By Joseph Fahim
Last month, on my way back home from the airport, I found myself in the company of a young Coptic cab driver who had a thing or two to say about his feelings towards his Muslim neighbors.
“We try to avoid them by all means,” he told me. “We have our community and it is strong. They used to walk all over us back in the days, but now they can’t. They know they’re in for a tough fight if they dared to.”
He illustrated his claim with a nice little anecdote about a heated scuffle between his Coptic brothers-in -arms and the Muslim enemy that took place after a Copt raped a Muslim girl.
I was more appalled by the fact that there wasn’t a hint of shame or remorse in the driver’s tone than the actual story. “What happened to turning the other cheek, loving thy neighbor and forgiving your ‘enemy’?” I asked him. “So, you just want us to be attacked, humiliated and have our rights taken by force from us and just stay still?” he angrily replied. “Those days are over. The Muslims brought it on themselves.”
He then casually mentioned that he cheats on his wife with other Muslim girls in order to “take away their honor.”
The intensity of the driver’s tirade and the unshakable conviction of his beliefs left me in despair. My unfortunate encounter with the Coptic driver was a rude reminder of a reality most of us —the middle-class intelligentsia — continue to deny. It couldn’t get worse, I thought.
But I was wrong, and less than two weeks later, it did.
The bombing of Alexandria’s Church of the Two Saints is the biggest attack on Christian Egyptians to date, surpassing the Kosheh massacre in 2000 in terms of causalities. Videos capturing the aftermath of the bombing have been widely circulated and the media didn’t shy away from showing them this time around.
In the midst of the endless stream of reports, graphic videos and photos, I couldn’t help but feel numb. I would be lying if I said I was surprised by the attacks. Anyone who’s been closely following the growing tension between Copts and Muslims could have easily anticipated an incident of that magnitude.
Pundits will certainly rebuff my claims, insisting that the bombing was purely an act of terrorism. And maybe they’re right, but it would be naive to deny that the roots of the crisis are indeed sectarian.
The bombing came at the tail end of a turbulent year that saw numerous clashes between members of the two faiths. It was only a few months ago when hundreds of Muslims were railing against Copts and the church for the alleged kidnapping of alleged Muslim converts Camellia Shehata and Wafaa Constantine, chanting anti-Christian slogans in front of the very eyes of the same security forces that are now preventing both Copts and Muslims from expressing their anger in public.
Al-Qaeda, if they have indeed masterminded the bombing, wouldn’t have been able to implement their scheme hadn’t they found a fertile ground for their ideologies. For once, let’s admit that Egypt is suffering from a widespread wave of extremism. The catalysts are all here: poverty, oppression, corruption, absence of democracy and ignorance.
The chief culprit for this carnage is the government. A number of recent events heralded a possible strike on Coptic churches: Al-Qaeda’s threats to attack Egyptian Christians, the siege of the Iraqi church that left 68 dead, the arrest of Salafis distributing flyers advocating violence against Christians in Alexandria a few days before the bombing. The Two Saints Church, on the other hand, had witnessed a previous attack a few years ago when a mad man barged into the church in the middle of mass and stabbed one person to death.
Any proper intelligence body would have taken those warnings with some seriousness. Yet the government chose not to, and the ease by which this operation was carried out is a testament to its incompetence and laxity.
The government has placed all blame on ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’ refusing to admit any responsibility. The Coptic public may have unwillingly accepted this in the past, but now it doesn’t, and for the first time in modern history, thousands of Copts have decided to take it to the streets, rallying against the government and rejecting any form of reconciliation with the regime.
Strange enough, the Church and Pope Shenouda continue to support the same regime that did nil to protect its community; the same regime responsible for the decades-long woes of the Copts. The Pope’s provocative statement thanking Mubarak and the authorities for “their efforts” and for “protecting Egypt’s Christians” was met with jeers and derision by the distrustful Coptic public.
The government has lost all credibility and the church is steadily heading towards the same direction. A corrupt regime can yield nothing but a corrupt, ailing society where hate runs amok.
As much as I’m deeply moved by the genuine show of solidarity between Muslims and Christians, I’m not convinced that is the solution or that it is sustainable. This is a quick fix for a grave wound that will require plenty of time to heal. Nothing is going to change unless we admit that the rising animosity between the two sides does exist, and on a scale wider than we imagine it to be.
Whether you’d like to acknowledge it or not, there are many Muslims who still presume that Christians are ‘mushrikeen,’ worshippers of several gods, and many Copts who are confident that Islam is the Antichrist. There are thousands of Muslims out there convinced that Copts want to take over the nation; that they’re receiving privileges they don’t deserve. Copts, on the other hand, believe that Islamic rule is the chief cause for the sorry state of the country. Islam, after all, is the principle source of legislation, the same legislation that continues to deny them their rights.
When asked about the issue of national unity, Pope Shenouda dodged the question, replying that there needs to be a unity of thought, of emotions, of purpose, all of which do not exist in the present political and social climate.
This so-called ‘unity’ is a pipe dream. The nation is more fragmented than ever. Individuals continue to define themselves by religion. The thousands of Copts who have been protesting in the past few days define themselves, first and foremost, as Christians and not Egyptians. We are not united as Egyptians; we’re united as either Copts or Muslims who happen to live under the same sky.
Nothing’s going to change until we face up to the fact we’re a nation of hypocrites, that we’ve lost our moral compass years ago, that we’re yet to learn to accept each other.
We’ve been here before, calling for reform on all fronts: Education, equal rights to Copts, improved religious discourse. Yet nothing is being considered as the government continues to dwell in its delusion of grandeur and self-righteousness.
The blood of the 23 defenseless worshippers is on the hands of the government and its supporters; on the hands of religious, political and educational leaders who allowed the friction between Muslims and Christians to expand; on the hands of us, intellectuals and opinion leaders, who didn’t do enough to seek an end to all this. Stop blaming Al-Qaeda and Israel for this massacre, this crisis is of our own making.
I’m sick and tired of flag-waving, of the self-congratulatory slogans that translate into nothing, tired of the gush of sympathy that will dissolve in no time. I want firm actions from the government, from civil society, from religious institutions to eradicate the deeply-entrenched roots of this evil.
How much more blood has to be shed before the public at large decides to stand up and confront this reality, before the government is held accountable for its policies (or lack thereof); before all citizens are given equal rights?
Those responsible for the Alexandria bombing will, as always, go unpunished and the whole affair will soon be forgotten. Alexandria will happen again. Nagaa Hammadi will happen again. El Kosheh will happen again and the government will continue to insist that “nothing will disrupt the national unity.”
The inspiring signs of goodwill shown at Coptic Christmas Eve should translate into policies that guarantee equal rights for all, Muslims and Christians, the rich and the poor. The perpetrators of this crime must be arrested; extremism must be confronted. Peace cannot reign without social justice.
The Coptic mindset is swiftly changing; the pacifist, silent approach is a thing of the past. The volcano of anger that the regime has long disregarded has erupted and it will take some drastic measures to suppress it.
The public have had their say and now the ball is in the government’s court.
Joseph Fahim is the Arts and Culture Editor of Daily News Egypt.
