The Muslim Brotherhood in a Post-Mubarak Egypt

"The Muslim Brotherhood (known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) is Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist organization. Founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, it is widely considered the world's most influential Islamist organization, with numerous branches and affiliates". -Jayshree Bajoria, Senior Staff Writer for The Council of Foreign Relations


Now that Mubarak is out of power, what does the future hold for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?  How will this affect Egypt's relationship with the United States and Europe?  Now that democratic elections are underway in Egypt, how will the relatively moderate Muslim Organization fair?

Below is a video of Ed Husain, senior fellow at The Council on Foreign Relations, discussing the Muslim Brotherhood's role in the "new Egypt".

Here is a link to The Council on Foreign Relations' website providing a comprehensive overview of the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition here is an informative piece on the Brotherhood's role in the revolution from PBS Frontline

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Dr Zahi Hawass

Dr. Zahi Hawass is the current Secretary General of The Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.  He stepped down from this position because of his close ties to the Mubarak regime; however, he returned to the position less than a month later.

As a larger than life personality, he is never far from controversy.

Here he is in 2009 discussing his role in managing the tourist crowds, his relationship to the pyramids, and copy-righting the pyramids.



In 2007 he appeared on Al Jazeera to discuss Egypt's policy on stolen artifacts.


More recently, he was interviewed by CNN on the telephone describing what was looted and destroyed in the Cairo Museum during the protests.


As it turns out, Dr. Hawass now admits that looting and thievery is more widespread and more of a serious problem than he originally stated.

Dr. Hawass has posted on his blog a list of sites and antiquities that are in danger of being damaged.

Mark Lynch Interview on NPR

Fresh Air with Terry Gross at NPR.org has an interesting interview with George Washington University political scientist Marc Lynch online.

The topic, Why Libya matters to the future of the Middle East's future, focuses on recent events in Libya, but he also sheds light on the upheavals in North Africa and Egypt. Fascinating stuff!

Here is an excerpt:

Gross: Now in Egypt everybody was calling it like the Twitter/Facebook revolution. How has the role of Al-Jazeera been changing in terms of its importance in covering these revolutions and uprisings?

Prof. Mark LYNCH: I think you have to look at them altogether because what's happened is that the overall information environment has completely changed. So you have the social media, Facebook, Twitter, all the new media, and those have been really important for building connections among activists, for allowing the uploading onto YouTube, of user-generated videos and all that sort of thing.

Al-Jazeera itself very enthusiastically and aggressively moved into the new media space. And so when they were unable to cover events from the ground in Tunisia or Iraq or, you know, all kinds of places where they were banned by authoritarian regimes, they were able to discover people they could interview, they could find videos and all kinds of content that they could use and bring online.

Listen to the entire interview here or read the transcript here.