WATANI International
23 October 2011
In the wake of the turmoil and sectarian violence in Egypt, are Egyptians embracing the notion of immigration or are they staying at home?
From time immemorial Egypt has been an agricultural community. No surprise, therefore, that Egyptians have been famous for their strong attachment to their land and their aversion to immigration—even internal immigration from one village to another.
Yet modern Egypt has seen several waves of immigration.
Waves of immigration
The first major wave came in the 1960s, following the decision by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser to nationalise businesses, property, and industrial projects. The sudden loss of wealth and the insecurity created by the radical change to age-old communal norms acted as a main drive for immigration.
A few years later, Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War and the ensuing economic and moral hardship drove many Egyptians to leave. This coincided with the oil wealth in the Gulf countries, which prompted a move towards modernisation. Egyptians especially were in high demand for their good education, Arabic mother tongue, and a culture that was not too alien to that of the host countries. Large numbers of Egyptians flocked to oil—and non-oil countries—for a better livelihood.
The last two decades, and despite enviable economic growth at home, a new wave of immigration took off since the economic gain was offset by population explosion that left a large sector of Egyptians in the doldrums. While many immigrated legally, others resorted to illegal immigration, and the rest of the story is appallingly all too familiar.
Come 2011, a new chapter began in Egypt. The January Revolution and its aftermath of unrest, absent security, rampant unemployment, spiralling prices, and cruel attacks against Copts prompted Watani to explore how all this affected immigration trends. While in the middle of our story, the church burning in Merinab, Aswan, and the consequent brutal attack against the Copts earlier this month in Maspero, Cairo, which left 27 dead and some 300 injured, led us to take our search a bit further and attempt to see how these events have impacted the desire to immigrate among Copts.
Hardline political Islam
It all started with a recently-released report by the Egyptian Union for Human Rights (EUHR), which claimed that some 100,000 Copts immigrated from Egypt last March. The report demanded that the Military Council and the State should work to minimise Coptic immigration which, if left at the same pace would, according to EUHR head Naguib Gibrail, swell to 250,000 by the end of 2011. This, he explains, poses a serious economic and demographic challenge. “According to data from Coptic churches and communities abroad, 16,000 Copts have arrived at California since last March; 10,000 at New Jersey; 8,000 at New York; and some 8,000 at other US destinations. Some 14,000 went to Australia; 9,000 to Montreal; 8,000 to Toronto; and 20,000 to various parts of Europe, including Holland, Italy, England, Austria, Germany and France,” Gibrail said.
The main reason behind the Coptic wave of immigration, he suggested, is the swift rise of hardline Islamic political currents and their declared intention to apply sharia—including hudoud (Islamic penalties) —and according to which Copts would be considered dhimmis with no citizenship rights.
At first glance, the figures cited in the report looked like flagrant exaggeration, so Watani took them to the experts. Coptic lawyer and activist Kamal Zakher agreed with Gibrail that Coptic immigration is alarming, but considers the figures cited in the EUHR report “out of proportion”. Procedures for immigration take more than a year to complete, Zakher said, “so, even assuming the figures are credible, they are not post-revolution and thus do not indicate fear of the rise of hardline political Islam.”
Immigration, legal and illegal
A survey conducted by the International Organisation for Migration, on a sample of 750 Egyptian youth who wish to migrate, 51 per cent declared that the current situation in Egypt encourages them to migrate, 41 per cent said their decision to migrate had nothing to do with current events in Egypt. On the other hand 44 per cent said that they had decided to migrate before 25 January.
The youth surveyed expressed cautious optimism regarding the future of Egypt, with 36 per cent expecting slight improvement in the political and security situation, and more than 80 per cent expecting a rise in both national and individual income during the upcoming year.
Amina Shafiq, a social expert, says Egypt has already a serious problem with immigration: that of the increasing numbers of illegal teenage immigrants. In search or in need of money, families push their teenage children to the fore of the immigration front since, as minors, they would not be legally liable. A recent study by the Italian government, Ms Shafiq said, revealed that 84 per cent of those arrested as illegal immigrants on the Italian coasts are teens from Egypt. These children, she said, become victims of psychological and physical abuse, and sometimes losing their lives in the process.
The most recent figures by the Egyptian Labour and Immigration Ministry cite the number of Egyptians in the diaspora as 6,619,000, a number that is expected to rise as more Egyptians immigrate.
The Coptic diaspora
Even though Watani could get no accurate, official figures of Coptic immigrants, it appears a safe guess to say their number is substantial given the number of Coptic churches outside Egypt. These churches were established by the Coptic community abroad to serve the Coptic congregation. In an interview granted by Pope Shenouda III to Watani in 2007, the Pope said that there were some 120 churches in the United States, two Coptic bishops and more than 50 priests in Australia, four in the UK, two in France, two in Italy, one in Austria and one in Armenia. The Pope explained there were churches in Switzerland and Japan, and four in Black Africa. In Libya there are three churches, in Sudan two bishops, as well as churches in Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. There is a Coptic patriarch for Eritrea and five bishops.
“My land, my home, my people”
The recent EUHR report’s attempt, however, to imply that Copts are today leaving Egypt in droves, needed further investigation. Watani decided to conduct a quick survey on focus groups among Coptic youth to monitor their attitude after the Maspero attack. Watani’s Robeir al-Faris and Milad Zaky in Cairo, Nash’at Abul-Kheir in Alexandria, Basma William in Assiut, Tereza Hanna in Minya, and Ashraf Misbah in Kafr al-Sheikh sounded young Copts aged 20 to 45 on whether, in the wake of the Merinab and Maspero attacks, they would stay in the country or leave. Despite the fact that Egyptians in this age group have been notorious for their desire to immigrate, as can be witnessed by the long queues in front of foreign consulates to apply for visas, the result of the Watani survey yielded a 69 per cent proportion of Coptic youth who insisted on staying on at home. “What happened in Maspero created a deep rift between me and the Egyptian ‘other’,” said sales representative Sherif Leon from Assiut. “There’s no security for me or my family in staying. I’d jump at an opportunity to leave Egypt for good.” Yet accountant Karam Bibawi told Watani: “This is my land, this is my home, these are my people; I’m staying right here.”
More adamant
Even before Watani determined the results of the survey, the economic expert Mukhtar al-Sharif told Watani that, as far as he sees it, the Maspero attack should have made those already eager to leave more determined about leaving, but he expected Copts who were hesitant about leaving to be more adamant about staying home. Egyptians in general have a strong tie to the motherland, he said; they feel it is the land of their forefathers and their grandchildren, and as for tomorrow, only God can know that.
The Maspero attack, Dr Sharif said, was so horrendous that every body distanced itself from claiming responsibility for it. All the explanations now circulated on TV are but void rhetoric aiming at absorbing the psychological shock inflicted by the incident, without delving into the core of the matter. Today, he said, Egypt needs a unified law for places of worship, an anti-discrimination law, and the annulment of the religion box in official papers. “Enough reports and fact finding commissions,” he said, “We now need serious reform.”
Egyptian church
“A phenomenon peculiar to Egypt,” researcher and Watani columnist Soliman Shafiq said, “is that the more the fanaticism the more the mainstream Egyptian holds on to the motherland.”
‘The Coptic Church is a very Egyptian entity; the homeland is part and parcel of Coptic belief, and the concerns of the Egyptian land is interwoven in the Church’s daily prayers.” All along Egyptian history, Mr Shafiq said, Copts never immigrated because of religious discrimination against them. When they left, it was for other reasons; during the Nasser times for instance, they left because they lost their wealth or their security.
The new millenium started poorly for Copts, the eve of the New Year 2000 witnessed the Kosheh incident in which 20 Copts lost their lives. Coptic Christmas Eve 2010 saw the shoot-out in front of the church in Nag Hammadi where six Copts and one Muslim friend lost their lives as they left Midnight Mass. New Year Eve 2011, a horrendous bomb explosion occurred in front of the Saints church in Alexandria as the congregation left church, also following Midnight Mass; 24 were killed and scores injured. And after the 25 January Revolution, a church was burned in Etfeeh last March; the Imbaba church was burned, 15 were killed and 340 injured last May; the Merinab church in Aswan was demolished and burned last month and 26 were killed and some 300 injured in the aftermath in Maspero.
During the period from 1972 until 2010, according to Mr Shafiq, some 92 Copts were killed in sectarian attacks against them and 61 were injured. The past ten months, however, saw 65 Copts killed, more than 500 injured, and three churches demolished and burnt.