The Muslim Brotherhood of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has greeted a UN proposal designed to reduce violence against women with unabashed horror.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the power behind President Mohamed Morsi, usually makes its more incendiary statements in Arabic only. But such was the movement’s horror at a United Nationsproposal to reduce violence against women that it issued a statement in English today complaining that “the complete disintegration of society” would result if the UN adopts a set of recommendations from its Commission on the Status of Women.

While I haven’t read the document in question, judging from the Brothers’ response, the UN thinks it would be useful to raise the age of marriage, decriminalize homosexuality, make contraceptives more readily available, and give unmarried mothers the same rights as married ones. The Brothers are not pleased:

“The document includes articles that contradict established principles of Islam, undermine Islamic ethics and destroy the family, the basic building block of society, according to the Egyptian Constitution,” the movement wrote. “This declaration, if ratified, would lead to complete disintegration of society, and would certainly be the final step in the intellectual and cultural invasion of Muslim countries, eliminating the moral specificity that helps preserve cohesion of Islamic societies.”

A concern about cultural colonization is what spurred the foundation of the Muslim Brothers 80 years ago. Leading early Brotherhood member and influential thinker Sayyid Qutb (an earlier version of this article incorrectly called him a “founding member”), executed by the Nasser regime in the 1960s for his activism, spent time in the late 1940s in the US and was horrified by what he considered the country’s loose morals and materialism. A desire to preserve Egypt and Islam from what its leaders view as an external, hostile onslaught remains at the forefront of their agenda today.

They are terrified that the modern world is dragging Egyptians back to jahalliya, the age of ignorance before the coming of Islam, and made that clear in their complaint today. “These are destructive tools meant to undermine the family as an important institution,” they complained of the UN proposal. “They would subvert the entire society, and drag it to pre-Islamic ignorance.”

It’s hardly a surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood is opposed to equal rights for women in society. But the vehemence of today’s statement, directed at a UN committee document that will have no binding authority over any member state, let alone Egypt, is striking. At least there’s admirable clarity from the Brothers on where they stand. Some of their complaints are on specifically religious grounds, some related more to cultural attitudes toward women that require them to be subservient to men.

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Christian Science Monitor