Social Movements and Common Enemy Perception: Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS

Abstract

The social movement can be described as a collective and organized opposition to the power and the status quo. The Islamic movement, within the context of the social movements, is formed by groups who are united under the Islamic flag and work for establishing an Islamic state. Having a significant role in the opposition movements, lkhwan (Ikhvan-ul Muslims / Muslim Brotherhood) organization has an important history in these movements. After the Arab uprisings, while it fell into decline after coming into power in some countries, in others, it became an important factor for the opposition. The aim of this paper is to compare the two different structures living on the same ideological root, Syrian lkhwan with HAMAS, in terms of their aims, structure, attitude towards violence, political position and public support in the framework of Islamic movements. The key questions that are addressed in this paper are how different the practices of the organizations and the reasons underlying these differences are. In this study, first, from a historical point of view the two organizations are compared in terms of the transformations they have experienced as social movements, their political attitudes and positions are analyzed. Then, the changes and differences in the current political positions of these two organizations which are influenced both especially from the Arab uprisings are evaluated in terms of creating the perception of a common enemy.