Historic drama is seen as pre-vote propaganda against banned Muslim opposition force, writes Heba Salehin Cairo
TELEVISION DRAMA has become the latest weapon used by Egypt’s authorities in their confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned group that represents the largest opposition force in the country.
Independent candidates affiliated to the Brotherhood won 20 per cent of seats in parliament in the 2005 vote. The government has made clear that it intends to prevent a repeat of these gains.
Three months before the next parliamentary elections, Egyptian television has been running a nightly series called Al-Gama'a, or The Group, tracing the history of the Brotherhood as founded in 1928 by a young cleric, Sheikh Hassan al-Banna. He is depicted as a dour opportunist, prepared to use violence in his quest to establish an Islamist state.
“The timing of the series is deliberate,” said Essam El-Erian, a senior Brotherhood member. “They want to plant the idea that the Brotherhood is violent and that mixing religion with politics is a defect which should be abolished.”
The series shows al-Banna as a boy devising a game in which he divides his friends into two groups – the “army of believers” and the “infidels” – and then beats up those in the latter category.
The episodes, repeated several times a day on different channels, are being broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan, typically a peak viewing period.
The Brotherhood says that apart from the tendentious depiction, the series contains historical inaccuracies. Wahid Hamid, the script’s author, says however that he relied on memoirs and other writings by members of the group.
In the past, the Brotherhood did have a clandestine armed wing, but analysts say the programme overlooks the fact the group has not been implicated in violence for more than 50 years. Despite frequent crackdowns, the group has run candidates in most elections in the past 25 years.
Observers fault the response of some Brotherhood members who set up a Facebook group against the series called the “Brotherhood Deterrence Brigades”.
“You cannot react in this chauvinistic spirit to a work of drama,” said Hossam Tammam, an expert on the Brotherhood. “You can’t face a television series with ‘deterrence brigades’. This will only reinforce the fears of the social and intellectual elite.”
There is also a strong feeling the authorities may have scored an own goal by focusing attention on the Islamists.
Wahid Abdel Meguid, a political analyst, says the Brotherhood may benefit.
“Egyptian state television used to be banned from any reference to them, now they are on it every day. Maybe liberals or leftists will receive the negative message sent by the programme-makers, but a big portion of the public will get a positive message – that the group defends religion and cares for it.” – Copyright the Financial Times Limited 2010