The Muslim Brotherhood’s brand of economics has failed – and those countries that have experienced a period of government under the Islamists have witnessed appalling economic deterioration.
It is in Egypt where you will, of course, find the real cradle of this group.
The Middle Eastern nation witnessed unprecedented economic decline during the Brotherhood’s brief rule, a period which was also characterised by disharmony and disunity.
Egypt is still struggling to cope with the unsettling societal effects of the Brotherhood’s tumultuous period in power.
In Tunisia, the situation is similar. More than three years after the uprisings began, many people are living on shifting sands and the people’s revolution has turned into something akin to a “peasant revolution”.
After they assumed power, the Ennahda party failed to manage the economy appropriately and hurried to impose taxes on a population already exhausted by the lack of credible fiscal solutions and deteriorating standards of living.
Elsewhere in the region, we can also see the damage the Brotherhood has done.
Simply, it is unable to solve economic issues and so it seeks to create chaos to divert the attention of the ordinary person away from its failings.
When the world faced the financial crisis, the Brotherhood promoted itself in several countries as the only group able to stop the meltdown.
In doing so, it deceived ordinary citizens and tried to extract the remaining wealth of the people to finance its subversive plans, which aimed to turn the region into a battlefield. It raised the motto “Islam is the solution”, using religion to hoodwink innocent people. It encouraged people to give money freely to charities under its overall control.
The Brotherhood’s economic model also sought to take a fixed percentage of its members’ incomes.
It found interesting if ultimately toxic methods of financing: the “Brotherisation” of institutions also sought to give employment opportunities to its members that they didn’t deserve or were inappropriate to their stated qualifications.
Naturally, the income for these jobs was almost always high, as the higher the salary, the higher the amount that would flow straight back into the Brotherhood’s coffers.
The Brotherhood’s economic model is also characterised by the introduction of huge taxes on its citizens.
In summary, the Brotherhood uses many unpleasant methods to impose itself and these methods appear at odds with the principles of Islam.
Dr Salem Humaid is an Emirati writer and chairman of Almezmaah Studies & Research Centre
