Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Youth as English
Twitter Spokesmen in Mursi’s Egypt
Dissertation
B.Sc. in Political Science
University of Amsterdam
By
Gerko Visée
5755867
Under the Supervision of
Fadi Hirzalla
The Role of the Internet in
The Political Life of Young People
Word Count: 9,574
January 2014, Amsterdam
1
Microblogging the Muslim Brotherhood:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Youth as English
Twitter Spokesmen in Mursi’s Egypt
Gerko Visée
Abstract Despite the liberation potential of social media shown in the Arab Spring, we should not perceive it as liberal technology. As scholars have concentrated on secular and western-friendly online generated youth activism they have underrepresented online Islamic activism. This research aims to restore this imbalance by questioning how the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has used Twitter as a tool for framing international public opinion. Research suggests a media strategy whereby the Brotherhood has appointed unrepresentative reformist youth as spokespersons in image of their secular counterparts. What frames the Brotherhood used was researched by a qualitative content analysis of tweets sent by Twitter users associated with the Brotherhood’s English media relations over five one-week periods surrounding the Mursi presidency. The results show that the Brotherhood has minimised the use of any reference to Islam while presenting the movement as committed to inclusive democracy and the revolutionary goals of January 25. The spokespeople have used the Brotherhood’s democratic and revolutionary credentials both to justify Mursi’s decisions as well as to discredit anti-Brotherhood opposition as uncommitted to either democracy or the revolution. The constant reiteration of the Brotherhood’s commitment to democracy suggests, however, that its framing resonated weakly by those it tried to persuade.
@RamyYaacoub: While we 100% disagree on everything, @gelhaddad is probably one of the best spokespersons for a political group in Egypt ever. (September 17, 2013)
ehad el-Haddad has quickly become a high profile political figure in Egypt by expressing an eloquent voice on Twitter and on various media platforms as the Muslim Brotherhood’s official foreign media spokesperson (Arshad, 2013). El-Haddad’s growing popularity and posture has attracted numerous campaigns to discredit his credentials by Egyptians opposing the Brotherhood, amongst which the hashtag campaign #GehadHaddadIsABigLiar which became a worldwide trending topic on July 27. Following the July 3 Coup in which the Brotherhood’s Muhammad Mursi was removed as president by a coalition of oppositional forces aligned with the armed forces, Gehad was imprisoned on September 17 on charges of inciting the killing of protesters during a wave of government arrests of senior Brotherhood leaders
(Kirkpatrick, 2013). The strong online presence of the Brotherhood, however, “…may come as a surprise to western observers, who generally assume that blogging empowers liberal, pro-western voices,” as Lynch (Lynch, 2007b, 2007c) wrote.
In order to salvage its tainted image in western perceptions, the Brotherhood has launched an English-language media wing formed around its official English website, Ikhwanweb, and includes alternative Islamic social networks like Ikhwanbook and Ikhwantube, and maintains numerous Twitter and Facebook feeds (Bohn, 2011, 2012b). The separation of its Arabic and English media affairs has, however, triggered accusations of Orwellian-like doublespeak at the address of the Brotherhood by its political enemies. The Brotherhood stands accused of speaking with multiple tongues as it present itself as a conservative, Islamic movement towards its Arabic audiences and towards international, western audiences as an inclusive movement intrinsically committed to democratic values that wants to “participate, not dominate” Egyptian politics (Ahmed, 2012; Basyouni, 2013). These allegations levelled at the Brotherhood have been extended to questioning not just what messages it sends out via its official Twitter account @Ikhwanweb, but also the rationale of whom is representing the Brotherhood in western media. People like El-Haddad and Sondos Asem are young, progressive, of middle-class background, and as New York Times columnist Kristof (2011) wrote after meeting Asem, “pretty much the opposite of the stereotypical bearded Brotherhood activist.” It is debatable how representative these Twitter spokesmen actually are for the Brotherhood’s leadership, and rank and file members.
The guiding research question is: how has Twitter been used by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as a tool for framing international public opinion during the presidency of Muhammad Mursi? The aim of this study is to explore what role young people have played in the usage of Twitter by the Brotherhood by presenting the results of a qualitative content analysis of a sample of tweets sent by young Twitter users associated with the Brotherhood’s English-language media relations during five one-week periods surrounding key events along the timeframe of the Mursi presidency. Consequently, this article is structured as follows: (1) literature review of social media and the Arab uprisings; (2) method section justifying how the qualitative content analysis was carried out; (3) who has tweeting for the Brotherhood; (4) what frames have been discovered within the Twitter messages; and (5) conclusion and discussion of the framing strategies pursued.
3
Will the Revolution Be Tweeted?
In the search to construct a communication theory of international relations, Web 2.0 is seen as the latest stage of ‘liberation technology,’ as any form of information and communication technology (ICT) than can expand human freedoms (Diamond, 2010). Whereas academia talked about the impact of 24-hour TV news cycles and the ‘CNN effect’ in the 1990s (Gilboa, 2005), satellite networks in the early 2000s with the ‘Al-Jazeera effect’ (Seib, 2008), it is now concerned with the Iranian ‘Twitter revolution’ (Morozov, 2009; Sullivan, 2009), the Egyptian ‘Facebook revolution’ (Castells, 2013; Gunning & Baron, 2013), and Syria’s ‘YouTube revolution’ (Khamis, Gold, & Vaughn, 2012). The fact that an uprising is tweeted or facebooked about, however, seems to be no proof to determine whether online social networks were central in organising, even causing the uprising (Gunning & Baron, 2013, p. 276).
Whether digital tools enhance democracy, Shirky (cf. 2008, 2011) wrote that “these tools probably do not hurt in the short run and might help in the long run.” Despite cautions that technology must not be seen as single cause of political change (Howard & Hussein, 2013, p. 13; Howard, 2010, p. 12; Shirky, 2011, p. 29), the idea of social media incited revolutions is partly based on the argument that information technologies are emancipatory tools as they “are the infrastructure for transposing democratic ideals from community to community” (Howard, 2010, p. 11). Throughout the literature remains thus a Habermasian association of the spread of information technology and rise of liberal democracies (Anderson, 1991; Habermas, 1991).
That digital tools would be magic bullets against entrenched repressive regimes, was criticised by Morozov (2011, p. xii), ridiculing the egregious logic behind it as “let them tweet, and they will tweet their way to freedom.” Not only have states not been idle during the information technology revolution, they would have increased their repressive capability in tracking down dissenters and created censorship surrounding potentially dangerous content (2011, Chapter 4). Although Castells (2001, 2013, p. 231) presented the internet as having a built-in autonomy that would enhance a culture of freedom, the internet has been prone to illiberal sentiments of inflammatory and even terrorist content, or as Bunt (2003) called it, “e-jihad.”
“Why does propaganda then still work in the digital age when plenty of evidence to disprove of lies and intentional misrepresentation can be found online?,” Morozov
(2011, p. 117) asked himself. What Morozov aptly named the “spinternet” and “propaganda.com” is utilised by authoritarian and democratic regimes alike as a public relations tool. This ‘digital diplomacy’ or ‘twitplomacy’ must be seen as the latest stage of public diplomacy with state leaders and ambassadors operating in a networked social media environment to engage foreign audiences via direct interaction, rather than high-level talks (Hanson, 2012; Khatib, Dutton, & Thelwall, 2012; Melissen, 2011; Ross, 2011).
As digital diplomacy was aggressively promoted in response to the Arab Spring, we should now look into how social media was used during the Arab uprisings.
Tweeting to Tahrir #Jan25
Social media have been credited with providing the means and the medium for the public discontent that cascaded across the Arab world in 2011. However, though social media activism triggered and organised the start of the protests on January 25, the mobilisation of the urban population that made it a mass demonstration was mostly done offline (Gunning & Baron, 2013, p. 283). Furthermore, the number of registered Egyptian Facebook users was only around 5 million at the time of the uprising (Lim, 2012, p. 235), and the number of Egyptian Twitter users in 2011 was around 1 million (Seksek, 2011). The 90,000-100,000 young protesters who had signed up online can only have contributed 20 per cent of the total protest crowds on January 28, the ‘Friday of Rage’ (Ghonim, 2012, p. 160; Soueif, 2012, pp. 47–48). The online youth networks were thus dwarfed by the 15-20 million people Gunning & Baron (2013, p. 279) estimated as having participated in the protests.
The regimes primary concern with the Brotherhood and Kefaya [Enough] movement for change, a cross-partisan alliance formed in 2004 aimed at reform, enabled the opposition to organise online, free from government interference (Gunning & Baron, 2013, p. 118). The online ventures of the opposition coincided with the formation of the Egyptian blogosphere of mostly individual tech-savvy young activists, often without crystallised political affiliations (Faris, 2008; Iskander, 2011; Lynch, 2007a). Despite that political blogging had begun in 2004, it would only become a key political resource from 2008 with the support for a workers’ strike and as source of
anti-regime information, particularly by highlighting police abuse (Gunning & Baron, 2013, p. 68; Lim, 2012).
While Kefaya started with using information technologies to mobilise its constituents (Lynch, 2011, p. 303), online activism fundamentally altered with the April 6th Movement. This political youth movement crystallised out of a Facebook page
created to spread the call for nationwide protests in solidarity with the workers’ strike in Mahalla el-Kubra on April 6, 2008 (Baron, 2012; Barrons, 2012; Gunning & Baron, 2013; Lim, 2012). The page attracted 76,000 ‘likes’ but its ability to mobilise people in the street was limited as demonstrations remained small (Gunning & Baron, 2013, p. 91). Facebook’s mobilising potential was fully shown after the horrific death of Khaled Said, a young blogger who was beaten to death in June 2010 by the police after uploading a video exposing police corruption. The digital memorial ‘Kullena Khaled Said’ [‘We Are All Khaled Said’] set up by Wael Ghonim quickly became a logistical hub connecting like-minded youths against police abuse, attracting 380,000 members on the eve of the uprising (Ghonim, 2012, p. 142). The timing of the January 25 protest disapproves the idea that they were “leaderless and spontaneous” as April 6, ‘We Are All Khaled Said,’ Kefaya, and the Brotherhood youth coordinated their efforts to symbolically protest on National Police Day (Ghonim, 2012, p. 121; Gunning & Baron, 2013, p. 29; 166).
As Facebook’s participatory set-up enabled the formation of virtual communities of like-minded individuals, Twitter was used to spread tactics, locations, and warnings to Egyptians and educate international audiences about the events unfolding.
@Gsquare86: Don’t let the police intimidate us with their presence, they always have been there and always will, it’s time to move #Jan25 (January 25, 2011).
Research has concentrated on the rhythm of news storytelling in quantitative studies on hashtags associated with various uprisings (Papacharissi & de Fatima Oliveira, 2012). Lotan et al. (2011) mapped the flow of information out of tweets using #sidibouzid, #tunisia, #jan25, and #egypt and Howard & Hussein (2013, p. 54) aimed to show how protest narratives cascaded across the region by mapping the use of these hashtags in neighbouring Arab countries. Barrons (2012, p. 63) found that not only were the vast majority of tweets about Egypt coming from outside of the country, 70 per cent of all tweets were re-tweets and most information was thus shared rather than created.
The growing dependence of news media on micro-blogging has prompted the question whether Twitter is a social network or a news media (Kwak, Lee, Park, & Moon, 2010). International news media have been increasingly reliant on citizen journalism of what Tufeksi (2013, p. 850) called “networked microcelebrity activism” of political non-institutional actors whom by using social media garner public attention to their cause. Egyptian examples include Gigi Ibrahim, Mahmoud Salem, and Wael Abbas who by their blogs and tweets have since become influential commentators.
Blogging Brothers
These activists, however, tended to be far more liberal, secular, and western-oriented than the population at large (Lynch, 2007c, 2011, p. 304). While it is true that the first wave of blogging was instigated by more westernised, secular voices writing in English, it would be a mistake to equate ‘liberation technology’ with the internet being a ‘liberal technology.’ The earlier mentioned built-in autonomy of the internet has proved to be a stepping stone for the Brotherhood’s communications strategy as it could circumvent regime repression by maintaining content online. Thus, when during the first years of internet experimentation its websites were shut down and offices raided, the Brotherhood set up proxy servers in London which the regime has not been able to take offline since (Richter, 2011, p. 93).
The opening of the media and later political landscape from the year 2000 enabled the Brotherhood to become more self-assertive and undergo a paradigmatic shift to spread awareness of the movement in a pro-active outward directed strategy (Richter, 2011, p. 89, 2013; Wickham, 2013, p. 96). Although the Brotherhood set up its first website Haqa’iq Misriya in 2000, it would be the Arabic-language website Ikhwanonline that would come to dominate Egyptian politics online, surpassing all opposition activity in scope and influence (Howard & Hussein, 2013, pp. 59–61). Ikhwanonline serves as internet hub and operates as public relations tool spreading news about the Brotherhood whilst connecting to a range of Islamic alternatives to western social media such as Ikhwantube, Ikhwanbook, and Ikhwanwiki (Topol, 2010).
The Brotherhood launched a media offensive in 2005 targeting western audiences telling them not to be afraid of the organisation after fears of hostile Islamist takeovers arose with the Brotherhood’s electoral ‘victory’ in 2005 winning 20 per cent
of parliamentary seats and Hamas’ victory in Palestinian elections (El Amrani, 2005; Wickham, 2013, p. 168). Its aggressive strategic outreach to the West revolves around its English-language portal Ikhwanweb and is supported by Khairat el-Shatir, who is “known not only as the organizational brains behind Ikhwanweb, but the most important power broker of today's Brotherhood” (Bohn, 2011). Additionally, the Brotherhood engaged western audiences directly by writing op-eds in western newspapers aiming to make the Brotherhood’s embrace of democratic values known and counter negative sentiments (Al-Futuh, 2011; El-Errian, 2011; El-Shatir, 2005).
Around the same time as the Brotherhood began reaching out to western audiences, many of its younger supporters jumped on the blogger train, following the trail of their secular counterparts (Al-Anani, 2008a; Lynch, 2007b). The blogger movement came to full force when the Brotherhood released its draft party platform in 2007 envisioning an Brotherhood political party with an Islamic frame of reference (Al-Anani, 2009; Lynch, 2007b; Wickham, 2013, p. 125). Bloggers criticized the ideological rigidity and lack of internal democracy identified by the exclusionary drafting process (Al-Anani, 2008a). The potential of this new cadre of young bloggers was jubilantly described by academics as “time bomb” (Al-Anani, 2007), “harbinger of a slowly-progressing silent revolution” (2008b), and “a growing intellectual and political force within the movement that could…help tip it in a reformist direction” (Lynch, 2007b).
These under-35 urban, tech-savvy, and socially progressive youth were described by Al-Anani (2007, 2008a, 2009) as the vanguard of a new political generation of Brothers. This generation has not undergone the Brotherhood’s rigorous ideological indoctrination and grooming but has been more involved into political action than religious outreach (Al-Anani, 2009; Martini, Dassa Kaye, & York, 2012, p. 31; Wickham, 2013, p. 141). It seems to be comparable to the generation that rose to prominence through Islamic activism in student politics in the 1970s and 1980s, variously identified as the pragmatists (Al-Anani, 2009), middle generation (Wickham, 2002), younger generation (El-Ghobashy, 2005), and reformists (El Sherif, 2012). Whilst the entire Brotherhood might be described, as Gunning & Baron (2013, p. 35) did, as “a resource to be mobilised” its youth movement was a key player in the chain of events leading to the uprising (Ezbawy, 2012). When the Brotherhood fully backed the uprising when it mobilised 100,000s into Tahrir after Friday prayers ended on January
28 (Wickham, 2013, p. 160), the bloggers would prove instrumental in coordinating with other opposition groups (Martini et al., 2012, p. 33; Wickham, 2013, p. 162).
These few hundred bloggers are nevertheless not representative for the 200,000 young Brothers among the 700,000 official Brotherhood members (Martini et al., 2012, p. 11). As Lynch (2007b) wrote: “with their high visibility and (often) their family ties to the senior leadership, they clearly represent an elite among the youth, one with unusual access to decision-makers….”. Unlike tipping the Brotherhood’s internal balance in favour of the reformists, the 2011 uprising has further consolidated conservative power as many of the most-outspoken reformist leaders and bloggers like Ibrahim Hudaibi and Abd al-Muneim Mahmoud have resigned from the Brotherhood and defected to a series of new parties (Wickham, 2013, p. 180).
Paradoxically, whilst internet access and usage has been portrayed as decreasing young people’s political engagement in western societies (Anduiza, Cantijoch, & Gallego, 2009; Calenda & Meijer, 2009; Min, 2010), it has thus simultaneously been credited for its seminal role in forming the revolutionary vanguard of young activists that have challenged and succeeded in overthrowing political regimes across the Middle East (Castells, 2013; Lim, 2012). As noted in this literature review, however, neither social media activism during the Egyptian uprising nor the Brotherhood blogger movement are representative of the wider environment they operated it. What makes this research theoretically relevant is thus that it aims to repair the imbalance in the social media literature produced by overrepresenting online political activism by looking at how the largest opposition movement in Egypt has used Twitter to generate support for its cause.
Methods
Rather than that meaning flows automatically out of prevailing ideologies, social movement scholars perceive movement agents to be consciously engaged in the production of meaning (W.A. Gamson, Fireman, & S., 1982; Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986). Social movements must be distinguished from political parties as they are “organized efforts, on the party of excluded groups,…that involve recourse to non-institutional forms of political participation” (McAdam, 1982, p. 25). According to Entman (1993, p. 52),
To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.
Snow & Benford (1988, p. 198) present framing as a tactical tool for political actors “to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists.” Social movements must mobilise their resources in frequent framing contest to interpret events occurred between with the incumbent regime, other regime contenders, and within the movement itself (William A. Gamson, Croteau, Hoynes, & Sasson, 1992; Wiktorowicz, 2004, p. 17). Elites and their contenders therefore often engage in ‘counter framing’ to disqualify and refute the logic behind oppositional framing as to provide a rationale for their own remedies (2000, p. 617). Social media have become essential fields of non-institutionalised contention as their low entry requirements have skyrocketed the potential framing agents.
This research is based upon secondary literature on the digital presence of the Brotherhood and primary material collected from social media profiles for personal biographies and Twitter messages. These tweets were examined by a qualitative content analysis in a two-step strategy of inductive coding aimed at discovering the frames used by the Brotherhood spokesmen. Content analysis entails the study of documented human communication and is formed around a coding process of converting raw data to a more abstract, standardised form (Babbie, 2001, p. 304; 309). First, the selected data was analysed to indicate what information tweets contained and to whom they were directed. Out of this preliminary analysis four categories emerged: (1) information; (2) interpretation; (3) interaction; and (4) emotion. This initial coding has provided an overview of what has been tweeted and proved to be a stepping stone in delineating which frames existed. The categories will not be reported separately, but will nonetheless feature in the frame presentation. Subsequently, possible frames were identified for each issue and were then compared in order to construct more abstract, generic frames. Two of these frames were constructed, a democratic-participatory frame and a revolutionary frame.
The Twitter users researched in this study are all the users which the author has been able to trace to the Brotherhood’s English-language media wing as specified in
their Twitter biographies or messages. The necessity of excluding Sondos Asem (@SondosAsem) after she deleted her tweets remains problematic as it was thus impossible to collect tweets from all known spokespersons. Table 1 shows the username, tweet, and follower count of our users; their maximally 140 characters long messages are the units of analysis.
Table 1: Twitter Users
Name Username Tweets* Followers*
Ikhwanweb @Ikhwanweb 18,086 115,116
Gehad el-Haddad @Gelhaddad 7,482 72,775
Hazem Malky @HazemMalky 1,097 702
Mona al-Qazzaz @mqazzaz 1,676 2,491
Abdullah el-Haddad @abdelhaddad 565 2,340
Data collected on January 8, 2014.
We should note that Ikhwanweb and Gehad’s influence and reach is substantially higher than the other three accounts combined and should therefore be weighted accordingly.
In order to limit the data material, five one-week case studies were selected surrounding potentially contentious subjects for the Brotherhood’s international public image along the Mursi Presidency timeframe (June 30, 2012-July 3, 2013) and its immediate aftermath (Table 2). The first case concentrates on the protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on September 11, 2012. The second case starts with the fallout of Mursi’s constitutional declaration on November 22. The third case concerns inter-religious violence amongst which attacks on Cairo’s Coptic Cathedral. The fourth case marks anti-Brotherhood protests on June 30 and the removal of Mursi from power on July 3. The fifth case depicts the dispersal of the Brotherhood protests on August 14.
Table 2: Case Selection
Case Month Date Events Date Selection Date Searched (From/To)
1 September 11/09/2012 10/09/2012-17/09/2012 09/09/2012-18/09/2012 2 November 22/11/2012 22/11/2012-29/11/2012 21/11/2012-30/11/2012 3 April 05/04/2013&07/04/2013 05/04/2013-12/04/2013 04/04/2013-13/04/2013 4 June/July 30/06/2013&03/07/2013 29/06/2013-06/07/2013 28/06/2013-07/07/2013
To collect tweets sent by our users within the selected time period, the following code was used in Twitter Search (https://twitter.com/search): from:[username] since:[year-month-day] until:[year-month-day]. Twitter’s automatic search has enabled limitations to the amount of data collected. As Table 3 indicates, differentiating between all tweets sent and the top results, thus including the most influential tweets, the data has been nearly halved to make it more attainable. Furthermore, by coding only English-language tweets, in accordance to the study’s international scope, further reductions have been made. Table 3 shows the difference between the selected and coded tweets and Table 4 the amount of tweets for each user per case. As for followers and total tweets, Ikhwanweb and Gehad are also overrepresented in this sample.
Table 3: Total Tweets in Sample
Case Search All Search Top Included (%) Coded Tweets Included (%)
September 154 83 53.9 54 65.1 November 881 373 42.3 356 95.4 April 117 57 48.7 19 33.3 June/July 948 522* 55.1 497 81.6 August 656 321 48.9 311 96.9 Total 2,756 1,356 49.2 1,237 91.2
Al-Qazzaz’ tweets from June/July were collected manually as automatic search did not yield substantial results (N=8 vs. N=183).
Table 4: Coded Tweets Specified per User per Case
Name September November April June/July August Total
Ikhwanweb 30 128 19 131 134 442
Gehad el-Haddad 17 227 0 201 119 564
Hazem Malky 7 1 0 2 3 13
Mona al-Qazzaz 0 0 0 163 36 199
Who is Tweeting for the Brotherhood?
To understand the implications of who is representing the Brotherhood to English-speaking audiences, the following section will describe who is behind the Ikhwanweb Twitter and present biographical accounts of our Twitter users.
Figure 1: Twitter Profile Pictures
Ikhwanweb Gehad
el-Heddad
Hazem Malky Mona Al-Qazzaz Abdullah el-Haddad
Sondos Asem* Twitter picture has been retrieved via: http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1250480334/sondos_twitter_normal.jpg.
As shown in Table 1, Ikhwanweb is our most connected and active user on Twitter, however, the “official English Twitter account of the Brotherhood” is also the only organisational account.
@Ikhwanweb: Do you have any questions about the Muslim Brotherhood? Please share with us, and we will answer you in our new section Q&A About #MB (September 7, 2011).
Even though editors of the website created the Ikhwanweb Twitter account in 2009, the first tweet was only sent in February 2010 and it remained a robotic-curated feed linking to the website’s posts until September 2011. The account was invigorated in the campaign leading up to the first parliamentary elections after Mubarak that would be held from November 2011 until January 2012 in which the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) would win 37.5 per cent of the seats. The Ikhwanweb Twitter should be seen as part of a campaign stressing Brotherhood awareness of western governments’ suspicion and anxiety to the fact that although the Brotherhood did not lead the uprising it would end up as its greatest beneficiary (Wickham, 2013, pp. 168– 169). This activation is thus comparable to the initial rationale for starting the Ikhwanweb website during the public relations campaign launched to reassure critics after the Brothers’ victory in the 2005 parliamentary election (Shehata & Stacher, 2006;
Wickham, 2013, p. 119). Asem reported Ikhwanweb’s mission as “we’re tweeting to humanize the Brotherhood and correct misconceptions” (quoted in Bohn, 2011).
As Twitter grew out to become a key field of contention between the Brotherhood and Egyptian activists, the authorship of Ikhwanweb was increasingly questioned (Bohn, 2011, 2012a, 2012b). Though Ikhwanweb acknowledged Asem to be an admin of the feed, it became more protective of its editorial staff as contention arose with Mursi following his constitutional declaration in November 2012.
@Ikhwaneb: @maishams that’s correct, @sondosasem is one of the main admins. (April 24, 2012).
@Ikhwanweb: .@hhamza74 @ginainani @mgamal1967 we are team, and we speak for the Muslim Brotherhood, sorry cannot give names (November 22, 2012).
Hazem Malky, who was identified by Bohn (2011) as being involved in running the Twitter feed since its reactivation, had to reply regularly to questions regarding Ikhwanweb’s authorship. Little personal information could be found on Malky, however, besides that he must be 37 years old and is a medical doctor by profession of Egyptian-American background, currently living in New York City (Bohn, 2011).
@Pakinamamer: .@HazemMalky Are you one of the faces beging @Ikhwanweb? Are you manning the account? (February 1, 2013).
@HazemMalky: @pakinamamer account is run by team, not just one person and it speaks for the Muslim Brotherhood, so doesn’t matter who runs it (February 1, 2013).
Malky’s Twitter biography indicates his continued affiliation with Ikhwanweb, but Asem, however, seems to have left the Ikhwanweb editorial team in 2013. Figure 2 shows when our users have acted as Brotherhood spokespersons.
@LaurenBohn: @pakinamamer I’ve been told she [Asem] no longer works with them. (February 2, 2013).
Sondos Asem has become a much more public figure as she “has emerged as an unofficial spokesperson of sorts” (Bohn, 2012b) by appearing in various televised debates on Egyptian politics. Sondos is a poster child of Al-Anani’s blogger generation as she belonged to the first few Brothers, or in this case Sisters, to start blogging and
maintains relative progressive, western-friendly views on women and minority rights (Asem, 2012, 2013). The 25 year old media studies graduate from Cairo’s American University is not just a representative of the young English-speaking bloggers but also of bloggers descendant of prominent Brotherhood families. Her mother Manal Abu Hassan was a Brotherhood Member of Parliament and her father Asem Chalabi is the head of the Brotherhood’s Media Committee.
Gehad el-Haddad’s social media activism has grown out of his attachment as media strategist and spokesperson to Mursi’s presidential campaign team in May 2012. Although he emerged as an unofficial Brotherhood spokesman during the campaign, he was only officially appointed as spokesperson in January 2013, something which he remained until his arrest in September 2013 (Arshad, 2013; Kredo, 2013). Before his spokesmanship, Gehad, who is 31 years old and the older brother of Abdullah, became a senior adviser in the FJP in February 2012 when he became head of Khairat el-Shatir’s Renaissance Project to modernize Egypt over a time period of 20 years (G. El-Haddad, n.d.). Before rising through the ranks of the Brotherhood, Gehad was employed by the Clinton Foundation for five years, directing its City Programme (Marroushi, 2012).
Gehad and Abdullah are sons of Essam el-Haddad, a senior leader within the Brotherhood who was elected to its executive council, the Guidance Bureau, in 2009 (Trager, Kiraly, Klose, & Calhoun, 2012; Wickham, 2013, p. 66). Gehad and Abdullah have grown up in England and Abdullah is still based in London as part of the Brotherhood’s International Press Office(Kirkpatrick, 2013). Abdullah has been trained a structural engineer but became a social media analysis for the FJP between September 2011 and May 2012. (A. El-Haddad, n.d.). Abdullah’s Twitter spokesmanship, however, began only in August 2013 after Mursi had already been ousted as Abdullah then for the first time tweeted about Brotherhood affairs.
Together with Abdullah, Mona al-Qazzaz represents the shift of the Muslim Brotherhood’s press office to London as its operations in Egypt were no longer feasible after the July 3 coup (Trew, 2013). Mona al-Qazzaz, who is currently writing a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cambridge University, started her activities as spokesperson on July 1, 2013. Mona stems from a senior Brotherhood family as her father Adly Mustafa al-Qazzaz was an adviser to Mursi and owns a language school that often functioned as FJP campaign headquarters (Halevi, 2013). Amongst her brothers she can include Hussein al-Qazzaz who heads the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S and Khaled al-Qazzaz, who
edited the Ikhwanweb website (“Khaled Al-Qazzaz, Freedom and Justice Party,” 2011) before he was appointed as Mursi’s senior advisor for international relations. As Mona’s profile picture indicates, Khaled was imprisoned by the coup government.
Figure 2: Timeline of Brotherhood English Twitter Spokesmanship
As stated before regarding the blogger generation, our Twitter spokespersons, who are more perceived to be unofficial spokespeople than officially appointed as such, cannot be representative of the wider Brotherhood. As the offspring of the Brotherhood’s senior leadership they have been socialised in a highly protective environment that has provided them with the room to manoeuvre freely in the Egyptian political and religious landscape, developing more liberal and reformist visions after interacting with their secular blogging counterparts than their unconnected Brothers. These users are furthermore young, highly educated, speak English fluently, and have lived abroad for long periods. This social background is more representative of the blogger generation that organised the Egyptian uprising and have since become “networked microcelebrities” by their internet activism than of the Brotherhood’s conservative leadership or rank and file members.
Before coming back to the Brotherhood’s Twitter strategy we must first turn to determine what these spokespeople have actually tweeted.
What has been tweeted by the Brotherhood?
In the following section the frames used by the Brotherhood’s English Twitter account and spokespeople will be presented as they emerged from our qualitative content analysis. Before describing the democratic-participatory and revolutionary frame, we must, however, stand still with what has not been tweeted by the Brotherhood.
Is Islam the Solution?
By writing a booklet published in 1997, supreme guide Mamoun Hudaibi sought to offer a detailed exposition of the Brothers’ mission to western audiences. The English text affirms that the Brotherhood continued to frame its da’wa [calling] mission of religious outreach as still ultimately aimed at the establishment of Sharia rule in Egypt.
We, the Muslim Brotherhood, demand that these particular Islamic injunctions [Sharia] be adhered to and acted upon. They cannot be disregarded, neglected, or their application and enforcement ignored (1997, p. 21).
While in 1997 the call for the application of Sharia was still a hallmark of the Brotherhood public rhetoric, this demand was downplayed during the following decades. So much, apparently, that although one would logically expect political language to be coated in a religious, Islamic frame of an Islamist movement such as the Brotherhood, the Islamic frame is completely absent from our analysed tweets. Islamism as a doctrine holds that Islam is a religion and a political ideology and should thus guide personal and political life as well (Bayat, 2007; Eickelman & Piscatori, 1996; Kepel, 2002; Roy, 1994), In our sample, however, the Islamic framing used by the Brotherhood, which historically centred around its controversial slogan ‘Islam is the Solution,’ seems to have been minimized and purposefully excluded.
Those tweets that referenced Islam or invoked Allah have done so in a more culturalised than religious fashion – think of Insha’allah [God willing] which has lost all religious connotation in Arabic. Even then, whilst tweeting about a controversial constitutional clause which deals with Sharia as basis of Egyptian law, Gehad presented
the Brotherhood (MB) as the moderate Islamic party favouring an inclusive constitution over the more orthodox Salafist parties.
@gelhaddad: Const Assembly Fact4: MB insisted on "Principles of Sharia" instd of "Sharia Law" so no faction interpretations gain precedence over another (November 28, 2012).
Or is Democracy the Solution?
It seems that the Islamic frame of reference has been replaced with what we might call the ‘democratic-participatory’ frame which has been dominant throughout our timeframe. This democratic-participatory frame revolves around the Brotherhood presenting itself as fully committed and leading Egypt political transition to a full-fledged democracy. Democracy is conceived to be not just the procedure in a political system whereby political power is peacefully allocated on the basis of electoral strength, but includes the liberal spirit of democracy in that it is inclusive and protects the civil and political rights of all its citizens, not just the majority, in a rule of law. This section will explore the Brotherhood’s democracy framing by showing how this frame was used and discussed during three issues: (1) demonstrations and the use of violence; (2) accepting electoral results; and (3) the defining what democracy includes.
Renouncing Violence a Thousand Times
Although the Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s its commitment to non-violent political action was continuously questioned during our timeframe. Democracy is presented by the Brotherhood as the peaceful antidote to violent behaviour that often grows out of the inability to express and channel public anger and frustration in oppressive societies. Egypt’s transition has been remarkable violent compared to Tunisia, the other Arab Spring country that forced its president to resign after peaceful protests.
@gelhaddad: @sansih76 we've seen violent version of expressing resentment, we should learn the peaceful organized way of doing it in a new democracy. (September 13, 2012).
In September 2011 protests cascaded again throughout the Arab world, however, this time anger was nevertheless not directed at regimes but in reaction to the Innocence of
Muslims video on YouTube. The video about the Prophet Muhammad’s life did not just
offend Muslims because it negatively portrayed Muhammad; it actually featured an actor playing Muhammad, something forbidden by Islamic law. On September 11 the U.S. Embassy compound in Cairo and its Consulate in Benghazi would be breached during the violent protests against the American-made video, which would kill Ambassador Stevens (CNN, 2012; Kirkpatrick, 2012). Ikhwanweb responded with:
@Ikhwanweb: We strongly condemn deadly attack on US Emb in Benghazi & tragic loss of lives. We urge restraint as ppl peacefully protest & express anger (September 12, 2012).
@Ikhwanweb: .@khairatAlshater:We r relieved none of @USEmbassyCairo staff were harmed & hope US-Eg relations will sustain turbulence of Tuesday's events (September 12, 2012).
As the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo continued, the Embassy’s Twitter account replied directly to Ikhwanweb in what Gehad would describe as “twiplomacy” (September 16, 2012).
@USEmbassyCairo: .@ikhwanweb Thanks. By the way, have you checked out your own Arabic feeds? I hope you know we read those too. (September 13, 2012).
Despite its renunciation of violence, the Embassy accused the Brotherhood of doublespeak between its English and Arab statements, which would have a far less conciliatory tone (Ahmed, 2012; Twitchy, 2012). Ikhwanweb and Malky rushed to defend the Brotherhood:
@Ikhwanweb: .@DLachine We condemned both movie as well as violent protesting in all our statements Arabic & English, but ppl ve rt to peacefully protest (September 13, 2012).
@HazemMalky: @SciencePyramid not a single #MB statement in any language called for violence or attacking embassies or individuals, only peaceful protest (September 13, 2012).
The Brotherhood’s commitment to peaceful political participation and non-violence would, however, continued to be questioned. In order to counterframe the accusation
and assure sceptics our spokespersons sent out a relentless amount of tweets reiterating the Brotherhood’s commitment to non-violence. When in April 2013 sectarian violence was ignited after a communal conflict in Khossos left four Copts dead, but which spread to attacks on the Coptic Cathedral in Abassiya, Cairo (Kingsley, 2013; Kirkpatrick & Fahim, 2013; Tadros, 2013), Ikhwanweb repeated the Brotherhood’s commitment to non-violence and embrace of minority rights. Ikhwanweb, however, refrained from the direct interaction with critics for which they became infamous in September.
@Ikhwanweb: Places of worship are sacred,must be protected. We categorically condemn attacking churches or mosques & attempts to drag them into violence (April 7, 2013).
@Ikhwanweb: #FJP: We urge the ppl not to fall victims to systematic provocations, uphold rule of law to punish perpetrators regardless of their religion (April 7, 2013).
In June, when the opposition to the Brotherhood had crystallized in the Tamarod [Rebel] coalition calling for Mursi’s ouster and organised nationwide protest for June 30 which culminated in Mursi’s removal on July 3 by the army (BBC, 2013b; Bradley & Abdellatif, 2013), the tables turned as the Brotherhood was not accused of being the perpetrator of violence but became the subject of it. As the spokespeople began passing on information, often accompanied by news reports and pictures, of anti-Brotherhood violence, they nonetheless kept denouncing violence and calling upon the opposition to do likewise.
@gelhaddad: We call on all responsible societal & political leaders 2 not engage in violence as a means of political expression & condemn such acts (June 30, 2013).
When on August 14 the Brotherhood encampments in Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda square that were protesting the July 3 coup were forcefully removed (BBC, 2013c; Kingsley & Chulov, 2013b), which according to Brotherhood tweets killed more than 2,600 lives, Gehad continued to repeat earlier sentiments against being drawn into violence, though in a more emotional tone.
@gelhaddad: We unequivocally reject all forms of violence & strongly condemn attacks on ALL Egyptians &hold police fully accountable as entity in charge (August 10, 2013).
@gelhaddad: Our peacefulness is our strength & we will never b dragged into violence. We unequivocally reject all forms of violence/vandalism #AntiCoup (August 16, 2013).
Elections vs. Muscle Games
In order to rally popular support for its cause, the Brotherhood has furthermore used the democracy frame as tool justifying its political decisions and simultaneously discrediting opposition to it. The Brotherhood has used a simplistic dichotomy separating ‘us’ versus ‘them’ by presenting all its activities as thoroughly consistent with democracy whilst simultaneously portraying those that disagree with its decisions as being undemocratic.
On November 22 President Mursi released a constitutional declaration proclaiming the Constituent Assembly to be above judicial oversight in a desperate attempt to save the constitutional process from being hijacked by remnants of the Mubarak regime in the judiciary, which had earlier nullified the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections and disqualified ten presidential candidates (Egypt Independent, 2012; Kirkpatrick & El-Sheikh, 2012). On the one hand, the Brotherhood justified the extra-judicial presidential power grab as a democratic move to eliminate the influence of old regime remnants that would stand in the way of Egypt’s democratic transition, a task for which the Brotherhood perceived itself to be elected.
@Ikhwanweb: .@monaeltahawy these are temporary measures in extraordinary situation, and to ensure full transition to democracy, not dictatorship (November 26, 2012).
@Ikhwanweb: .@ahmedhafezeg Egypt will b stronger when there's modern constitution & democratically elected parliament, prez is trying to do just that (November 25, 2012).
On the other hand, the Brotherhood equally framed the injustice that had been done to it by deposing its president in democratic terms. This time, however, it used the democratic legitimacy endowed upon Mursi by winning the presidential elections to assign blame in the direction of the opposition that supported the coup, an undemocratic move par excellence as an “extra-legal seizure of government power” (Luttwak, 1979, p. 27). Spokespeople began using the #legitimacy hashtag and spoke of a National Coalition for Legitimacy of political parties supporting Mursi’s claim to the presidency and called for the reinstatement of their president “as per constitution, law & #Legitimacy” as Gehad and Mona tweeted (July 5, 2013).
@gelhaddad: #National_Coalition for #Legitimacy: We call for respect of the democratically elected choice of the ppl (July 1, 2013).
@gelhaddad: In case anyone forgot, #Mubarak’s regime rigged every elect. This #Prez won fair & square. #legitimacy is his as only rep of ppl of #Egypt (July 2, 2013)
As the spokespeople continued to reiterate the Brotherhood and FJP’s commitment to the democratic process and acceptance of any democratic outcomes it contrasted itself to an opposition that apparently needed the Egyptian army to take over power after it continuously failed to do so in democratic elections.
@gelhaddad: Opposition Failure 2 build parties, 2 present political solutions, 2 win elections, is no excuse 2 bully #Egypt ppl out of democracy. (July 2, 2013).
@mqazzaz: #Egypt The so called "liberal opposition" could not get in to power thru democratic means and needed a #military_coup (July 5, 2013).
By aggressively tweeting and using the #coup hashtag the Brotherhood opposed the framing of Mursi’s exit on July 3 as Egypt’s second revolution after January 25 (Kingsley & Chulov, 2013a). Al-Qazzaz, for example, directly challenged ElBaradei, the Nobel peace prize winner, who did not participate in any election but was appointed vice-president after the coup.
@mqazzaz: #military_coup We went to vote 6 times, not a single time #ElBaradei was 1 of the nominees even yet after the #coup, he is now in charge! (July 6, 2013).
Although the Brotherhood called for the participation of the opposition in the upcoming elections rather than to support an undemocratic seizure of government control, it realised that the democratic option was off the table after the coup. As Gehad noted, however, it upheld its unyielding commitment for the democratic process.
@Ikhwanweb: We call on all patriotic parties to engage in the political process and prepare for the upcoming parliamentary elections #SaveEgypt (June 29, 2013). @gelhaddad: Despite closure of democratic avenues 2 peaceful transference of power, we assert our commitment 2 the democratic route, no other option. (July 5, 2013).
Definitions of Democracy
However, as Shehata (2013) most eloquently put it: “Egypt has a dilemma: its politics are dominated by democrats who are not liberals and liberals who are not democrats.” While Egypt’s liberal opposition has circumvented the democratic process by supporting a military coup, the Brotherhood has adamantly supported democracy seen as electoral competition rather than the broader vision the liberals have of democracy as pluralism with minority rights and personal freedoms. Despite years the Brotherhood has spent cultivating a public image of commitment to democratic values and inclusivity fear mongering of the Brotherhood’s participation in electoral competition as ‘one man, one vote, one time’ has never left Egyptian political discourse (Brown, 2012; Hamid, 2011; Lynch, 2008).
Thus, though the Brotherhood has framed its intention and plans for Egypt in democratic terms, the opposition has questioned the Brotherhood’s narrow interpretation of democracy itself. As Ikhwanweb indicated, there is not just one way to define democracy.
@Ikhwanweb: .@nadinefanous we disagree on you definition of democracy (November 23, 2012).
Countering the opposition’s allegations that the Brotherhood is not inclusive enough as it does not want to share power, Gehad presents a narrative of inclusivity by insisting
that democracy represents more than just Egypt’s urban power centres Cairo and Alexandria in which liberal activism is concentrated.
@gelhaddad: #Egypt is no longer [just #Cairo]. All Egyptian, Young & Old, Urban & Rural, Muslim & Copts, Men & Women, hv equal say/vote in thr future. (June 27, 2013).
The Brotherhood’s perception of democracy as a procedure by which the electoral majority select rulers might seem indicated by its concentration on the ‘numbers game’ of who will become the majority party in parliament. As Ikhwanweb wrote on Tamarod’s claim that it collected 22 million signatures against Muslim Brotherhood rule in June 2013 (BBC, 2013a):
@Ikhwanweb: .@murphy_paulp opposition needs roughly 15 mil votes to secure comfortable parl majority, if they got 22 mil signatures then let them vote! (June 29, 2013).
Contradicting this perception of democracy as being just a ‘numbers game,’ Gehad’s remarks should nevertheless put red flags on the democratic intentions of Islamic parties as he argues that only the Egyptian people’s democratic commitment prevented Islamic parties like the Brotherhood from seizing state power after Mubarak left.
@gelhaddad: This is not a numbers game, if it weren't 4 #Egypt ppl commitment 2 democracy it would hv been won by islamic parties in 1st week #Jan25 (July 2, 2013).
Even though the Brotherhood presents itself as being intrinsically inclusive and tolerant towards dissenters, either religious or politically, it often invokes populist notions of ‘the people,’ ‘public interest,’ and the ‘collective’ suggesting that collective rights associated with a majoritarian perspective of democracy should be more valuable than individual rights defended by liberal democracy.
@gelhaddad: @RamyYaacoub U find it flawed, most of the country doesnt. The collective public's opinion counts more than yours I'm afraid. (November 29, 2012).
The Revolution explained in 140 Characters or Less
The black-and-white dichotomy that our Brotherhood spokespersons have used as strategy to frame democracy commitment stipulates simplistically that you are either with us or against us, i.e. you either support the Brotherhood as defending democracy or you are undemocratic yourselves. This irreconcilable yet purposeful and powerful separation of what should be good or bad for Egypt is further enhanced by what we have called the ‘revolutionary frame.’ The revolutionary frame is concerned with the rationale for why the ‘revolution’ of January 25 happened in the first place and the goals for a future Egypt that developed out of these 18 days of protest. This frame nevertheless does seldom appear on its own as it is used to magnify the democratic frame in order to garner popular support for the Brotherhood. In other words, the democratic frame is bridged towards the revolutionary frame when the Brotherhood wades in troubled waters.
The Brotherhood presents itself as the political vanguard carrying the torch of the revolution. It defines the goal of the revolution to be the non-violent transition of a country troubled by an authoritarian past towards a democratic political system. In order to achieve this goal, the Brotherhood has understood its own role as leading this transition by dismantling the influence of Mubarak loyalists in various state institutions that might endanger the transition.
@gelhaddad: Removal of Military Junta, Removal of Prosecutor General, Reopening of of Investigations. Let us not forget the core demands of #Egypt Rev. (November 23, 2012).
@gelhaddad: Let us not forget that many Egyptians still think #Mubarak was a good man. Yet, under no circumstances will we allow old regime to resurface (June 27, 2013).
Mursi’s constitutional declaration in November was defended on Twitter as a justifiable decision aimed at eliminating the political interference of the judiciary, which it presented as an anti-democratic stronghold of Mubarak remnants. Mursi had already dismissed Field Marshall Tahtawi in August, who had been Mubarak’s Defence Minister since 1991, in a highly praised attempt to curb the army’s political influence (Dunne, 2012; Fahim, 2012; Hauslohner, 2012).
@gelhaddad: Three institutions in Egypt represent the second layer of strongholds for the Mubarak Regime. (Judiciary, Police Force, Media). (November 22, 2012).
@gelhaddad: Today Egy[t's President shall - god wiling - establish the second milestone in dismantling the corrupt influence of the previous era. (November 22, 2012).
The authority by which Mursi could take extra-judicial action was considered legitimate in the light that Mursi was elected to fulfil the revolutionary goals.
@gelhaddad: President Morsi is the first democratically elected president of Egypt. It is his responsibility to guide Egypt to Stability and Justice. (November 22, 2012).
Mursi’s presentation as the revolutionary candidate stems from the second round of the presidential run-off when Mursi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air force general and last prime minister under Mubarak, contested each other at the ballot box after they emerged as the two top candidates in the first round. During the presidential campaign Shafiq was depicted as the anti-revolutionary candidate or ‘felool’ or old regime remnant who would annul what was achieved with the 2011 uprising, thus, making Mursi the revolutionary candidate behind which a diverse coalition of liberal and Islamic parties would rally (BBC, 2012). The Brotherhood, as just one of the many political groups that can be included in this revolutionary group, chose to perpetuate this anti-revolutionary or felool paradigm as an easy tactic to boost its credentials and diminish that of opponents.
Presenting itself as the living enactment of the revolution, the Brotherhood’s causal logic went like this: as the goal of the January 25 revolution was to democratise Egypt and Mursi and the Brotherhood’s FJP where the obvious winners in the first democratic elections after the revolution, this must make Mursi and the Brotherhood the political representatives of the revolutionary itself. Thus, if one opposes the Brotherhood, Mursi, or democracy one would effectively oppose the revolution itself! The July 3 coup would therefore be perceived to be a betrayal of the goals of the revolution by all who supported it.
@Ikhwanweb: Sad day for Egypt's democratic aspirations, a betrayal of the #Jan25 revolution & the millions of Egyptians who believed in democracy (July 3, 2013)
By depicting the Brotherhood as the revolutionary party it would brand the opposition as anti-revolutionary and politically aligned with Mubarak loyalists. A central element within framing the opposition as anti-revolutionary would be to connect them to ‘thuggery’ and the perpetrators of violent acts against the Brotherhood or other protesters, consequently disqualifying their commitment to peaceful democracy. When contention arose in November as many sceptics did not buy into Mursi’s democratic intentions, the opposition was quickly denounced as allied with “corrupt Mubarak cronies” thereby sidestepping their legitimate criticism to Mursi’s behaviour.
@gelhaddad: Very sad to see "genuine opposition" allied with "corrupt Mubarak cronies" because of an "aligned interest". Differentiation is critical. (November 28, 2012).
In April, the incitement of sectarian violence would be interpreted as an anti-revolutionary tactic aimed at dragging the country into chaos.
@Ikhwanweb: Beltagy: Violence outside Abbasyya Cathedral is pure thuggery. Plotters exploiting religious feelings trying to spread chaos and sedition (April 7, 2013).
On the eve of the mass protests scheduled for the anniversary of Mursi’s inauguration Ikhwanweb would assign responsibility to the opposition for the dire situation Egypt found itself in by connecting it to virtually all elements of what might be portrayed as anti-revolutionary, being undemocratic, violent, and allied with Mubarak thugs.
@Ikhwanweb: Unable to win a single elex,opposition has chosen violence & terror over democracy, winning supprt of Mubarak's thugs pic.twitter.com/cpY0JrJITS (June 27, 2013).
Finally, the Brotherhood would proclaim the end of the era of the democratisation experiment with the return to the same practices as under Mubarak.
@Ikhwanweb: Muslim Brotherhood: Crackdown brings #Egypt back to the era of repressive practices,dictatorship & corruption suffered during ousted Mubarak (July 4, 2013).
Egypt is headed back into the dark ages - to the age of Mubarak and his cronies, security forces, military henchmen and corrupt judiciary. (…) An age of violence, death, torture, detention and daily violations of human dignity. This is not just a military coup. It is a bloody coup.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s
Microblogging Strategy after Mubarak
Contrary to the perception of much of the academic literature on social media and the Arab Spring, the Egyptian virtual public sphere is not just populated by the young liberal, secular, and western-friendly activists who would play an essential role in organising the onset of the protests, but is populated in equal matters by the offline organised political opposition that used the internet to spread awareness of its political programmes of reform. The political opposition online has been equally dominated by the largest offline opposition to Mubarak’s regime, the Muslim Brotherhood. This research has aimed to repair the imbalance in the academic literature by questioning how the largest opposition party in Egypt has used social media to spread its message and mobilise popular support.
How did the Muslim Brotherhood use Twitter to frame its agenda towards an international audience? First, the young, highly educated, relatively progressive Twitter users that are affiliated with the Brotherhood’s English media wing suggests that our spokespeople were appointed in image of their more secular counterparts that had often become ‘microcelebrities’ by their internet activism rather than representative of the Brotherhood itself. Who actually tweeted for the Brotherhood would, thus, already frame the public image of the Brotherhood in a more progressive direction. Second, by presenting the results of our qualitative content analysis of 1,237 coded tweets sent by five Twitter users during five one-week periods surrounding the Mursi presidency we were able to identify how certain frames were used. The Brotherhood has remarkably minimised its Islamic frame of reference in our Twitter sample and seems to have replaced it by democracy framing.
Democracy framing has been prevalent throughout our timeframe as both a mean to justify its own actions, discredit those of others, and set the rules of the political
game. Although its commitment to liberal democracy, not just the procedure of the democracy but an inclusive spirit, has been a contentious issue throughout the tweets, the Brotherhood nevertheless presented itself as the defender of democracy and democratic legitimacy in Egypt, no matter what the opposition did. When in power it presented Mursi’s declaration as aimed at defending democracy against those trying to circumvent it and it continued to frame events in a democratic light when it was thrown out of power in July, defending Mursi’s electoral democratic legitimacy against an opposition willing to sacrifice democracy in order to gain power. This democracy frame was often bridged to a second frame, whereby the Brotherhood was not just the democratic but also the revolutionary political candidate. Aimed at strengthening the Brotherhood’s legitimacy claim to power, this frame presented the transition to democracy to be the goal of the January 25 revolution. As the Brotherhood had won all elections since the revolution it proclaimed itself to be the revolutionary candidate. Going against the Brotherhood or the democratic process would thereby be denounced as anti-revolutionary behaviour.
How are we to interpret our results, i.e. what media strategy did the Brotherhood use during Mursi’s presidency? Discourse on the Muslim Brotherhood has frequently centred around questions whether its statements of democratic commitment were representative of the 84 year-old movement. The minimization of the Islamic frame, what Lavine (2012) named as part of a frame contraction strategy where a previously used frame is intentionally discontinued, is representative of a deeper transformation in Brotherhood political discourse towards calling for democratic reform as it had most to gain from any free elections as best-organised part of the opposition. As Wickham (2013, p. 95) wrote:
…the repressive turn of the mid-1990s and the additional waves of arrest that followed underscored the Brotherhood’s vulnerability to state repression and prompted its senior leaders to exercise greater self-restraint in their public rhetoric and behaviour. Seeking to cultivate new allies and avoid another direct confrontation with the state, the Brotherhood began to soften-pedal its calls for the immediate application of Sharia rule and attempt to recast itself as an agent of democratic reform.
Whilst the Brotherhood became an outspoken proponent of democracy it only embraced procedural norms of democracy and not its tolerant spirit (2013, p. 152). As Brown (2012, p. 3) questioned the discourse, it is odd to request a movement to be committed to democracy when “there simply has been no democratic game to play.” The Brotherhood’s continuous use of its democratic legitimacy and revolutionary credentials, nevertheless, served its interest in, although apparently not enough, portraying the opposition as a step backward.
This Brotherhood doublespeak discourse did not just focus on what was being said but increasingly so on who actually communicated it. The Brotherhood’s separation of its English and Arabic-language media only aggravated critics’ determination in that the Brotherhood was hiding its true, darker intentions behind a democratic façade (Brown, Hamzawy, & Ottaway, 2006; Brown & Hamzawy, 2010; Brown, 2012; Lynch, 2008). Khaled Salem, a New York based co-editor of Ikhwanweb, wrote back:
…there is no double talk by the MB. What you and many others don’t realize quite yet that within the MB there is a new, progressive and proactive trend that is more pragmatic and is trying to make its voice heard. Ikhwanweb just happened to be more representative of that trend than other Arabic websites since our mission is to reconcile the MB difference with the West (Salim in Lynch, 2007d).
Are the Brotherhood’s statements in English genuine or tactical? As shown by our results the Twitter spokespeople for the Brotherhood clearly belong to a minority of reformist Brothers that are directly linked to the Brotherhood’s senior leadership by family ties (cf. Wickham, 2013, p. 143). That specifically these Brothers and Sisters would become spokespersons can only be interpreted as part of a strategic charm offensive as the Brotherhood purposefully promoted its own cadre of western-friendly social media activists to counter the growing dependency of international audiences and news media for information-on-the-ground on a select few Brotherhood-wary secular Egyptian activists (Lynch, 2013). As Labib (2013) blogged:
The faces of the revolution as they appeared in most media outlets, were young, tech-savvy activists who were quite progressive and ‘West-friendly’. The aforementioned image of younger Brotherhood members fit that narrative.
Thus, although the Brotherhood blogger were a genuine phenomenon they have been strategically placed by the Brotherhood to manufacture consent. We must nonetheless not forget that the initial rationale for setting up the entire English-language Ikhwanweb division was to assure western audiences that it fears about the Brotherhood were not justified. As Sondos Asem wrote about the decision to aggressively engage sceptics on Twitter: “we're using every channel we can to correct and inform" (quoted in Bohn, 2011). Social media have become too important to ignore for any political competitor, because as Wolfsfeld wrote: “one cannot, and should not, distinguish between the contest over the news media and the more general contest over political control” (1997, p. 13). As Sondos continued in the same interview: “all the liberals have, what they think is, popular support on Twitter, but there's no relevance on the street. For us, it's the reverse, we're working the other way.”
31
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