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"The secular resistance
movements are gone. Now there are the Islamists coming in,"
said Braizat.
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CAIRO — Hizbullah victory
over Israel has left many in the region
convinced that while their leaders failed to
face Israel and the US hegemony, Islamic
movements succeeded in restoring dignity and
honor to a bruised identity, further enhancing
the political future of such movements, The
New York Times said Sunday, August 20.
"The losers are going
to be the Arab regimes, USA and Israel,"
Fares Braizat of the Center for Strategic
Studies at the University of Jordan told the
American daily.
"The secular
resistance movements are gone. Now there are
the Islamists coming in. So the new
nationalism is going to be religious
nationalism, and one of the main reasons is
dignity. People want their dignity back."
The Lebanon war has
highlighted, and to many people in the Middle
East validated, the rise of another unifying
ideology, a kind of Arab-Islamic nationalism,
said the Times.
Hizbullah leader Hassan
Nasrallah is now widely viewed as a pan-Arab
Islamic hero.
An outpouring of newspaper
columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry
readings have showered praise on Nasrallah
while attacking, on the one hand, US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice for her "new
Middle East" that they say has led only
to violence and repression as well as Arab
leaders for their weakness.
Hizbullah has proved a foe
to be reckoned with, inflicting heavy losses
on the armed-to-the-teeth Israeli army.
Except for Israel's ongoing
conflict with the Palestinians, Israel
suffered heavier civilian casualties in the
Lebanon conflict than in any fighting since it
was established at the rubble of Palestine in
1948.
Although Israel conceded
the failures of the month-long Lebanon war and
its defeat made international headlines, only
US President George Bush believed the Lebanese
resistance had lost.
A majority of the Israeli
public believe that none or only a very small
part of the goals of the war had been
achieved.
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"People will say Hizbullah
achieved a very good thing, so why should we mistrust the Muslim
Brotherhood," said Naffa. (Reuters)
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Experts believe Hizbullah's
victory and the failure of Arab nationalism
and most recently the false promise of
American-style democracy would give more
credit to political Islam and Islamic
movements across the region.
"People will say
Hizbullah achieved a very good thing, so why
should we mistrust the Muslim
Brotherhood," Hassan Naffa, a professor
of political science at Cairo University, told
the American paper.
When asked if she would
vote for a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, famed
Egyptian radio talk-show host Yomna Samah, who
defines herself as secular, said, "Yeah,
why not?"
"Hizbullah is a
resistance movement that has given us a
solution," she added.
The New York Times cited
the meteoric rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt — after securing 88 seats in the
country's parliament — and the Palestinian
resistance movement Hamas, which won landslide
in January's parliamentary elections.
"We need an
umbrella," said Mona Mahmoud, 40.
"In the 60’s,
Arabism was the umbrella. We had a cause. Now
we lack an umbrella. We feel lost in space. We
need to be affiliated to something. Usually in
our part of the world, because of what
religion means to us, we immediately resort to
it."
Diaa Rashwan, an expert in
Islamic movements, said people have come to
identify themselves more as Muslims during the
last five years "in response to the
US-led ‘war on terrorism’ which Egyptians
frequently feel is a discriminatory campaign
targeting Muslims and Islam worldwide."
But what endears most the
lay people to Islamic groups is the fact that
they are seen as incorruptible, disciplined,
efficient and caring.
"The failure of
pan-Arabism, the lack of democracy, and
corruption — this drives people to an extent
of despair where they start to find the
solution in religion," said Gamal El-Ghitany,
editor of Akhbar al-Adab, a literary
magazine distributed in Egypt.
Ms. Mahmoud says she has
more faith in Islam than in the state.
"I have more faith in
Allah than in [Egyptian President] Hosni
Mubarak," she said.
"That is why I am
proud to be a Muslim."
