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The French government recently presented a report on the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim movement that was formed in Egypt in the 1920s. The movement was banned in Egypt in 2013 but is believed to operate, often under cover, in several Muslim countries and in countries in the West with significant Muslim populations. Turkey and Qatar are often mentioned as the movement’s primary financiers.
The Muslim Brotherhood is classified as a terrorist organization in several countries (including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). It is currently believed to be active in around seventy countries. Its motto is Allah is our goal, the Prophet is our leader, the Quran is our law, jihad is our path and death for the glory of Allah is our highest aspiration. In other words, it is an Islamist movement that believes in a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
Muslim immigration is of course a politically controversial subject. The political forces in Europe that have wanted to problematize Islam and Muslim immigration have often pointed to the Muslim Brotherhood as a potential threat to our Western societies. As mentioned, the Muslim Brotherhood often works undercover and appears to be a loosely held organization. Here, immigration and Islam critics have been able to point to the threat from the Brotherhood in various countries even if there has been no open organization. Then one has been able to talk about veiled threats, about infiltration, about hidden agendas.
On the left wing of politics and within the movements that have advocated extensive immigration, this skepticism towards the Muslim Brotherhood and similar movements has usually been described as Islamophobia. It has been said that Islam critics demonize Muslims and oppose the harmonious integration of Muslims into Western societies.
Therefore, it is politically explosive when the French government now publishes a report according to which the Muslim Brotherhood is more present in French society than previously understood. The report proves the critics of Islam right. It proves the critics of immigration right. With Muslim immigration we get Islamist infiltration. But with Muslim immigration we get forces in the West and in the EU for whom death for Allah should be the highest aspiration in life.
The current report that the French government is now presenting also emphasizes that the Brotherhood operates in secret. The authors of the report write that one must assume that there is an inner core that holds the organization together:
“The Muslim Brotherhood is based in its various countries of establishment on concentric circles whose center is made up of a “restricted circle” of sworn activists. This organization is highly likely in France, since it exists everywhere else in Europe. It would have only a few hundred members. The “Brotherhood” movement, understood more broadly, covers all those who are in contact with or are inspired by this “restricted circle”.
There should therefore be an inner controlled circle of sworn activists and from this core emanate various forms of contacts and influences that have the Brotherhood as a starting point and inspiration but do not officially act in the name of the Brotherhood.
What is also mentioned at the beginning, and which is something that is often discussed when talking about the Muslim Brotherhood is the ability that the organization seems to have to adapt its working methods to the different countries in which they are present. An Islamist organization that has set itself the goal of infiltrating a modern Western society cannot of course use authoritarian methods or anti-democratic slogans.
And here there is a debate among those who try to map and understand the Brotherhood’s presence in Europe about how the adaptation that seems to be taking place generally by a Muslim civil society to a Western context should be understood. It is about an actual adaptation where certain aspects of the originally so militant attitude towards the spread of Islam are toned down. Or we are also dealing with a falsified and conscious strategy. The report authors speak here of a “pessimistic vision” of the Brotherhood’s way of working “according to which the integration and participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in the life of Western society and the moderate discourses that they hold are only the expression of a tactical retreat: the Islamic State remains their ultimate objective.”
So, what does it look like in France today? Where in society is there reason to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in establishing a presence and influence? It is about the education system, about social aid work and about preaching in mosques. It is therefore Muslim civil society that is primarily affected. The danger is not that ordinary French people will have to deal with this, but that all the Muslims who are in France today will be integrated into various social contexts where people who do not believe in the French Republic but in Sharia set the tone for how people should live and think. Muslims will therefore be radicalized, and, above all, they will be prevented from becoming Westerners.
The authors of the report claim that the Brotherhood is present in all the large Western European countries where there is a significant Muslim population. Belgium is a special case because the organization there has been particularly successful in building up various organizations that operate socially and that make it possible to tie financial resources to the Brotherhood’s activities.
Another smaller country that stands out is Sweden. As a Swede, I find it interesting to read the explanations given in the report for why the previously uniformly Protestant and now solidly modern and individualistic Sweden could become a promised land for Islamist infiltration.
Despite its limited population, Sweden has a significant presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in its society, which also constitutes an important part of the European branch of the Brotherhood in general. The question, however, is how it can be that Sweden has brought the Brotherhood into the social fabric. The authors of the report explain this as follows: “The influence of the Swedish branch is explained by the contribution of Qatari funding, the great tolerance of Swedish multiculturalism and the good relations between the movement and local political parties, in particular the Swedish Social Democratic Party.”
It is true that Sweden has had a welcoming view of multiculturalism. During the 2010s, it was almost taboo to say that Sweden should be Swedish. People who said something like that were accused of being racists and ethno-nationalists. And Sweden still has a welcoming view of Islam, even though there is now a much more open debate about the threat from Islamism. And the current report has been noted in Sweden at the highest political level.
But it is also about, as the report authors write, the sometimes-warm relations of the very important Swedish Social Democratic Party with Muslim environments. Here, the more left-wing radical and former communist “Left Party” has also had problems. Especially with the pro-Palestinian movements that express sympathy for Hamas. The political left has wanted to appear as the defender of immigrants, but it is starting to be noticed that this strategy has a price. The Social Democrats have had problems with infiltration attempts from both Islamists and organized gang crime.
It is good that the French government is taking up the fight against Islamism. The rest of Europe should follow suit. Even if Europe should be open to, for example, labor immigration, we must hold on to our values and our Western identity. Organizations that put Islam before democracy and Western values have no place in Europe or the EU.