In order to assess the magnitude and influence of bloggers within the Muslim Brotherhood group we must first know how far the group is interested in the blogging community and their ideas and the size of support that bloggers are receiving from the group’s reformist leaders. …
Perhaps the failure of the reformist leaders to support the Brotherhood bloggers is attributable to their poor influence within the group in general in addition to their concern that their sympathy with the MB bloggers could encourage them to rebel against young MB members and increase their clout in the face of the conservative wing, threatening the unity and cohesion of the group. Nevertheless, the bloggers have succeeded over the past two years in making substantial gains whose effects will be felt later.
First, blogging has demolished the psychological barrier that has prevented many of them from criticizing the group. … The second gain is that blogging has put the group in a cleft stick: ignoring the voices of young bloggers and dealing with them as mere electronic banter is an option that will be very costly for the group, as it will tarnish its image and portray it in the media as an authoritarian group which does not accommodate other opinions. …
The third gain was that the group’s leaders are now bracing themselves for any strategic decisions that might be taken against them and the bloggers’ reactions to them. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that have delayed the issuance of the final version of the Muslim Brotherhood party’s political program that has drawn strong criticism from young bloggers.
The question that imposes itself on the bloggers now is: what comes after blogging? Access the full article>>
