The defense of the Muslim Brotherhood's case in Egypt suffers from a fundamental flaw in dealing with the situation that has resulted from the removal of one of its leading figures, Mohamed Morsi, from the presidency, and from the army assuming the management of a political roadmap from which the Brotherhood has excluded itself. The Muslim Brotherhood has connected its removal from power to the issue of democracy and freedom by accusing the interim government of being the product of a coup, in addition to being tyrannical and oppressive. It considered that the climate of the Arab Spring, which had for a while tended towards condemning dictatorship, would make the people and the West, the defender of democracy, rise up to save the Brotherhood, which has been persecuted, victimized and oppressed at the hands of a tyrannical military regime. Based on such a reckoning, the Brotherhood had expected for millions of people to gather in the streets of Egypt in its support, for a broad movement to emerge in the world in solidarity with it, and for active capitals to move to take punitive measures against those who had "usurped" power from the democratically elected President. Yet none of these predictions came to pass. Indeed, with the exception of the floundering policy of the United States, connected to the lack of vision and strategy of President Barack Obama's administration, no one in the world considered that what Egypt was witnessing represented a military coup against a democratic government. The reason why the Brotherhood's narrative is not being believed inside of Egypt or in world capitals, is that the group has never represented a democratic model that could be defended. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood in itself represents an ironclad organization with a pyramid-shaped hierarchical structure that does not allow for any interpretations or opinions different from what the Supreme Guide decrees, nor for any renewal or self-criticism. It is a closed organization by virtue of its very structure, and not just by virtue of it having been forced to work in secret. Moreover, the Brotherhood defends a totalitarian ideology that in itself sums up all the various aspects of life. In other words, the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood has not attracted to its ranks any defenders of democracy, freedom and human rights, even if human rights organizations have defended its members who were subjected to persecution as a result of special laws or merely for expressing a political point of view of opposition. The leadership of the Brotherhood, throughout its long history, has always dealt with any attempt at renewal by rejecting it. In fact, the experience of the centrist party launched by young leaders from the Brotherhood to represent a platform for reform provides the best example of the kind of ideological authoritarianism exercised by the group's leadership. The experience of openly engaging in politics, with Morsi having been elected President, came to confirm this image of the Muslim Brotherhood as a monopolizing and totalitarian organization with fascistic tendencies. Thus the presence of the Brotherhood in power seemed to represent a real threat to pluralism and public freedoms, as well as the start of a process of making tyranny and repression into law, through a series of presidential decrees aimed at subjecting state institutions to the President – who, although democratically elected, was also committed to his duty of obedience to an unelected Supreme Guide and the members of his Guidance Bureau, who had likewise not been elected by universal suffrage. In this sense, complaints of posing a threat to democracy, freedom and human rights in Egypt had been directed at the Muslim Brotherhood. And it was precisely such complaints that were behind the justification provided by the leadership of the army for deposing Morsi and laying out a roadmap to return things to normal. And when Egyptian forces made their move in the street to voice their objections to the Brotherhood's methods and to demand commitment to the popular demands that were raised in the face of the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood considered such a move to be targeting its authority. It thus provided the spark for violence by making use of its own militias to repress protesters and demonstrators. And after Morsi was toppled, the group's name became connected to the wave of terrorist attacks that spread across the country, especially in the Sinai. Amid all of these eventful experiences, not a single voice was heard from the Brotherhood reassessing what had happened. Rather, its leading figures and spokespersons clung to the same methods that had brought things to where they had come... Thus the Muslim Brotherhood lost the battle of linking its case to democracy and freedoms.
