WATANI International
16 January 2011
The incident of the deadly bomb which exploded in front of the Church of the Saints in Alexandria on New Year Eve leaving in its wake a trail of death, injury, and damage, makes it imperative to look into the conditions which inevitably led up to it. This can in turn lead to the prescription of a cure for the ailment gripping our society and culminating in the New Year bombing.
Granted, the incident is a terrorist attack which the security authorities are doing their best to unmask. But such a crime could never have taken place had the movement or organisation standing behind it—if from outside Egypt—failed to recruit the necessary elements inside Egypt to execute it. And it should not be overlooked that, for the supposedly foreign organisation, these elements were neither difficult to spot nor impossible to recruit, an event which should not be disregarded lest it drives us away from diagnosing the ailment and prescribing the cure.
A realisation of the scale of the fanatic, inflamed climate which dominates our land and which bred so many intellectually and religiously deluded youths, in addition to the widely brushed-over discrimination against Copts, can help fathom the reasons behind the recurring attacks against churches. It also explains the unprecedented explosion of pent-up Coptic anger following the Alexandria crime, which had been steadily building up, ominously and bitterly, owing to the injustices Copts increasingly sustained on the legislative, official, educational, and media levels. The Copts had lost all hope that the State, which invariably sidelined, ignored, or procrastinated regarding their woes, would work to reverse the injustice. All they usually got were hollow promises, honeyed rhetoric, and the by-now familiar talk of how citizenship is quoted in the first article of the Constitution—even though it has never been upheld.
Anyone who doubts the State is not serious about undertaking necessary reforms has but to go back to the details of the parliamentary sessions held in the wake of the Alexandria bombing. The official address still persists in diverting attention from the injustice systematically inflicted upon Copts, and focuses upon the theory of external conspiracy against Egypt. It demands that all Egyptians join forces to confront foreign conspiracy, even as it totally ignores the fertile home ground which breeds the terrorism and discrimination that ought to be uprooted. This obstinacy on the part of Egypt’s Parliament confirms doubts that, unless President Mubarak gives the go-ahead to pass laws that put an end to discrimination and instate equality and citizenship rights for all Egyptians, Parliament will remain unable to take the initiative to do so.
The Egyptian media adopted a stance that was diametrically opposed to the official stance. It was comforting to see the media cover the Alexandria crime, analyse its causes, and demand confronting them. This courageous, patriotic stance culminated in the vigil held by media people at the grounds of the St Mark Cathedral in Cairo on Thursday evening—Coptic Christmas Eve—right before Midnight Mass. There, they clearly announced that the crime hurt not only Copts but all Egyptians, and that Egypt in its entirety stood against the terrorism. They did not shy away from exposing the discrimination and injustices Copts suffer, and demanded that the State put an end to them. The public figures who took part in the vigil came from across the wide Egyptian spectrum: the political, cultural, artistic, and sports arenas. They represented an unprecedented Egyptian unanimity demanding reform and insisting the opportunity was ripe and should not be relinquished.
Now is the time for serious national effort; the opportunity should not be forfeited. Now there is no excuse for the State to procrastinate in purging legislation of discriminatory clauses or enacting new non-discriminatory laws to uphold citizenship. It is no longer any good for officials to handle the matter through balancing acts or appeasement politics, which have become synonymous with shirking off necessary reform. It is not acceptable any more that officials would claim that implementing reforms at this moment would be tantamount to giving in to the Alexandria conspiracy. This is again nothing but procrastinating on the reform for which there appears never to be a convenient time. This despite the fact that human rights groups have made it very clear that the delay in implementing reform sends out an erroneous message that the State condones discrimination, and that Coptic lives, honour, property, and churches are fair game.
When will the unified law for building places of worship pass? When will the personal status law for Christians pass? When will a law banning and criminalising discrimination pass? When will culprits in crimes against Copts be brought to justice? When will Egyptian school curricula be purged of discriminatory material and teachers trained to promote tolerance and acceptance of the other? When will the fanatic religious address be brought under control?
The prescription for curing our national ailments is known to all. Yet an observer of the Egyptian scene in the wake of the Alexandria bombing will not fail to see that the Egyptian people stand on one side and the State stands on the other. Egypt understands the Coptic anger; the State denounces it.