Television drama has become the latest weapon used by Egypt’s authorities in their confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned group that represents the largest opposition force in the country.
Independent candidates affiliated to the Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the seats in parliament in the last election in 2005. The government has made clear that it intends to prevent a repeat of these gains.
Three months before the next parliamentary elections, Egyptian television has been running a nightly series called Al-Gama’a – or “The Group” – tracing the history of the Brotherhood as founded in 1928 by a young cleric, Sheikh Hassan al-Banna. He is depicted as a dour political opportunist, prepared to use violence in his quest to establish an Islamist state.
“The timing of the series is deliberate,” said Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Brotherhood. “They want to plant the idea that the Brotherhood is violent and that mixing religion with politics is a defect which should be abolished.”
The series shows Mr al-Banna as a young boy devising a game in which he divides his friends into two groups – the “army of believers” and the “infidels” – and then beats up those in the latter category.
The episodes, which are repeated several times a day on different channels, are being broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan, traditionally a peak viewing period as families gather around their television sets after breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast.
The Brotherhood says that apart from the tendentious depiction, the series contains specific historical inaccuracies. But Wahid Hamid, the author of the script, says he relied on memoirs and other writings by members of the group.In the past, the Brotherhood did have a clandestine armed wing, but analysts say the programme overlooks the fact that the group has not been implicated in any acts of violence for more than 50 years. After severe repression in the 1950s and 1960s, the Brotherhood made a strategic decision to adhere to peaceful methods.
Despite frequent crackdowns, the group has run candidates in most elections held in the past 25 years. A network of charities providing social services ensures that the Brotherhood has grassroots support.
Observers, however, have faulted the response of some Brotherhood members who have set up a Facebook group against the series called the “Brotherhood Deterrence Brigades”.
“You cannot react in this chauvinistic spirit to a work of drama,” said Hossam Tammam, an expert on the Brotherhood. “You can’t face a television series with ‘deterrence brigades’. This will only reinforce the fears of the social and intellectual elite.”
But there is also a strong feeling that the authorities may have scored an own goal by focusing attention on the Islamists.
Wahid Abdel Meguid, a political analyst, said the Brotherhood may actually benefit from the series.
“Egyptian state television used to be banned from any reference to them,” he said. “Now they are on it every day. Maybe liberals or leftists will receive the negative message sent by the programme-makers, but a big portion of the public will get a positive message – that the group defends religion and cares for it.”