting
organized by the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood in the
northeastern Pakistani city of Lahore. During the meeting, organization members
discussed the reasons behind the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood rule in
Egypt.
The overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood regime
in Egypt was shocking to almost all Islamist movements, Ennahda included. One
of the reasons this happened was that there were similarities between political
conditions in Egypt and Tunisia, especially since the eruption of the Arab
Spring uprisings.
The post-Brotherhood downfall shock was one
reason why Ennahda did not field a candidate in the Tunisian presidential
election in 2014. The movement did not back any presidential candidate either.
The backward move Ennahda took on the Tunisian
political stage was a direct ramification of the downfall of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt. The movement even claimed that it had nothing to do with
the Brotherhood in order to evade growing public anger against the Brotherhood.
Ghannouchi even criticized the International Organization of the Muslim
Brotherhood.
Fourth, whether claims by Ennahda
that it cut off its ties with the Brotherhood are sincere
Ennahda held its General Congress on May 20,
2016 to declare its separation from the Brotherhood. The movement founded its
Ennahda Party and declared the separation of the movement from the party.
The branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan
welcomed the new move on Ennahda's part. In Egypt, the same move was totally
overlooked. The International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood did not
care about the same move either.
By taking the new measures, Ennahda wanted to
avoid clashes with the Tunisian society and state.
It also wanted to go hand in hand with regional
changes, especially in Egypt, Syria and Libya where political Islam turned into
a losing force.
