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

Abstract

The social movement can be described as acollective and organized opposition to the powerand the status quo. The Islamic movement, withinthe context of the social movements, is formedby groups who are united under the Islamic flagand work for establishing an Islamic state. Havinga significant role in the opposition movements,Ikhwan (Ikhvan-ul Muslims / Muslim Brotherhood)organization has an important history in thesemovements. After the Arab uprisings, while itfell into decline after coming into power in somecountries, in others, it became an important factorfor the opposition. The aim of this paper is tocompare the two different structures living on thesame ideological root, Syrian Ikhwan with HAMAS,in terms of their aims, structure, attitude towardsviolence, political position and public supportin the framework of Islamic movements. The keyquestions that are addressed in this paper are howdifferent the practices of the organizations andthe reasons underlying these differences are. Inthis study, first, from a historical point of view thetwo organizations are compared in terms of thetransformations they have experienced as socialmovements, their political attitudes and positionsare analyzed. Then, the changes and differencesin the current political positions of these twoorganizations which are influenced both especiallyfrom the Arab uprisings are evaluated in terms ofcreating the perception of a common enemy.