Hassan Malek lives in Heliopolis, an upper-class
neighborhood in Cairo full of high-end shopping malls, Italian
restaurants, modern apartment buildings, and ornate villas. Much of
Cairo is chaotic, crowded, and poor, and Heliopolis’s broad, manicured
avenues create an atmosphere of exclusivity and privilege. It was likely
jarring when, early one morning five years ago, policemen barricaded
Malek’s street, ransacked his home, and threw him in jail. This was what
the Mubarak regime did to men like Malek, who was not only a member of
the Muslim Brotherhood but also very rich.
“They allowed me to
reach a certain level, but there was a ceiling,” says Malek, 53, who as
the chairman of the Malek Group runs the Egyptian branches of a Turkish
furniture company, Istikbal, and a clothing brand called Sarar.
Mild-mannered and serious in conservative suits, Malek would easily
blend in with the Wall Street crowd.
He calmly recalls how a state security official once told him, “You
always come close to the red line.” Malek recounts: “And I said, ‘Okay,
what is it so I don’t come near it?’ And he said, ‘That’s why we bring
you to prison. To know it.’ ” “But what the country needs now is
to look ahead,” he says on a Sunday evening in March. “We don’t want to
settle scores. We bear the responsibility now.”Malek is sitting
in the same Heliopolis apartment that had once been destroyed by the
police. On one wall hangs a large, brown stretch of leather engraved
with the 99 names of Allah; the rest of the furnishings are modest, most
of them Istikbal, the brand he sells. As Malek talks, his 26-year-old
son passes out chocolates; his 16-year-old daughter displays a drawing
she’s done of a woman with long hair; Malek’s wife laughs about the
family’s two vacations since her husband’s release. Another son plays
peek-a-boo with Malek’s tiny granddaughter, who runs around squealing.
The
Maleks are all the same: humble, idealistic, and self-possessed. With
their polished looks and dutiful pledges to rebuild Egypt, the family
gives off an earnest, “ask not what your country can do for you” vibe,
as if dispatched from a less cynical era. They are part of a generation
of religious conservatives ascendant in the Muslim world, whose devotion
to God invigorates their determination to succeed in business and
politics. As Malek says, “I have nothing else in my life but work and
family.” These Islamists pose a formidable challenge to secular
governance in countries such as Egypt—not only because of their
conservatism but because of their work ethic, single-minded focus, and
apparent abstention from sloth and sin. They’re up for winning any
contest.
One year since the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak’s
government, Egypt’s former pariahs have become the country’s newest
elite. Last fall the Muslim Brotherhood won 50 percent of the seats in
the parliamentary elections. A few weeks ago the Brothers’ political
arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), nominated Khairat el-Shater,
the former deputy supreme guide of the Brotherhood and its de facto
leader, as the party’s presidential candidate. Malek and el-Shater are
business partners who spent more than four years in jail together until
their release after the revolution. On April 17, Egypt’s electoral
commission permanently disqualified el-Shater and nine other prospective
candidates from the race, declaring el-Shater ineligible because of a
prior criminal conviction. El-Shater says he will back the candidacy of
Mohamed Mursi, FJP’s chairman.
Regardless of the election
wranglings, men like el-Shater and Malek, both millionaires, are likely
to form the leadership core of the Muslim Brotherhood—acting, in the
words of Kent State University political scientist Joshua Stacher, as
the organization’s “neoliberal face.” These Brothers of the 1 Percent
believe they can empower a new class of businessmen—those Egyptians who
didn’t have clout during the Mubarak era—while also improving the lives
of poor Egyptians and attracting investment from abroad. Their model
resembles that of Turkey, where a religious middle class, encouraged by
the country’s Islamic government, has driven a spectacular economic
boom. But talking the language of growth is one thing; making it real in
a country whose economy is as ravaged as Egypt’s is another. As Ihab
el-Fouly, a businessman who isn’t a member of the Brotherhood but works
with Malek on economic issues, says: “This is make-it-or-break-it time
for Islamists.”
Resource : http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-19/the-economic-vision-of-egypts-muslim-brotherhood-millionaires
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