The
Emergence of a “Coptic Question” in Egypt
Issandr El
Amrani
April 28,
2006
(Issandr El
Amrani is a freelance journalist based in Cairo.)
For background on “the Coptic question,” see Vickie
Langohr, “Frosty
Reception for US Religious Freedom Commission in Egypt,”
Middle East Report Online, March 29, 2001.
For background on Egypt’s tumultuous 2005, see Issandr
El Amrani, “Controlled Reform
in Egypt: Neither Reformist nor Controlled,” Middle
East Report Online, December 15, 2005.
Also see Mona El-Ghobashy, “Egypt’s
Paradoxical Elections,” in Middle East Report 238
(Spring 2006). |
In the early
morning of April 14, 2006, Mahmoud Salah al-Din Abd al-Raziq, a
Muslim, entered the church of Mar Girgis (Saint George) in
Alexandria’s al-Hadra district and stabbed three parishioners who
had gathered for a service. Abd al-Raziq then proceeded to attack
worshippers at two other churches, according to police accounts,
before being arrested en route to a fourth. Nushi Atta Girgis, 78,
died from his stab wounds, while several others were injured, some
severely.
These
regrettable events in Egypt’s second city were worrisome enough, but
concerns were greatly amplified by the controversy sparked by the
stabbings. On April 15, during the funeral procession for Girgis,
clashes broke out between Muslims and Christians, prompting police
to disperse the crowds by firing live ammunition into the air and
using tear gas. One Muslim died, more than 40 people of both faiths
were wounded and dozens more were arrested. The following day,
street fighting erupted once again after Christians marched down one
of Alexandria’s main thoroughfares bearing crosses and shouting
Christian slogans such as, “With our blood, with our souls, we
sacrifice ourselves for you, O Messiah.” The protest angered local
Muslims, who apparently felt that the slogans insulted Islam. Many
area stores were damaged in the commotion, and still more dozens of
Alexandrians were wounded in battles with riot police.
Combined, the
three days of violence lifted a taboo on public debate over the
state of relations between Muslims and minority Coptic Christians in
Egypt. Though sectarian clashes and acts of hostility toward Copts
have occurred many times before, the government’s officials and
media have previously brushed them off by repeating ad
nauseam that these incidents were exceptions to a rule of
“national unity” (wahda wataniyya) and inter-communal
brotherhood. Cracks had already begun to appear in the consensus
over “national unity” before the Alexandria events, not only because
sectarian violence has become frequent, but also because of the
uncertainty about Egypt’s political future that emerged over the
course of 2005. Indeed, the events of that year -- notable for
unprecedented public dissent from the regime of President Husni
Mubarak, widespread recognition of the need for political reform,
the strong showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in parliamentary
elections and mounting regional unrest -- partly overshadowed the
increasing willingness of Copts to voice their social and political
concerns. For those who are part of the country’s political class,
this has meant raising issues of political representation and
equality under the law. In Upper Egypt, amidst proliferating clashes
over the construction of churches, the complaints target the (mostly
Muslim) local police, who take sides in disputes that often have as
much to do with traditional kinship feuds as they do with religion.
More generally, the ambient political uncertainty has forced Copts
and members of Egypt’s smaller Christian sects to consider their
future in a society where religion is becoming a social and
political marker.
A WATERSHED
YEAR
2005 began with
an odd scandal. Wafa Konstantin, the wife of a disabled Coptic
priest, took refuge in a police station in mid-December 2004 and
announced that she had converted to Islam. She demanded to be
protected from her co-religionists, who sought to convince her to
return to her husband’s side. Though it is difficult to know what
might have motivated her, the combination of an unhappy marriage and
the church’s ban on divorce (which is all the more stringent for
priests) is perhaps the most plausible explanation. In any case, the
affair incensed Copts, who took to the streets in Cairo and the
Delta to protest what they perceived as the state’s meddling in
church affairs. Within a few weeks, Pope Shenouda III himself went
into retreat and threatened to stay there until the matter was
resolved, even if it meant skipping mass on the January 7 Coptic
Christmas. Eventually, the security services came to an
accommodation with the church: Shenouda would come out of his
retreat and Konstantin’s conversion to Islam would be considered
null and void (under Egyptian law, conversion from Islam is illegal,
but not the reverse). Konstantin has since been sequestered in the
monastery of Wadi Natroun and has not been heard from, to the alarm
of human rights activists who believe she is being held against her
will.
While the
Konstantin affair had been resolved, as far as the church and the
state were concerned, it set the tone for Muslim-Coptic relations
for the rest of the year. The media reported new “conversion
scandals” with regularity, with many cases prompting sectarian
clashes, though the “conversions” were most often fabricated or
highly exaggerated. Copts accused Muslims of seducing or kidnapping
young women -- even raping them -- turning real or imagined love
affairs into excuses for violence. Muslims reacted in similar
fashion, with the end result often being the brutal interference of
security services to restore order.
Public
sensitivity over the topic of religious conversion culminated in
October 2005 with a media campaign against the Coptic Church that
eventually set off riots in Alexandria. The focus of the controversy
was a video recording of a Coptic play, I Was Blind, But Now I
Can See, which features a young Copt who is persuaded by Muslim
fundamentalists to convert to Islam. Once he converts, however, he
sees the moral error of their ways and returns to the church. The
play had been performed once before being banned by the church, but
DVDs of the performance resurfaced in the midst of parliamentary
elections in a district of Alexandria where a Copt had beaten out
several Muslims to become the official candidate of the ruling
National Democratic Party (NDP). Tabloid newspapers brought
attention to the sudden appearance of the recordings in the
neighborhood and challenged the church to issue an apology. Pope
Shenouda refused to do so. On October 21, after Friday prayers,
about 5,000 Muslim protesters descended on the church that had been
accused of distributing the DVD. Three people died, 150 were wounded
and 105 were arrested in the resulting melée, possibly leaving
grudges that contributed to the April violence. The authorities
promised an investigation -- particularly into allegations that
local security officers and politicians had fanned the flames -- but
it has yet to be completed.
At the time,
human rights activist Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights, an NGO focusing on the right to
privacy that has documented abuses of minorities, zeroed in on the
role of the security services. “Bizarrely,” Bahgat wrote in an op-ed
that appeared in the October 26 edition of al-Dustur, “they
seem convinced that the best way to prevent sectarian clashes is to
forcibly prevent people from converting to the religion of their
choice. As a result, an increasing number of Christians who have
gone to State Security with certificates of conversion from al-Azhar
to register their new status have been denied official recognition
as Muslims. Mature, intelligent adults are instead forcibly returned
to their families or the Church.”
It is not only
cases involving Copts that have attracted State Security’s notice:
Egyptian rights activists have noted similar treatment of other
minorities, such as Baha’is and Shiites (both of which communities
have faced police persecution), as well as Muslims with an
unorthodox interpretation of Islam. For the state, however, cases
involving Copts seem to be particularly important, because they will
bring the greatest external attention and pressure. Muslims complain
that State Security always intervenes on the side of the church, as
in the Konstantin case, and worry that the “Coptic question” could
become a pretext for outside interference in Egyptian affairs. One
corollary of this concern is that Muslims are often reluctant to
concede to Coptic demands despite the reality of institutionalized
discrimination against Christians -- a phenomenon that is both
created by and symptomatic of a larger problem of pervasive nepotism
and the importance of wasta (connections) in Egypt’s public
and private sectors. Copts, on the other hand, do not trust the
police and the security services, in which they are
under-represented -- as they are in the armed forces and much of the
civil service -- and which have an interest in minimizing the
importance of sectarian tension.
For instance,
Copts who were present at the churches attacked in Alexandria
quickly poked holes in the version of events presented by the
Interior Ministry and state media, which had Abd al-Raziq --
described as “mentally ill” and diagnosed with schizophrenia --
following his grim itinerary unaided, using public transportation in
Alexandria’s dense traffic to reach churches miles apart within a
span of two hours. Angry Copts protested what they saw as a
cover-up, casting doubt on the security services’ assertion that the
attacks had been the work of a lone madman. Although the main state
newspapers ran with the official story, the independent press and
even one newer state-owned daily, Rose al-Youssef, were quick
to denounce this version of events. In Sawt al-Umma, a feisty
populist tabloid, editor Wa’il al-Ibrashi wrote that “a decaying
regime is mocking Egyptians by telling them that a mentally ill
person was behind these attacks,” explaining that the distance
between the churches made the official scenario impossible. He ended
his column facetiously warning against “the most powerful
organization in Egypt -- that of the mentally ill.” Coptic media
personalities, including on state television, also cast aspersions
on the Interior Ministry’s story.
COPTS AND
POLITICS
If the
conversion controversy was one major issue in 2005, the other was
politics -- and the diminishing role of Copts therein. At the end of
a year heralded by the regime as introducing a new era of reform,
parliamentary elections returned fewer Coptic MPs than ever before.
One victim of this trend was the Wafdist politician Munir Fakhri Abd
al-Nur, the respected scion of one of Egypt’s leading Coptic
political families, who lost his seat to a ruling party candidate
who started a whispering campaign against him to rally Muslim
voters. The NDP, despite its pretensions to being a party of
national unity, presented only two Copts on its list of 444
candidates, and only one of them won a seat. Asked why so few of its
candidates were Copts, a spokesman for the party added insult to
injury by explaining that Coptic candidates were “less electable”
than Muslim ones and that the NDP was focused on winning as many
seats as possible.
“Copts received
a slap in the face from the NDP,” fumes Yusuf Sidhum, a
secular-minded Copt who edits Watani, Egypt’s only mainstream
Coptic newspaper that is not an official church publication. Sidhum
is worried by the way the regime presents itself as the protector of
Copts. He was particularly disturbed by Pope Shenouda’s endorsement
of Mubarak in the September 2005 presidential election, the first in
Egypt’s history to feature multiple candidates. “The pope’s position
damaged the image of Christians among Muslims, especially liberal
Muslims,” he explains, noting that Shenouda exaggerated the
president’s lackluster record on Coptic rights. Among Muslims,
particularly the politically engaged, the pope’s statement seemed to
confirm a Coptic preference for the status quo at a time of
unprecedented calls for political change. For liberal Copts, many of
whom publicly disagreed with the pope, the church should not have
spoken in the name of Copts on non-spiritual matters. There were
even rebellions among the clergy: one priest was temporarily
suspended from presiding over mass in his parish because he was an
active member of the anti-Mubarak movement, Kifaya.
The Coptic
absence from the political stage was underlined, most importantly,
by the success of the Muslim Brotherhood at the polls in December.
Not only did the Brotherhood’s gains alarm many Copts -- the
distinguished Coptic intellectual Milad Hanna wrote that he would
leave the country if the Brotherhood were ever to come to power --
but a militantly Islamist organization was now a powerful
ideological force with legitimate political representation despite
its officially banned status. Coptic reaction to the Brotherhood’s
control of a fifth of Parliament became the media’s topic of choice
for weeks after the election, impelling the Brotherhood to launch a
campaign framing its positions as moderate. In early 2006, the
Brotherhood promised to present a new position paper on Copts.
Liberal-minded Brothers such as Abd al-Mun`im Abu al-Futouh
explained that the organization’s vision rests on the concept of
citizenship and equal rights for all, stressing that it wants to
restore the caliphate in the spiritual realm, and not the political
one. The Brotherhood has also endorsed the right of Copts to build
new churches without presidential permission, hardly surprising
since it faces its own problems in building new mosques. Yet the
Brotherhood has thus far been unable -- or unwilling -- to speak
clearly on specific Coptic demands, such as the right of all
citizens to run for the presidency, equal access to the state media,
the inclusion of Coptic history in educational curricula, and, most
controversially, the removal of Article 2 of the constitution, which
enshrines Islam as “the religion of the state” and “the principles
of Islamic law” as “the main source of
legislation.”
It is also
unclear if the Muslim Brotherhood’s more liberal voices, who tend
have a higher profile, are really representative of the group. Just
days before the events in Alexandria, Rose al-Youssef, a
state-owned daily that seems to specialize in attacks on Islamists,
published an interview with the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mahdi
Akif, quoting him as saying “Tuz fi Misr” (“Screw Egypt”).
Akif’s point was that the Egyptian nation-state paled in importance
next to the idea of a multi-national Islamic caliphate, precisely
the type of statement that Copts believe can only lead to the
reinstatement of the dhimmi status abrogated by Said Pasha in
1856. It also brought to mind statements by former Supreme Guides
suggesting that Copts could not be trusted to serve in the army and
should have to pay the jizya, the head tax paid by
non-Muslims in Egypt from the Muslim conquests until
1855.
“It’s a fact
that we are marginalized,” says Abd al-Nur, the Wafdist politician
who lost his parliamentary seat in December. “We have to try to
understand why it is that way. Copts are less and less active not
only on the political scene, but they have also retracted from a lot
of public activities.” Sidhum, the editor, is more direct:
“Christians are withdrawing into churches and mixing less with
Muslims.” Both men blame what they call the “Wahhabization” of Egypt
for having shunted Copts aside in society as a whole, as well as in
politics. Not surprisingly, the rise of conservative Islam has also
led to a radicalization of Copts, particularly among émigré groups
that have grown rapidly in influence in Egypt and abroad.
FOREIGN
CONSPIRACIES
Egyptian media
reaction to the Alexandria clashes bespoke a widespread fear of
foreign, mainly US, manipulation of sectarian tensions to “divide”
Egypt against itself. The opposition newspaper al-Ahrar, for
instance, objected to the State Department’s condemnation of “these
vicious attacks that seem timed to coincide with observance of the
Palm Sunday weekend [which Copts observe a week later than in the
West],” calling it “throwing oil on the fire.” Abbas Tarabili,
editor of the popular opposition daily al-Wafd, wrote: “Egypt
is the victim of a plot that will destroy the nation unless Muslims
and Copts close ranks. Muslims and Copts have been always neighbors
sharing in each others’ festivals. What has become of us? We admit
that what is going on is painful, but we must realize that we are
being targeted as part of a plan to redraw the map of the Middle
East by fomenting sectarian strife. Only through honest dialogue can
we resolve the outstanding issues between Muslims and Copts, no
matter how sensitive, in order to thwart attempts to divide the
nation.”
Meanwhile,
Galal Duwaydar, a prominent columnist for the state-owned daily
al-Akhbar (Egypt’s second biggest-selling newspaper) attacked
Arab satellite stations such as al-Jazeera for showing graphic
footage of the clashes (which were largely invisible on state
television). “Sensationalism breeds panic and is unacceptable in
view of the service that should be offered by the media,” he wrote.
“Certain Arab satellite stations let loose their sick imaginations
by describing the attacks as symptoms of sectarian strife…. Such
fabrication is harmful to Egyptians, but we know that these stations
wish to whip up public sentiment by implying that Egyptian society
is unstable. In fact, the aim is to foment sectarian differences in
favor of the nation’s enemies.” It was as if some commentators were
more concerned about the portrayal of the events than the events
themselves. At their worst, they insinuated that Copts were fifth
columnists for bringing attention to their condition.
This paranoia
is not new. For nearly a year, both state and independent media have
been fulminating about a plot against “national unity” in the form
of the first-ever conference on the Coptic question in the US,
planned for mid-2005 and finally held in Washington on November
16-18. The conference, organized in part by associations of Coptic
émigrés, was to be focused on the theme that “democracy in Egypt
should benefit Christians as much as Islamists.” Its immediate
context was the rise of Islamists in politics during the
parliamentary elections, but it was also a testimony to the rising
profile of US-based Coptic groups, which have found willing support
in American neo-conservative and evangelical Christian circles.
Publicity for the event was handled by Benador Associates, a firm
known for its roster of neo-conservative clients. Representatives of
other Middle Eastern minorities, such as Chaldean Christians from
Iraq and Maronite Christians from Lebanon, were also present at the
conference, as was Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the (Muslim)
Egyptian-American sociologist and activist who has arguably become
the best-known critic of the Mubarak regime in the US. Ibrahim had
run afoul of the regime in 1994 when he tried to include discussion
of the Copts in a conference on Arab minorities; the conference
relocated to Cyprus. His Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies
is one the rare Egyptian civil society institutions that has raised
the Coptic question, trying to engage with moderate Islamists and
Muslim thinkers like Gamal al-Banna, the youngest brother of the
founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The main force
behind the conference was the US Copts Association, whose president,
Michael Mounir, is the public face of Copts in Washington. Shortly
after the conference, Mounir made a trip to Cairo that received much
attention. Officially, he was visiting his family. But, according to
a source in the Coptic community, Mounir actually came for
discussions with high-level officials, including the director of
general intelligence, Omar Suleiman, and Mubarak, who wanted the
meetings kept secret. Mubarak told Mounir the state would consent to
some Coptic demands. In exchange, he wanted Mounir to help the
regime improve its relations with the Bush administration. It was,
the source said, “an offer to work together rather than against one
another.”
Soon after the
trip, in late December 2005, Mubarak announced that regulations on
church repairs -- which previously had to be approved by the Office
of the President -- would be devolved to the governorate level, with
governors having to respond to demands within three months or have
them considered approved. A few weeks later, he appointed the first
Coptic governor in decades, in the Upper Egyptian province of Qina.
The changes fell way short of Coptic demands for abrogation of the
Ottoman-era Humayuni decrees, which put church repair and
construction under the authority of the head of state, but more
progress may be on the way: two drafts of a unified bill on places
of worship are being considered in Parliament. Given the regime’s
lack of transparency, it is difficult to tell what motivated these
changes, but it is also hard to believe that the increased militancy
of Copts, the links émigrés have forged in Washington and the
mounting internal and external pressure on Mubarak had nothing to do
with them.
ANOTHER MEDIA
TABOO BROKEN
In the past two
years, with the appearance of independent dailies and the
radicalization of partisan publications, Egypt’s media scene has
changed considerably. Topics that were previously taboo are now out
in the open: the president’s health and finances, corruption among
high-level government officials, and other issues once considered
beyond a “red line” are regularly broached. Although there had
already been increasing comment on Coptic issues, particularly in
reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success, the response
to the Alexandria clashes was to shatter the myth of “national
unity.”
For years, the
Egyptian media had covered incidents of sectarian strife by
reasserting the principle of “national unity” -- which dates from
the anti-British nationalist movement of 1919 that united “cross and
crescent” -- and explaining away violence as the work of isolated
individuals, extremists or madmen. Most of the media, state-owned,
opposition or independent, rarely gave room to Coptic claims of
discrimination. Now, while political leaders still speak of
“national unity,” editorialists and other personalities are
increasingly willing to speak of a problem in sectarian relations,
the legitimacy of at least some Coptic demands, and the links
between sectarian tensions and Egypt’s current economic and
political malaise.
“What happened
in Alexandria and in the weeks before indicates that anger and a
sense of injustice result from the lack of respect for the rights of
citizenship,” wrote Salama Ahmad Salama, one of Egypt’s most
respected columnists, in the leading state-owned daily al-Ahram.
“In the scenes relayed by the satellite channels of the funeral
of the Christian victim, the gangs of thugs holding sticks and
swords were obvious. These scenes evoke the parliamentary elections,
and their recurrence in Alexandria implies that such gangs are not
led by religious motivations, but by a herd instinct where
frustration and anger find expression by being directed at another
group.” Like many other commentators, Salama blamed the Alexandria
violence on a general breakdown of social relations fueled by
unemployment and political frustration.
As the storm
over the violence continues, the redefinition of the Coptic question
as a part of political reform, rather than an issue of national
security, could engender a debate that moves beyond tired slogans.
“No one wants to use ‘national unity’ anymore because it was used
for years by the government to deny that there was a problem,”
explains Hossam Bahgat. “They can’t use ‘secularism’ because it’s a
dirty word. So they use ‘citizenship,’ but that means different
things to different people.”
A debate on
citizenship has already started, not only in Parliament where a
commission has been formed to investigate the attacks and their
cause, but, more importantly, in the media and among politicians of
all stripes who link sectarian tensions to the political upheaval
gripping the country. The issues at stake include the ongoing
struggle for greater judicial independence, the abolition of
emergency laws, the reduction of the presidency’s powers and what
role Islamists should be allowed to have in the political arena.
Reaching a national consensus on these questions -- and restoring
the ethos of citizenship eroded by the police state -- is one
precondition for answering the Coptic question.
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