CAIRO - 26 September 2020: The Muslim Brotherhood's plan to return to the Egyptian social and political scene comes as they are most desperate to create new basis in the country without which their entire agenda in the region would amount to nothing, but their targeted recruits, later to be victims, are children.
Much like their strategy since their establishment in the 1920s, they worked to control grassroots. Schools, sporting clubs, youth centers were their venues to branwash children and create the basis of their "Second Coming."
In December 2013, schools run by the Muslim Brotherhood were put under the supervision o the Ministry of Education to dry up the sources of extremist ideologies that the group planted for decades through their control on schools and youth centers. Around 84 schools in 16 governorates came under the supervision of the government, but the activities of their affiliated teachers and administrators in Muslim Brotherhood-owned schools or any other school in Egypt have not stopped. Especially that members of the Islamist group receive orders and blindly follow them.
As a smiple example, the perpetrators of the assassination of Attorney-General Hesham Barakat in 2015 were executed in February 2019, the defendants were aged 21-26, and another defendant who participated in setting the assassination plan was younger than 18. It meant that these young people were recruited to the group since their childhoos after years of being raised by special curricula set by the Brotherhood alongside that of the Education Ministry, as well as at Clubs, youth and Quran recitation centers.
According to ex Muslim Brotherhood mem bers and sources close to their leaders in Istanbul, the group revived the "young lions committee" to outline a whole pedagogic program that targets children and teenagers at schools, clubs and youth centers to once again engrave extremist ideas in the minds of a generation in a secret fashion and without revealing their name: the Muslim Brotherhood.
Such plan was also revelead after following the threads of jailed Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Wahdan, who for years was reponsible for the education and upbringing part of the group's activities to ramify into the Egyptian society. His wife, an undersecretary of an Azhar institute was his main assistant. Khairat el-Shater's son-in-law, Ayman Abdel Ghany, who was also the head of the "student branch" of the group" was the next in line to organize the insertion of their ideology at schools.
Mohamed, 31, whose full name cannot be revealed for security reasons, is the son of a Brotherhood's leader in Upper Egypt. He told us "I was no longer a Muslim Brotherhood member after my brother traveled to Syria and the group involved my father in violent acts whose price he paid when he was jailed after the dispersal of Rabaa sit-in. I hide my dissension in fear of vindiction that might hurt my mother and siblings, as well as my share of a project that my father has with elements from the group."
Over the span of month between March and October of last year, we received testimonies from Egyptian ojournalists in Turke, some of whom are within the group itself, and they were all about the youth committee and their plan to recruit children and teenagers in Egypt.
"The problem of education inside the group is inherited from [Hassan] el-Banna's messages, and is not related to the mistakes of the following generations. That is why it is present in the early literature and outputs of the Brotherhood as much as it is present in the new education program to prepare the [youth] segments," M.R., a source outside Egypt said.
"A plan that group prepared to attract young people and put new programs to upbring the children," the source added, explaining that he heard of the plan from his poet friend Y., who who was criticizing it alongside other practices by the group in Turkey. The source in Upper Egypt said he knew nothing about that plan, but has a friend who is engaged in preaching and educational activities in the group and belongs to a big Brothoerood family in the Delta.
Presenting ourselves as a research team on an academic study about educational curricula inside Islamist groups, especially the Brothehrood and the Salafist group, we met with sources close to the Brotherhood in Istanbul, who gave us documents described as "the Brotherhood's new plan." The documents revealed that elements of the group inside Egypt are implementing the plan, and another official Egyptian source who follows the activities of the group confirmed that this plan has recently been put into action.
The plan has four main divisions: media, development of the "young lions and young flowers" committe, secret work at schools, and alternative schools. The committee includes young Muslim Brotherhood cadres, educators, media professionals and administrators of the group. It all began when Brotherhood elemnts insideEgypt proposed the plan to their superiors abroad to revive the committee and update the scheme so they pick new elements from the new generations to be a seed for the future, reestablishing the group and their committees. The proposal mentioned what the younger members of the group did after the January 25 revolution in 2011, and how they became the shield of the group after 2013 and the basis of all the organizational activities of the group a in the face of the strong secutiry grip of the state.
This plan was studies once it was proposed in late 2018. The secretary-general of the group Mahmoud Hussein and his assistant Ahmed Abdel Rahman approved it, and then the group began working on its organizational framework in mid-2019. The pace of the work became faster after contractor Mohamed Ali called on Egyptians to demonstrate in September 2019, because it was crystal clear that the group's ability to mobilize people has shrunk to its lowest levels. It was then decided that there is a dire need to create a new popular base so the group's odds to exist do not shrink as well.
The following is a whataspp message to one of the sources about the new plan: "A new educational and organizational approach to prepare a divine generation based on the pure Brotherhood's path in a way that responds to the current ordeal and divine affliction of the group. It is inspired by the education and preaching of the ideas of martyr Imam Hassan al-Banna and his messages, especialy the call, the mission, the teachings, the fifth conference, the Brotherhood students and the family system," in reference to the social groups created by the Brotherhood students in universities.
Theadministrative office of the group abroad will pay half of the expenses of the plan, while the offices and branches in Egypt will pay the other half through donations and project revenues that are not detected by the government.
The child recruitment pat of the scheme also has four divisions: the first identifies the job description and missions of the new committee, the media and awarness for youngesters (including social media pages and groups), working at schools, and finally alternatives to schools. The final step in the plan is selecting people who are qualified to act on the group's orders and distribute them throughtout the system of the group, whether in preaching and education, in the media and electronic committee, or political work on the ground.
"There are instructions for the that a committee is formed of university professors, teachers and administrators at clubs and youth centers and any affiliated staff at cultural institutions. It is apparent that this plan involves faculty members at government and privately owned universities, teachers and administrators at international and national schools with Islamist orientation, organizers at cultural centers, administrators at major clubs and tens of youth centers in some Delta and northern Upper Egyptian cities," a source close the Brotherhood said, adding that the committees in Egypt will be expected to report to the Brotherhood leaders abroad every three months.
According to several sources, the following are some of the people who set out the new plan: professor of political science Seif el-Din Abdel Fattah, Cambridge professor Maha Azzam, advisors to late President Mohamed Morsi, Ahmed Abdel Aziz and Mohamed Azzam, the latter's father Adly Azzam, advisor to former Education Minister, Wael Misbah, Yasmine Hassan, Essam Talima, Sameh al-Hennawy, AKram al-Zind, Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar, Moataz al-Fujairy, trasurer of the Euromed Rights, Mohanad Sabry, who works with Human Rights Watch, Amr Darrag, Azab Mostafa, Wagdy al-Araby, Islam Zabal, Sundus Assem Shalaby, Manal Aboul Hassan, Ayman Abdel Ghany, Heshmat Khalifa, former head of the Islamic Relief Organization, businessmen Mahmoud Wahba and Abdel Aziz al-Kashef, Ali Battikh, Yehia Moussa, Mostafa al-Masry, Mohamed al-Aqid, Ateya Adlan, from Iraq Ahmed Kadhim al-Raqy, from Tunisia Sumaya Ghanouchi, and others from Istanbul and London.
Reporting by Talal Raslan
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