Yes, you can alter the meaning of the term taqiyya to suit your own definition. But then you're not exactly talking about taqiyya any more, are you?
Which has as much to do with the Islamic religious concept of taqiyya as eating crackers and sampling vintages during a wine tasting tour in Napa Valley has to do with the Christian religious concept of Communion.
Eating crackers and drinking wine has a clear link to communion but without the religious aspect, which is present in Egypt, your analogy fails. Whether you want to delve into a discussion of the granular meaning of taqiyya is neither here nor there, but when I see an Islamist being deceptive and concealing his Islamic intent when under oppression in order to further Islam I see a connection.
Egyptians aren't at all confused about Morsi's (or the Brotherhood's) intentions.
Who said they were? Clearly in the West there is deep confusion, in the media and also evidenced in the concerted pressure to remove the previous regime from power.
You
aren't looking very hard, then.
Even the CNN article I quote above points out that Morsi's current statements contradict his longstanding previous positions.
It's more than just contradiction. Even if Morsi had presented a watertight front so far anybody who believes the MB and their ilk could engage with democracy in any genuine manner whatsoever is out of their mind. Furthermore I'm not American so I'm referring to the media as in the BBC and Sky News. The BBC is renowned for being a lefty mouthpiece over here, so I'd imagine in the US it would be so far to the left that it doesn't even have an analogy. Ignorant fuzzy optimism all round; the newscaster's face often has a glowing beatific smile when Egypt is spoken of, as if all the bad is in the past and the people are now liberated and skipping through the streets in celebration of their freedom.
The Brotherhood, as I pointed out before, aren't in power. SCAF is in power (and, in fact, is even more in power now than it was before the election, having since dissolved parliament and reduced the powers of the presidency).
And how long will that last? Until there's threat of another uprising at the very latest. Morsi is nominally in power and that's just the beginning.
I predicted what is happening
way back in January of 2011 - Egypt, so far, appears to be getting just another variant of military rule. Darth Rotor thinks this won't last, in the long term, but we'll see, I guess.
I predict that in 10 years' time they'll look back on the pre-Morsi regime with fondness.
Could you show me someone who is saying that the Muslim Brotherhood are liberal democrats. That doesn't mean show me someone saying they are "moderates" as opposed to hardliners (that may be a justifiable tag when compared to the Salafists) but people who are actually saying the MB are liberal democrats. They have toned down their strident image, sure. Mind you, if they are lying to win office then I would suggest it isn't a case of taqqiya but a case of...er... democratic politics.
Who said liberal democrats? Conservatives aren't liberal democrats but still embrace democracy. I've not seen anybody at all appear on UK news channels to openly state Morsi is using democracy as a smokescreen to attain power. The best we get is a tentative question about the rights of women or non-Muslims, which when met with some platitude is followed with an apologetic smile and "OK then, so let's move on..."
Who is arguing that they are pro-liberal democracy? As far as I have heard they are portrayed as agreeing to go along with certain liberal-ish and democratic-ish ideas such as not forcing everyone into the hijab, not massacring the Copts etc... though that is setting the bar low, and most commentators don't seem to be saying this is out of principle but rather out of expedience given that the military essentially hold most of the power and aren't going to let the Muslim Brotherhood do whatever they want.
I don't watch much US news but it's equally clear you watch no UK news. Perhaps that's where the discrepancy arises.
If you think this is unusual and requires fancy exotic jargon to explain why a group of people are having to moderate their position a bit to please the powers that be then it isn't just Egyptian politics you know little about, I would suggest you don't know any kind of politics.
If you think that because politics involves deception then any manner of deception = politics then it's you who's ignorant.
There was actually a lot of debate going both ways. People were talking about the Muslim Brotherhood from the very beginning; you weren't some lone voice in the wilderness.
Good job I never said that. But the question I did ask is why did the majority of 'experts' not see what was blatantly clear to the observant layman? And I suppose I should include a significant number of Western governments in that too.
The only thing that did bother me were the somewhat delusional reassurances that people made about the Muslim Brotherhood being late to the protests. I thought that was completely irrelevant:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6829429&postcount=25
Anyway, I'll accept that my own prediction hasn't come true yet that Qaradawi would end up with some form of power. He has said that he doesn't want power, if I recall correctly, although if he does get put into some position I won't assume that is
taqqiya but rather standard politics, again.
Standard politics is not driven from pure theology. If you want to apply the Western model of politics to Islamic governance then all I can say is good luck.
Interestingly, Egypt's new government are now in a war of words with the UAE, where Qaradawi lives, and partly over Qaradawi's criticisms of the UAE.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2ec7b344-c528-11e1-b6fd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zbZgdv7b
The Muslim Brotherhood doesn't seem to be shy about how much power it claims to wield among Muslims across the Middle East:
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?id=28853
And that power is set to increase any time soon. What a disaster.
