In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is a controversial group that is officially declared an illegal political organisation, whose members get often arrested and detained. The Brotherhood has members allover the Arab world and is closely linked to the Palestinian Hamas movement that is widely seen as a terrorist group.
The decision to create the new “IkhwanFacebook” is part of the Brotherhood’s zealous endeavor to have a presence and wide outreach in the digital world. The “IkhwanFacebook” is yet another addition to a whole set of Brotherhood websites that include an “IkhwanWiki”, “IkhwanWeb”, and “IkhwanGoogle”. The latter is a search engine specialized in searching Muslim Brotherhood’s websites, forums and blogs.
Isolation or Integration?
The Brotherhood’s plan to create a parallel to Facebook has been debated and critized internally. “When I think today that I am calling people who are frequenting the internet to real Islam, I’ll also study where they are, what are the places they go to. I will not establish a site or a place for myself and say “OK, here I am. Whoever wants to find my ideas they can come to my place”. I find where those people are and I go to them,” said Mosab Ragab, a Brotherhood member in an interview with the Dubai based The National newspaper.
Mosab Ragab’s objections to the new Brotherhood online tool were reflected in a discussion in the “IkhwanFacebook” website about the involvement in the activities in this new network: Will the alternative facebook consume the Brotherhood members’ and take away their presence from the original Facebook with its 400 million users? And consequently, lessen instead of strengthen the Brotherhood’s chances to reach new publics.
“The label of “Ikhwan” will certainly make this site away from the mainstream users, if I was not a Brotherhood member, I would have never joined in,” objected one voice in the discussion. Others were more optimists, noting that it is too early to make any kind of evaluation of the actual impact and outreach of this Facebook parallel friendship network.