by Khaled Hamoud Alshareef
Red herring tactics were used to attack Erdoğan’s foes while a massive PR campaigns were actively portraying him as the Muslim World savior…
Turkey’s ruling Islamists in the Justice and Development Party (AKP) are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, known as the Ikhwan in Arabic. The Ikhwan is international and its strategies and tactics are different in each country, he said, though the various national chapters often communicate and cooperate with each other.
Erdoğan’s ties to the Brotherhood go back to the 1970s, when he was one of the more trusted political pupils of Necmettin Erbakan, the father of Islamism in Turkey.
Muslim Brotherhood branches in the Gulf helped support Erbakan and Turkey’s Islamists in this era when they faced repression from the secular establishment.
The historical roots are the same, as well as the ideological closeness in political and religious interpretation, and finally, self-interest as political opportunism.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a belief system found throughout the world, the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey (the Erdoğan administration) is the only group in charge of a country in this big belief system.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership is a very tight network that loyal to their cause, when Necmettin Erbakan died in 2011, most prominent leading figures of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership attended his funeral in Istanbul. Around this time, as the Arab spring protests grew, so did Turkey’s support for Islamists.
“The AKP government’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood movements abroad changed dramatically in 2010 and 2011, as Ankara sought to fund Muslim Brotherhood offshoots that were ideologically ranging from the covert loyalists like to the religious extremist overzealous.
The Turkish Regime with strong hopes of expanding their influence in the Middle East worked with Qatar in funding, supporting and expanding the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood parties in the region.
The main parties were Islamic Action Front (Jordan), Justice and Welfare Party, Islamic Renaissance Party in Tajikistan, Iraqi Islamic Party, Islamic Action Front (Lebanon), Justice and Construction Party (Libya), National Assembly for Reform and Development, The Malaysian Islamic Party, Freedom And Justice Party, Yemeni Congregation for Reform, Islamic Constitutional Movement HADS (Kuwait).
Turkey and Qatar invested billions of dollars in expanding AKP and Brotherhood-linked institutions in the United States relations, AKP and Qatari government officials members can be spotted presence at events of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been linked to the Brotherhood.
Turkish names were increasingly appearing on the boards of Brotherhood-linked NGOs and the influence of Turkish Islamists is growing in the United States.
Red herring tactics were used to attack Erdoğan’s foes while a massive PR campaigns were actively portraying him as the Muslim World savior there for people will dismiss reports of Erdogan’s poor reputation regarding human rights.
Muslim Brotherhood TV shows broadcasting around the world painting Turkey under AKP as a progressive and prospering nation, Erdogan was recognized anywhere in the Middle East as a well established leader who saved Turkey and now he wants to save the Islamic world.
Muslim Brotherhood and Turkish mosques in Europe, North America even in the Middle East have become propaganda tools, where Imams are trained to maintain a positive image of Turkey under Erdogan and attacking the Saudis and Egyptian governments, painting them as regressive, brutal and evil regimes, more and more people subscribed mix the AKP and Turkish Islamist groups ideology and the belief of the caliphate return, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, has taken on an Islamist identity, even a Muslim Brotherhood identity in many places throughout Europe mainly in Germany where they were accused of espionage.
Some groups linked to the Brotherhood in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Egypt may be terrorist organisations, while some others are not, it’s no longer 1950s, there is no singular Muslim Brotherhood that can be identified and abolished easily, the Muslim Brotherhood is active in politics, arts, social life.
They are celebrities, musicians, actors, scholars, terrorists, businessmen, public figures, the are liberals, theocratic zealots, because they will be whatever they are needed to be in the name of the Neo Ottoman Empire.
Khaled Homoud Alshareef holds PhD in Business and he earned Masters in Philosophy. He regularly tweets under @0khalodi0.
