What I meant is that the parent's response to the article is pat and static, meaning that it is a foregone conclusion applied to whatever information is presented about "Muslims" or "Arabs" or "the Middle East."
What I mean by "orientalist", specifically, is the theoretical school which developed in the UK and Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The literature produced on the Middle-East and Islam during this period is marked by racist undertones and typically served to support the interests of colonial powers attempting to subjugate the validity of local populations in order to extract resources. For a living, modern-day example of an orientalist, check out Bernard Lewis. For the celebrated discussion of orientalism read Edward Said's Orientalism.
The problem that I was attempting to point out, that I missed my mark on, is that the parent commenter either didn't read the article, or didn't understand what he was looking at. In the case of these kids in Egypt using Facebook for collective action organization, they are not doing this under the guise of the Muslim Brotherhood or any other Muslim group. They are not attempting to advance an "Islamic agenda." They are responding to systematic disenfranchisement on the part of their government, which is very much a reality. If you note in the article, the Brotherhood is mentioned, but in the context that they are not involved, and that there is dissent in the ranks: younger members are using the internet as a way of being harshly critical of organization leadership, viewing them as too extreme.
What this 6th April group found is that even though they could collectivize online, that collective action doesn't translate very well into the real world, where police are involved. The arrests and torture that followed demonstrate this well, but they also (mostly) knew that this would be the response of the Egyptian government.
As for the foundation of the Muslim brotherhood, their aim is not to promote "sharia law," unless you define what you mean by that. "Sharia" is a set of normative principles taken from the Qur'an and the Sunna (reported traditions of the Prophet), which are utilized in generating both legal jurisprudence and behavioral guidelines for Muslims. It is not a law code, no matter how the term has been bandied about by various media talking-heads. The Brotherhood, and many before and after them, attempted to establish a pseudo-modernist revival of an idealized Islamic system which never existed. "Islamic law" can mean a hundred different things. In the case of the Brotherhood, it meant a ultra-conservative retrograde legal system which was inapplicable in the 20th century. This agenda also grew from unrest caused by the systematic disenfranchisement of the local population in Egypt under British colonial authority.
The Brotherhood is still going strong in Egypt, but they have had to alter their agenda hugely in order to maintain any kind of existence, since the party is illegal in Egypt. What the organization that grew out of the Brotherhood does now is act to fill the gaps between what is provided by the government and what is withheld from civil society. In other words, they are using their considerable influence now to perform social services. The "militant" faction of the Brotherhood in Egypt is totally neutered. They have only bark left, no bite. This is not the case in other places, like with Hamas (which was a sister organization based on the same philosophy as the Brotherhood set up by Brotherhood members in Palestine), they perform social services as well, but their militant faction still holds a great deal of influence over the party.
The difference between the unrest that existed in Egypt during the early part of the last century and of the present is that the power that was seen as oppressive then was foreign, and their rhetoric was typically anti-Islamic, so it was easy to garner support for an "Islamic" movement. The Brotherhood was founded because the new leadership in Egypt was seen as being the same as the old leadership: puppets for foreign powers. Now, on the other hand, the government is quasi-Muslim with regard to application of law, even though this is technically a secular state. It is also the case that all of the top government officials are Muslim. So, the formula doesn't work anymore. These new movements, like the Facebook movement and the Kiffeya! movement of 2005-2006 in response to the last "open" presidential election are not based in religious sentiments, nor do they come from conservative groups. These movements are being generated in a growing middle class (which didn't exist until very recently) which is typically reasonably well educated. The Kiffeya! movement (meaning "Enough!") was made up of intellectuals and secularists. This new movement is made up of young people, students often, who believe that the government is actively working to widen the gap between the classes and keep people from questioning its authority by generating small problems (like a bread shortage) and then solving the problems (by having the army bake bread). These tactics are being called into question because more and more Egyptians are becoming well-educated and thinking critically. This has produced a still fledgling liberal, secular opposition here.
For more on this, look at a book called Civil Society Exposed by Maha Abdelrahman (Paperback, 2008, AUC Press). It is a discussion of the interaction between the government and NGOs in Egypt, which mostly serve to fill the gaps between what government services provide to people (practically nothing) and what is needed by people.
I hope that wasn't an overblown response, but you are right, my original response did lack nuance. So, hopefully I was able to explain my reaction to the parent commenter a bit more fully. Thanks.
