Walid Jumblatt endorses the Geneva plan from Moscow.( The Daily Star/Mohamed Azakir)
BEIRUT: Religious movements face the longstanding problem of achieving progress, rejecting plurality in both governance and society, MPWalid Jumblatt said Monday, urging Egyptians to exercise caution when dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Religious movements, due to their structure and beliefs, face great difficulties achieving progress and development particularly given that they are inspired by divine laws and on the conviction that they represent God on earth,” Jumblatt said in his weekly statement to Al-Anbaa newspaper.
He added that such movements resembled dictatorial regimes because both reject the opinions of others, diversity, pluralism and democracy.
“With the fast-paced events and political developments in Egypt, some of which have taken a dramatic turn due to bloodshed and the use of violence as means of expression, it is now necessary to reintroduce some controversial lines of thinking,” Jumblatt said.
“These concern issues that Europe and the West faced but which [both managed to resolve] even though at a high cost through the separation of state from religion and by implementing secularism which led to progress in the West as the Arab region continued to decline,” he added.
Jumblatt, the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, took the French Revolution as an example, saying the uprising in the European country, which was “violent and bloody,” took almost a century to bear fruit and introduce basic principles.
“But slowly Europe was able to move toward modernity, progress, and civilization,” he noted.
“But the Muslims of Spain, unfortunately, began to regress, dominated by unilateral intellectual movements that began issuing Jihadist fatwas,” Jumblatt said.
Therefore, Jumblatt said it was important to preserve the achievements of what he described as the second Egyptian revolution which rejected singular governance, warning Egyptians to be aware of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Be aware of falling into the trap that the Muslim Brotherhood has set, which entails more bloodshed because that earns [the party its] legitimacy and topples the ambitions of the people at Tahrir Square expressed through the Jabhat al-Inqaz and Tamarrod movements,” he said, urging the armed forces to exercise self-restraint.
Jumblatt also noted that elections are merely one step toward building a regime that respects other people.
“The Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of the vote process to exclude others and enforce their unilateral authority … Didn’t the Nazis and the Fascist take power via the ballot box but drove Europe and the world to destruction?” he asked.
He also took a jab at the Syrian government, saying the “Baathist regime” which was rejoicing the set-backs of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had itself seized power through militarily and “legitimized its presence by rigging the elections.”
