The Islamic political party known as the Muslim Brotherhood has soured American attitudes towards Egypt, arguably America’s most important Arab ally, since its candidate Mohamed Morsi won presidential elections there in June 2012.
That’s according to a poll released Friday (April 12) by the Arab American Institute in Washington D.C.
Morsi’s term has been dogged by charges that he opts for authoritarian measures such as martial law. Muslim-Christian clashes have also shadowed his term; there were clashes on April 5 in the town of Khosus that killed four Coptic Christians and one Muslim, and violence also marred the April 7 funeral for the Copts who were killed in that conflict.
According to the Institute’s poll of 2,300 likely voters, only 36 percent of Americans had favorable views of Egypt, down from 66 percent in 1997. At least some of the decline has been attributed to the Muslim Brotherhood, which won Egypt’s parliamentary elections in January 2012, and to Morsi himself, who won the presidency last June by a 52-48 percent margin.
The poll, which was conducted in March, also found a huge gap in Americans’ favorability ratings of the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslims themselves.
Americans had far more favorable views of Muslims than the Muslim Brotherhood. The survey found that 40 percent of Americans had favorable views of Muslims, while only four percent of Americans saw the election victories of the Muslim Brotherhood as a positive development.
Other key findings from the survey:
- More than half of Americans (53 percent) believe the Muslim Brotherhood is not committed to democracy while 15 percent said they were.
- Nearly one-third of Americans,(32 percent) said they would be less likely to visit an Egypt governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, compared to five percent who said they would be more likely to visit.
- Almost half of Americans (47 percent) said the U.S. should stop providing financial aid to Egypt while it is governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, while 22 percent the aid should continue.
“President Mohamed Morsi needs to acknowledge the deep and longstanding problem of sectarian violence in Egypt and take decisive steps to address it before it escalates further,” said Nadim Houry, deputy director for the North Africa and Middle East program at Human Rights Watch.
In a statement, Houry also called on the Egyptian government to reform laws that discriminate against Christians’ right to worship.
Egypt’s new constitution, which took effect in December 2012, explicitly recognizes the right of Christians to have their own places of worship. But the Morsi government has not erased an earlier law that requires Christians, and no other religious group, to obtain a presidential decree in order to build a new church.
8 Comments
sun
I think that we have to be patient. This was basically the first democtaric election in the history of Egypt, which has been ruled by this or that outsider for more than 2400 years. It is a success and an important step, even if a small one. Egypt will play a crucial role in the democratization of the area. Only those who do not want Egyptians’ & Middle Eastern peoples flourishing see these developments as recession and oppose it: US and Israel are good examples, for known reasons. We, outsiders, should support & respect & peacefully and constructively criticize their democratization process: we love Egypt (with all its ancient Christian&Muslim population!); it is the “mother of the world!”
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Deacon John M. Bresnahan
Part of the problem is that our government is doing little to stick up for persecuted Christians in Egypt or Iran or Saudi Arabia.
sun
Sir, you have a long and sexy name, but I think you are a bit ignorant about the issue. First, there is officially no Christian in S. Arabia: they have a narrow-minded gov’t that does not tolerate not only non-Muslims, but also Shi’is, Sufis, and other non-Salafis, i,e, people who do not fit into their official political ideology.
The issue in Egypt is political, and it will only worsen it if your (clearly American!) govt intervenes (as it happened in Iraq and still happens in Palestine). Respect and support the democratization in these lands. Stop playing the tyrant of the world; corroborate with Egyptians and other local peaceful democratic organizations who fight for human rights without discriminating Christian or Muslims. Progressive Egyptians and Iranians are unlike you: they do not distinguish people when they struggle for human rights. Fight via legal means together with progressive Egyptians and Iranians to establish stronger democracies. If you can’t do that, than at least stop war mongering and tyrannizing the world. Religious-mindedness + ignorance is dangerous: whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish.
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