I posted yesterday that a major problem in the Islamic movement is that the leadership tends to be comprised of rich, overweight men who cannot relate to the majority of our Ummah. A brother commented on that as follows:
I am not saying they don’t have problems or that they’re perfect but you do them a lot of injustice. I have spoken with you a lot about this but you don’t want to see the truth.
Do not forget to mention how they helped in educating many people, helped widows and divorced women, took care of orphans, conducted social projects that provided opportunities. They were fighters but they were confined! I won’t mention the amount of assistance and aid they provided.
The problem of our people is too big to be solved by one group or party. By the way, the ones who fund these 5-stars meeting are the hosting countries themselves. Or should they conduct their meetings in the streets or in their back yards?
Fear Allah bro
My reply:
May Allah make me among those who fear Him, and not among those who use His religion to manipulate and fool those who fear Him, and to make myself rich.
I said that most of the Islamist leadership is from fat wealthy men; that is true. They own property, businesses, shares of companies, have homes in different countries, receive financing from rich Gulf Arabs and from governments; and yes, they get fatter every time we see them.
I said that our people are mostly destitute and deprived, living in miserable conditions, while the top Islamists hold conferences in 5 star hotels; also true. Should they hold their meetings in their backyards? Why not? What is the point of the posturing, decadence, and superficial prestige of meeting in a luxury hotel?
Have they established charities? Of course they have, and these are among their major sources of wealth. Do they provide charitable services to the poor? Yes. Is that the same thing as understanding the poor and relating to them? No.
I said that our people need jobs while the Islamist leadership wants to be funded without doing any work; also true. Turkey is full of “exiled” leaders who have no jobs, but are spending money left and right, while doing nothing for the revolution beyond tweeting. They are sponsored either by their organizations, or by rich Gulf Arabs, who themselves keep furnished apartments in Istanbul costing thousands of dollars per month, where they stay only a few nights of the year.
The Muslim Brotherhood has only just discovered that the IMF is bad, and that is only because it is Sisi who is negotiating a loan from them instead of Mursi. The Ikhwan’s position towards the IMF program was identical to Mubarak’s: they agreed in principle to Austerity, but feared public backlash. They were, and as far as we can tell, continue to be, neoliberals (even if they have not heard of the term). Neither they, nor any other Islamist group, have proposed an economic plan that prioritizes the poor, the workers, or reclaiming economic sovereignty. Hisham Qandil said plainly on several occasions that foreign investors were his highest priority; and there is no reason to suspect him of lying.
No Islamist party appears to have a clue about economics. Despite the fact that neoliberalism has been around for decades, and its catastrophic failures are obvious and documented, they still do not even know what it is. That is an ignorance which can only exist in the context of privilege. They do not understand it, because they are not suffering from it. They exist in a world of patronage; they ask for money, and they get it; from sponsors in Kuwait, in Qatar, in UAE, in Saudi Arabia, from people who themselves did not work for their money. They establish foundations internationally that collect millions of dollars, some of which, yes, goes to the causes for which they were established, but the rest goes to supporting the self-important political Islamist lifestyle…people who do not have to get jobs because they “are dedicated to the Cause”. Which I would not really mind, if they actually DID something, if they actually LEARNED something, if they actually PRODUCED ideas and strategies and solutions. But they don’t.
When one of their people is arrested, in the UAE for example, they don’t know what to do except post a clip on YouTube appealing to “zee Human Rights groups” to intervene. How can you be a helpless multi-million dollar organization? I will tell you how, by being fat, rich, pampered and used to being funded for doing nothing.