Ever since he came back home from his four-month medical trip in Cleveland, Ohio, Pope Shenouda III has been invited to a number of televised talk shows which gained wide viewership and aroused intense controversy. In an article printed by the independent, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, Cairo daily al-Dostour (The Constitution) the Islamist writer Fahmy Huweidi wrote criticising the Pope for placing the number of Copts in Egypt at 12 million.
That headache figure…again
“We know the number of our people,” the Pope had told Khaled Salah on ON T.V, “We do not need to get this information from any other source.” The number of the Copts can be easily known through the baptismal registers, he said. Huweidi claimed the real number was far lower than the figure cited by the Pope, stressing that the figure was unsubstantiated. But Huweidi himself never explained upon what basis he disclaimed the figure cited by the Pope. He could not have placed an official figure since the government refuses to divulge the number of Copts. When the results of the last official census, that of 2006, were announced early in 2007, no figure on the Coptic population was given. And when General Abu-Bakr al-Guindy, head of the Central Apparatus for Public Mobilisation and Statistics was asked by al-Dostour why the number of Copts went missing from the official census report, he replied: “Ask about anything but this matter which is bound to bring us a headache.”
Relinquish your rights
Another papal talk, however, had the Cairo papers up in arms. On Egyptian national TV the Pope was interviewed by Lamees al-Hadidi in her show Itkallim (Speak), and was candid, strong, and clear. He answered all the questions posed, which encompassed a wide scope of Coptic grievances, and criticised the overwhelming bias of the security authorities against Copts. In the weekly State-owned Rose al-Youssef, Ahmed Basha wrote attacking the Pope for casting doubts upon the integrity of State institutions, specifically the security apparatus. He blamed Pope Shenouda for insisting that the criminals who conducted the vicious attacks against the monks of Abu-Fana monastery last May be brought to justice. It obviously escaped Basha’s attention that the Pope’s words came in response to topics or questions posed by Hadidi, and that the show was aired on national TV—meaning it was approved by the security officials. Or was the Pope being blamed for his candour?
The following issue of Rose al-Youssef, however, carried an opinion piece by the writer Adel Girgis who staunchly defended the Pope’s views, remarking that the necessarily security perspective of the security apparatus may frequently lead it to give precedence to security considerations over the rights aspects of any problem. As for Basha’s comment regarding Abu-Fana, Girgis asked: Are not the Abu-Fana monks subjects of the State as are the ‘Arabs’ who attacked them? Are not both groups entitled to the same rights and required to perform the same duties? Is it just then that one group should be pressured into relinquishing its rights on the pretext of ‘tolerence’? “Tolerance can only be from a position of strength, not weakness,” Girgis remarked.
Muslim Dolly
All three quasi-national Cairo daily papers, al-Ahram, al-Akhbar, and al-Gomhouriya rushed to celebrate the news that the Lebanese pop star Dolly Shahin has converted to Islam. In his column in the newly published Cairo weekly al-Diyar Hisham Abul-Makarem wrote under the title dripping with sarcasm: “May God exalt Islam through Dolly Shahin”, denouncing the unreasonable jubilation, especially the news that she had attempted to convince her husband to convert but he would not.
We are definitely for freedom of belief and wish that it would materialise on the ground. But it must be reminded that freedom of belief goes both ways.
Victoria vs victory of Islam
Last July “Copts in the press” printed a story published in al-Fagr about the attempt by Islamists to change the name of a square in the populous district of Shubra in Cairo. For as long as Shubra residents remember, the square went under the name of Victoria Square, but the idea was now to change it into Victory of Islam Square. Members of the Islamic religious society Nasr al-Islam, literally Victory of Islam, took it upon their shoulders to clean out the old signposts and post some ten new signs around the square with the new name of Nasr al-Islam. Muslim shopkeepers and residents insisted on using the new name while their Coptic counterparts—Shubra has long been famous for its large Coptic population—held on to the original name.
Last month Rose al-Youssef went to Cairo governor Abdel-Azim Wazeer to check on the incident. Wazeer said the name had never been officially changed; he said he would send a commission to remove all the violations and investigate the matter. “There are strict rules and regulations for names of places to be changed,” Wazeer said. “They are not changed upon fleeting whims.”