ICC Note:
“In Libya, we find [religious] fundamentalists of all backgrounds, from those who have taken up arms, to those who are making speeches and giving sermons, inside the country and abroad, not to mention figures like Ali al-Salabi,” CBN reports. Ridical Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are gaining political influence and rising to power from Tunisia to Egypt. Fear and uncertainty increases throughout the minority Christian community.
By Erick Stakelbeck
11/14/2011 North Africa (CBN) – It's one thing for me to say it. It's another thing entirely for a journalist from Saudi Arabia to say it, in a leading English-language Saudi daily, no less.
You have to read the entire piece (re-printed by Al-Arabiya) by Mshari al-Zaydi, who's described as an expert on Islamic fundamentalism. Here is a sampling:
Today, those who supported the Egyptian revolution are in a state of shock with regards to the domination of the political arena by religious parties and currents.
This is something that has expanded beyond the Egyptian scene. Indeed what we are seeing is a political Islamist tsunami occupying the scene and displacing the “civil” youth. In Libya, we find [religious] fundamentalists of all backgrounds, from those who have taken up arms, to those who are making speeches and giving sermons, inside the country and abroad, not to mention figures like Ali al-Salabi.
Whilst in Tunisia, the [Islamist] al-Nahda party, and supporters of its leader Rashid Ghannouchi, are in the political ascendency. As for Yemen, we have the Islah [Reform] party, not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood and the Huthi rebels.
I recall how many Arab writers at the beginning of this year - the year of the Arab Spring - prophesied that what we were witnessing were uprisings staged by non-political civilians and youth, and claimed that not a single radical or ideological slogan was chanted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, or any other Arab public square.
They said that this proves that the Arab regimes were lying to the world – and to the political elites who champion the idea of the civil state – when they said that should their regimes be toppled, this would result in Islamists and religious fundamentalists coming to power.
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Now, these same well-intentioned writers – or at least many of them – have returned to warn against the Arab Spring being hijacked and despoiled. They have expressed their confusion about the presence and popularity of these radical Islamists who are overwhelming the political scene, and are asking: where did the Facebook youth go?
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