Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World:
Naser Khader, member of the Danish Parliament and leader of a moderate Muslim group called Democratic Muslims, has written an article for a Hudson Institute publication in which he take up the Muslim Brotherhood in Denmark. He begins by commenting on the impact of the influx of Muslim Brotherhood members from their home countries to Europe:
It is important that democratic Muslims organize all over the world,because the Brotherhood is good at organizing all over the world, including in Denmark. I do, however, think that the Muslim Brotherhood may be relatively stronger in Western Europe than in Muslim countries.In a recent meeting with the Moroccan ambassador to Denmark,I asked her why so many Moroccans were involved in terror actions in the West—bombings in Madrid, Spain; in the killing of Theo van Gogh in Holland; and through such instigators as Said Monsour, a Moroccan who was sentenced in Denmark for influencing young people to commit terrorist acts. (In fact, three times in the last three years, Denmark has sentenced young people who were influenced by Said Mansour and others like him.) She responded: “We haven’t any more left from the Brotherhood in Morocco. We captured some of them and put them in the prison. The rest fled to the West.” Until a few years ago very liberal immigration rules in Western Europe created a back door for the Brotherhood to organize themselves in Europe. Meanwhile, Western Europe has been hopelessly oblivious to the Brotherhood. It is only recently that we in Denmark suggested a bill allowing convicted terrorists with foreign background to be expelled from our country.
Khader then moves on to discuss the role of the Danish Muslim Brotherhood on the cartoon crisis there:
Given all of these issues, what characterizes the Brotherhood in Denmark and the Scandinavian countries? They are troublemakers, but some more so than others. It is interesting to note that during the cartoon crisis in Denmark only 10 imams out of 120 in the entire country were active during the crisis. These activists included people like Ahmed Abu Laban, who is very well-connected with the Brotherhood in Egypt; Mohammad Fouad Barazi, highly-connected with the Brotherhood in Syria; and Abu Bashir, who is well-connected with the Brotherhood in Lebanon. Raed Hlayhel,who has now returned to Lebanon,has been promoted by the Brotherhood there because of his role in the cartoon crisis. What very few know is that the imams who went to the Middle East to show the cartoons also went there to collect money for their schools and mosques from donors in the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood’s aim in Denmark, as it is everywhere else,is to monopolize Islam, to gain the monopoly on teaching materials and books, to build the most schools and mosques, and, all in all,to become as strong and influential as possible.
Khader then moves on to describe an invitation by the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark to several Muslim Brotherhood members including a known Holocaust denier:
Sadly, the Brotherhood in the West is being helped by some “useful idiots.” We have a few of those in Denmark. A useful idiot in this case is someone who, with the best but totally misunderstood intentions, gives legitimacy to the Brotherhood by consulting with them, inviting them to important meetings and events, and treating them as if they represent all the Muslims in Denmark, which they do not. Yet until the cartoon crisis, the Danish government utilized the Brotherhood’s imams as advisors on integration. But it’s not only the Danish government that serves as useful idiots. Recently, I was sad to learn that the United States Ambassador to Denmark, James P. Cain, joined the corps of useful idiots in Denmark. He invited several Danish members of the Muslim Brotherhood to his Ambassador’s residence. One of the invitees, Safia Aoude,is a well-known Holocaust-denier who is known to be connected with the Brotherhood. She was excluded from the Conservative People’s Party in Denmark for those very reasons. Cain also invited Mohamed al-Barazi, one of the most active imams during the cartoon crisis who falsely claimed on the Arabic television network Al Jazeera that the Danish threatened to burn the Quran, which led to even more riots in the Middle East. Al-Barazi thus had his cake and ate it, too: he gained legitimacy by having been invited to the residence of the U.S. Ambassador, while simultaneously inciting further violence in the Middle East.
Khader’s final comment speaks to a reframing of the nature of the conflict between civilizations:
It is important to note that the biggest clash of civilizations isn’t between Islam and the West; it is between democratic-oriented Muslims and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a battle about conquering Muslim souls, and it is fought with harsh means by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s main enemy is not the Jews or the Christians, but Muslims who want democracy, modernity, and reformation. That is where the real battle is, and the Brotherhood will win if the rest of the society keeps suffering amnesia attacks. The greatest challenge for democratic Muslims in Denmark—and all over the world—is to cure the amnesia by constantly taking a stand in the debate, by constantly letting their voices be heard. If they don’t, the only thing we will hear in the future is the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood. And the useful idiots will be applauding.