The Muslim Brotherhood’s daydream of returning to power since its ousting in a popular revolution in June 2013 has left the group resorting to the most desperate stunts, even attempting to organise fictional “revolutions” that no one apart from its own delusional members believe in. 

The 11 November was set to be the day of one such “revolution” for the group, and members of it attempted to organise protests against the government of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi on Twitter and Facebook. One reason for choosing the date was the alluring sound of 11/11/22, reflecting the fact that the organisers of such bogus revolts care more about aesthetics than they do about any cause or message.

The calls took place over the past two months and mostly originated from either fake or anonymous Twitter accounts in Egypt that carried bizarre names or from the accounts of fugitive members of the Brotherhood in Europe or Qatar. The bottom line was that this terrorist group aimed to organise an event in Egypt that would coincide with the UN COP27 Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh in the hope that it would distract attention away from one of the biggest conferences in the world this decade. 

However, the COP27 Conference has been one of the most successful to date, with the presence at it of world leaders including US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, among dozens of others, being just one sign of its success. Much to the Brotherhood’s dismay, and in a similar way to what has happened in the past in the wake of the group’s previous calls for revolts on social media, its call was completely ignored by Egyptian citizens. There has been no single report of any march or protest taking place in Egypt on 11 November.

Preceding the Brotherhood’s calls for revolutions, recurrent since 2013, has been its campaign of misinformation and fabrication against the president and the government. Utilising photoshopped images and other means in its attempt to stir up anger, and playing on problems such as increasing inflation rates resulting from the war in Ukraine or the recent devaluation of the Egyptian pound, the group has done its best to spread false analyses and information. 

However, its orchestrated fabrication campaigns have been met with disdain and counter-campaigns by Egyptian citizens appalled at the obscenities used in such campaigns by the Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Even so, some Brotherhood elements seem to believe their own propaganda and actually believe that the population will answer their calls and organise protests against the government. They will have received a shock when they discovered that no one has paid the least attention to them. 

The mindset of the Muslim Brotherhood in recent years has displayed a major flaw in understanding the political spectrum in Egypt. The group’s administration still believes it has the power to mobilise the masses from the comfort of homes in London, Istanbul, or Doha. It still believes that the group has influence in Egyptian society. And while the damage that the group has done through the 94 years of its existence still exists in the form of many expressions of extremism, the actual political influence of the group is negligible. 

Such facts seem to be absent from the minds of Brotherhood leaders every time they try to organise one of their new “revolts.” The inevitable end result is a source of jokes and satire for most Egyptians, who make fun of the group’s delusions as its members shift their tone before the set date from encouraging people to revolt to insulting them after no one answers their calls for mayhem and destruction. 

It is becoming customary each year for the Brotherhood to choose a date or two for a revolt. Every year its attempts fail. Part of this can be explained by the group’s desperate attempts to look as if it still matters in Egyptian politics. Another reason is a faded show of force intended to send a message that the group’s leadership can still threaten the stability of the Egyptian state. Clearly, nothing could be further from the truth.

The group’s constant appeals for reconciliation with the Egyptian government through direct messages or third parties such as the Turkish regime are a testament of the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has had its wings definitively clipped in Egypt.  

President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has categorically refused to reconcile with the Muslim Brotherhood or any other affiliated terrorist organisation for the simple reason that any such desire for reconciliation on the group’s part is just a tactical move before it seizes the first opportunity to relinquish any reconciliation agreements with the government. The Muslim Brotherhood’s history of betrayals has been consistent since the days of King Farouk in the 1940s.

Most Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members who were involved in terrorist attacks in the country over the past decade are now either dead, incarcerated, or fugitives in foreign countries, as the Egyptian state has routed the group’s most dangerous elements thanks to the sacrifices of thousands of army and police personnel since 2013. 

The ailing Brotherhood leadership should not bother itself with trying to instigate a revolt in Egypt, because one will not happen. Instead, it should focus on its own state of affairs, since the group has been disintegrating since the deaths of its spiritual leader, Youssef Al-Qaradawi, in Doha last September and of its acting General Guide Ibrahim Munir in London last week. As a result, the group, with internal feuds now dominating it as never before, is feebler than it has ever been. 

Its current leaders in the UK and Turkey, such as Talaat Fahmi and Mohamed Al-Beheiri, have been accused of embezzlement. That has not prevented the Turkey-based branch from attempting to usurp the leadership despite the UK branch announcing a temporary acting General Guide in Mohieddin Al-Zayat.

In truth, calling for revolutions in Egypt seems to be a distraction for the group from its own internal feuds. It has reached epic levels of disorganisation and exchanges of threats that could lead to violence amidst group members in a similar fashion to what happened in the 1940s. The Muslim Brotherhood, which claimed at one time that it would rule Egypt and the region for 500 years, mimicking a similar claim by Nazi Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler, is slowly meeting the end prepared for other fascist groups worldwide.

* The writer is a political analyst and author of Egypt’s Arab Spring and the Winding Road to Democracy.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 17 November, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.