What a bright idea to include in the ID card of Muslim converts to Christianity that they are “former Muslims . It’s exactly the same with street signs. Some signs would say Sisostris Street (formerly Al Nahawad), for instance.
So what is the difference between citizens of a great country like ours, and street signs?
In an age where backward democratic states do not demand to know their citizens’ faith; where slots identifying one’s religion have completely disappeared in those countries and any citizen can press charges and demand huge compensations against a governmental or non-governmental institution if it insists on knowing one’s faith, an Egyptian court comes up with this brilliant ruling not only demanding to know a citizen’s religion, but also mentioning his former religious affiliation.
If anything, this insistence on drawing attention in the national ID to the fact that certain citizens are re-converts from Islam to Christianity, proves the state’s utmost regard for its citizen, since at some point in their live they were actually Muslim.
Unquestionably this would protect them from maltreatment by civil servants whether in police stations, at the Notary Public or any other authority. If they believe that his Christian roots go back many generations, they would treat him worse than they would treat Muslims – delaying him for three hours not two and a half hours the way they would other citizens. But rest assured, at police stations, there is no discrimination between Muslim and Christian. In the face of destiny, they all stand equal.
Mentioning the Islamic faith on the national ID card of a Christian citizen purports a kind of equality in the treatment of all citizens. Indeed both are seen as Muslim, even though one is a former Muslim and the other is a current one – and we all know that the difference between the two is insignificant.
Hence the only ID card that has no mention of Islam whatsoever is the one carried by Christians who insist on simply being Christian – those who were not even former Muslims. These have no one to blame but themselves.
Such a court ruling proves unequivocally that the law is equally concerned about all its citizens, whether Muslim or former Muslim.
I therefore call on the government to implement this ruling to the letter and include the previous religious affiliation of every single Egyptian citizen which would, however, mean that all our identity cards will say “former Christian .
Perhaps the government needs to be reminded that before the advent of Islam, Egypt was completely Christian and the Holy Synod in Alexandria used to be the global center of the Christian faith before Catholicism moved it to the Vatican.
It was Egypt that gave refuge to Mary and her son Jesus for six whole years when they fled Palestine with Joseph the Carpenter to escape the Romans who wanted to slay the infant Christ. When they came to learn the tolerance of Islam, throngs of Egyptians embraced the new religion and most of those who had joined the army of Amr Ibn Al Aas during his campaign to Egypt then returned to the Arabian Peninsula.
In line with this ingenious court ruling which stipulates mentioning one’s former faith, I therefore demand that all our IDs – including those of leading Muslim Brotherhood figures, the Emirs and members of extremist Islamist groups who are now absent from the public arena, and all those women or perhaps men donning the niqab, for only God knows what lurks beneath these black tents, as well as the ID of the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar himself – must say “former Christian .
Surely those who discard the past have no future. Mohamed Salmawy is President of the Arab Writer’s Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
