Following Hosni Mubarak's downfall in February 2011 the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) overnight effected a shift from “outlawed” group to Egypt's most important political player. Now the group is undergoing yet another historic move, and once again nothing will be the same for them. If Mohamed Morsi's ouster by the military on 3 July, supported by millions who had taken to the streets, didn't leave pundits scratching their heads over the future of the 85-year-old organisation, then the dramatic events that followed have placed all predictions on hold. Morsi and the Brothers are no longer in power, but it is how the current standoff with the military ends that will determine the organisation's future. Tens of thousands of Morsi supporters remain defiant in east Cairo's Rabaa Al-Adawiya district. A smaller rally continues on the other side of town, close to Cairo University. The Brotherhood's leadership, members and supporters say they will not leave until Morsi is reinstated and a dialogue begins, though in their hearts they must know the former is a lost cause. The movement's top man, Khairat Al-Shater, along with at least six figures including the former supreme guide Mahdi Akef, are in Tora prison pending investigations into charges of killing protesters at their headquarters. Hundreds of arrest warrants have been issued for MB members. Meanwhile Morsi and, according to Human Rights Watch, at least 10 of his aides are under arrest at an undisclosed military location. Five Islamic TV stations have been closed, including the Brotherhood's Masr 25 channel. This is far cry from their brush with power which often drew comparisons with Mubarak's former National Democratic Party, not least because both could afford nationwide branches, boasted of a massive membership base and exercised a leverage they considered their due. In the past two weeks many of those branches have been torched and ransacked. The Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo was set ablaze, vandalised then sealed off by the authorities last week. Hostility towards the group, brewing at least since November, reached unprecedented heights in recent months, setting the stage for the millions-strong protests of 30 June. The military then prised Morsi from power on 3 July, sending shockwaves through the Brotherhood and Egypt's wider Islamist base which refuses to accept defeat or acknowledge the new reality. Until the early hours of 8 July their strategy seemed to be massive mobilisation on both sides of Cairo in an attempt to pressure the military to reinstate Morsi. In a fiery speech on 5 July the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie told the Rabaa rally that they should remain steadfast until Morsi's return. The thinking seemed to be that if millions could pressure the military to oust Morsi, then his supporters would adopt the same strategy to force Minister of Defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to reverse his decision. As the media continues to be flooded with stories about Morsi's final hours in office and his management of the crisis, replete with miscalculations, denial, stubbornness and the incompetence of his presidential team, and analyses of the Brotherhood's mistakes since deciding to contest the presidential elections in the spring of 2012, the mood within the movement is anything but reversionary. The blow has yet to sink in. “There's steadfastness and of course there's anger,” says Alaa Mustafa, 32, a member of the movement's Freedom and Justice Party's (FJP) foreign relations committee. “There's also a feeling of betrayal.” She was referring to the Rabaa sit-in in which she regularly participates. Hailing from a Brotherhood family, the computer engineer who obtained her masters degree in the United Kingdom joined the FJP as soon as it was founded in February 2011. It was the first time the group had formed a political party and inevitably questions were raised about the FJP's independence from a mother organisation that remained in legal limbo until March this year when it finally registered as an NGO. Now the once blurred lines between the Brotherhood and its party have dissolved. No one mentions the FJP anymore but instead reference the Brotherhood and its leadership. Should no deal be reached between Brotherhood leaders and the military, the MB and the FJP could be stripped of any legal status. On 6 July the minister of social affairs was quoted by MENA as saying she was examining whether or not the Brotherhood's NGO status should be dissolved. The possibility of a return to the “outlawed” status the Brotherhood held under Mubarak is not farfetched. It dominates the sentiments of the protesters in Rabaa and elsewhere. “The Brothers are used to gulags and political detainment, this is not a problem,” Mustafa told Al-Ahram Weekly. “Our problem is that Egyptians have been robbed of their will and their dream to live under civil rule, not under a military coup.” The urgency of the crisis means few Brotherhood members are discussing what went wrong or why they have reached this point. The group's fate hinges on the dynamics of the next few days — possibly weeks — in which anything might happen. In the early hours of 8 July a sit-in by Morsi's supporters at the Republican Guard's headquarters in east Cairo, where many believe Morsi is being held, was fired on. At least 51 people were killed and hundreds injured. Conflicting stories on what prompted the military to open fire have circulated, leaving an already hostile public at best indifferent, at worst with a sense of schadenfreude. In such a charged climate it would be surprising if Morsi is eventually released and no legal case against the former president pursued. The fact that no charges have been pressed so far suggests that such a move will happen only after the pro-Morsi sit-ins end, or else the threat of prosecution is being held in reserve to press for a settlement both sides will eventually accept. What is clear is that few have faith in Interim President Adli Mansour's inclusive rhetoric. “All doors have been shut against the Brotherhood,” says Mohamed Soffar, political science professor at Cairo University and an expert on Islamist groups. “Their first elected president has been ousted and their leadership is in prison. This is a recipe to go underground.” Much of the Brotherhood's 85-year history comprised of security crackdowns and regular detention of its leadership and members, fuelling a sense of persecution and paranoia that spilled over into Morsi's time in power. Survival has dominated the group's mentality and hindered its political evolution. Morsi justified his most controversial decisions by hinting at conspiracies and enemies, though hint was all he did. The lack of transparency meant the president never succeeded in convincing Egyptians of the threats he perceived to his rule. Yet even if Morsi acted out of paranoia, his support base will now argue, his fears were well-founded. Historically, Islamist movements never believed in democracy, though through limited political participation over the years they came to recognise democracy as a mechanism for governance and spreading daawa or proselytising Islamic values and principles, says Soffar. “Now, after what has happened, they believe democracy isn't for people like them.”
