It was the French Revolution in 1789, the archetype of all liberal revolutions, which introduced the expression “the enemies of the people” while dealing with those conspiring against the revolution, particularly during the Reign of Terror. More recently, the Soviet regime used the term against a long array of its opponents, including the remnants of Tsarist Russia from before the Russian Revolution. In other words, the term was used to describe certain political forces that opposed the tidal revolutionary waves of the two revolutions. Both the French and Bolshevik revolutions designated those opposing the popular majority as enemies of the people. Such a designation was accompanied by harsh sentences, including death by guillotine. Many faced such a dreadful fate on grounds of their class background and not because of their embroilment in anti-revolutionary actions. In Egypt, since 30 June, the Muslim Brotherhood has been embroiled in a series of crimes against both the state and society, while some actors inside and outside Egypt have been criticising the transitional regime's brutality. During the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794, the Committee of Public Safety condemned to death up to 40,000 in France. Last week's government declaration of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation has been demonstrably effective in darkening its already tarnished moral image. The decision, despite the arcane debate about who should have issued the decision, has been historical in terms of its invalidation of the outlawed association as a valid political option. Should the Egyptian revolution label the Muslim Brotherhood an enemy of the Egyptian people? In fact, the association — since June's revolution — has intentionally harmed Egypt's national security interests and threatened its public tranquillity more than the Bourbons of France or the Romanovs of Russia in the aftermath of their respective revolutions. By the same token such monarchical families asserted rights to their thrones for centuries, whereas the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood association had accidentally come to power in a very specific context full of unprecedented uncertainties and ambiguities. The Brotherhood association's ongoing terrorist practices have been clearly illustrative of its determination to awe society. Such bloody assaults on the police and army stations and personnel have been geared to induce a form of mistrust among growing societal sectors, questioning the abilities of the state's protective shields to perform their role. There has been a deliberate effort by the association and its affiliates to generate, maximize and deepen the sense of insecurity among Egyptians. Yet under all circumstances the Egyptian revolution should not follow the coercive measures endorsed by either the French or Bolshevik revolutions. Equally important, the Egyptian revolution should not be apologetic or less determined in pursuing its ultimate objective of eliminating actual or potential threats posed by an outlawed terrorist association, its members and its affiliates. Throughout its history, the Muslim Brotherhood association has repeatedly gone through a life cycle that always ended up with its confrontation with the ruling regime and finally its dissolution. Such a confrontational attitude has been endlessly expressed since the association's establishment in 1928, casting its dark — if not bloody — shadows on Egypt's state and society. Hostilities against society have ever constituted a common scene in the association's tragic conflicts with successive ruling regimes. According to Heba Sewilam, “Terror has been the Brotherhood's standby doctrine, unleashed through the organisation's militant allies against the Egyptian state and population whenever it wishes to escalate a confrontation with its alleged Egyptian ‘enemies'.” In other words, terrorism of various forms and grades has been the major weapon of the supposedly missionary association. Many ideological, historical and organisational reasons lie behind the Brotherhood's belief in and practice of terrorism, a fact that some have been trying to ignore or to excuse. Few identified the escalation of the association's sense of power to the extent of blackmailing the state on the eve of the announcement of the highly controversial results of the 2012 presidential elections. Threatening to put Egypt on fire in the case that Morsi lost the elections was a clear illustration. The current phase of confrontation has exhibited two important features. These two developments, though not recent ones, have had serious repercussions on the local, regional and global contexts. The first feature has been the evolution of the association to become tightly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood International organisation with its own vision and strategies. Obviously the latter's hands have been moving the free cadres of the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood association to commit such dreadful crimes like the one of Mansoura. Evidently, such a global Muslim Brotherhood has not been a myth. On the other hand, the association in Egypt has overtly emerged as the hub for other local and regional new and old terrorist organisations. The outlawed association dropped its mask and has been operating in full coordination with other regional and global terrorist organisations. Many have criticised successive regimes' security approach to addressing the threats posed by the Muslim Brotherhood association. Nevertheless, nearly all other policies — like partnership, containment and inclusion — that have occasionally been adopted by various regimes identifiably failed to eliminate what could be described as the association's genetic drive for violence. On the other hand, it can be said that there has been no well-articulated proposal that might address the association and its inevitably violent life cycle. Save for abstract generalisations, like “societal solution”, “political reintegration”, “national reconciliation” and even “transitional justice”, no valid alternative has been suggested by those denouncing the security approach. Accordingly, in the short term, only the legal and security approach should be adopted, bearing in mind that other approaches have been rejected by the outlawed association. The issue is that the Egyptian revolution should not be obsessed about the future of the banned association. It is up to the members of the outlawed association to adjust to society and the state, and not vice versa. Ex-members of the outlawed association should seek individually their own future within the new state and society. What has been the added value of having such an association since its inception? Put differently: What is in it for Egypt reintegrating such an association within the new political order? Some have mentioned that the Muslim Brotherhood association has developed a network of social services that have been targeting many deprived Egyptians. Apart from conflicting estimates of the actual size of such networking and its real contribution to lives of 90 million Egyptians, it is important to highlight that the major beneficiary of such a process has been the association itself, that has been abusing its social services in garnering support during elections as well as for various events requiring popular mobilisation. Else, it is hard to identify a meaningful positive contribution — actual or potential — from the association in addressing any of the long array of maladies affecting Egyptian society, like poverty, illness, unemployment, illiteracy, etc. On the contrary, the association has opportunistically capitalised on such social maladies as a means to achieve its own objectives. It is all for Caesar: this has been the rationale behind the Brotherhood's social services. In the current time, the transitional government should think as a revolution and act like a state. The gap between promise and performance should be minimised. When there is no time to be wrong, the government, if not the whole regime, should set its priorities. Rather, proactive measures should be envisaged and pursued to address the security crisis. The role of the Egyptian people is no less important in combating the terrorist threats posed by its enemies. The writer is a political analyst.
