Amr Nabil/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.In many parts of the Arab world, especially amongst the urban middle class, moderate Islamists have fallen out of favor.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt witnessed a spectacular fall from grace; moving from the presidency to prison cells. In Tunisia, El-Nahda was able to avoid a similar fate, prompted by events in Egypt and an increased polarization of the political system, by wisely choosing to give up power, losing the pre-eminent positon it had gained through fair and free elections.
This was followed by an attack on Islamism as an ideological construct by secular Arab middle classes equating Islamism with backwardness and in some cases equating moderate Islamists with radical groups in order to justify their repression. This was stark in the case of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood were declared a terrorist organization and blamed for all acts of violence perpetuated against the state after the coup of 2013.
