Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Glossary
- Introduction: Ideological thought and practice in the Arab region
- 1 Retreat from secularism in Arab nationalist and socialist thought
- 2 A more inclusive Islamism? The wasatiyya trend
- 3 Framing a cross-ideological alliance
- 4 The Egyptian Movement for Change: Intellectual antecedents and generational conflicts
- 5 Yemen's Joint Meeting Parties: Origins and architects
- Conclusion: Ideological rapprochement, accommodation, transformation – and their limits
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies
4 - The Egyptian Movement for Change: Intellectual antecedents and generational conflicts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Glossary
- Introduction: Ideological thought and practice in the Arab region
- 1 Retreat from secularism in Arab nationalist and socialist thought
- 2 A more inclusive Islamism? The wasatiyya trend
- 3 Framing a cross-ideological alliance
- 4 The Egyptian Movement for Change: Intellectual antecedents and generational conflicts
- 5 Yemen's Joint Meeting Parties: Origins and architects
- Conclusion: Ideological rapprochement, accommodation, transformation – and their limits
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies
Summary
On June 8, 2006, around 700 activists, lawyers, and journalists convened at the Lawyers’ Syndicate in Cairo to speak out against the ongoing detention of political activists and in support of the judges who were fighting for the independence of the judiciary and the lawyers who were to be tried for publication of the “blacklist” of judges allegedly complicit in vote-rigging during the 2005 parliamentary elections. The event featured speakers from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Revolutionary Socialists, the Nasirist-leaning Karama Party, the Islamist Labor Party, the liberal Ghad Party, the Egyptian Movement for Change (better known as Kifaya), the leftist Tagammu’ Party, as well as various human rights groups. Muntasir al-Zayyat, an Islamist lawyer best known for his defense of the blind Shaykh ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and for his writing of an Ayman al-Zawahiri biography, gave the first speech, welcoming all in the name of the lawyers’ syndicate and calling for the various organizations represented “to be united under these circumstances.” “These are,” he proclaimed, “the worst of times.” Zayyat thanked Kifaya and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular “for grabbing this opportunity for us” to fight for political reform and other issues of common concern. A member of the Ghad Party, speaking on behalf of his party's chairman, Ayman Nur (b. 1964), who remains in prison on charges of forging signatures to obtain a license for his party, followed Zayyat in sending “his regards and gratitude to the Muslim Brothers and Kifaya for their role in the fight.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Political Ideology in the Arab WorldAccommodation and Transformation, pp. 109 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009