Cornelis Hulsman speaks to Watani about the Copts in Egypt, whose number, according to a former Egyptian official is…the number that brings on a headache
Cornelis Hulsman speaks to Watani about the Copts in Egypt, whose number, according to a former Egyptian official is…the number that brings on a headache
Cornelis Hulsman is a Dutch sociologist who has been living in Egypt since 1994. A journalist for more than twenty-five years, he is editor-in-chief of the Arab-West Report and writes on issues concerning the Coptic cause and relations between Copts and Muslims. While in Egypt Hulsman recorded several sectarian incidents with accuracy and objectivity, and attempted a study on the number of Copts in Egypt.
In one case, he confronted a piece of incorrect reporting on Dutch TV about the incidents at Merinab at the beginning of October. The broadcast on 26 November claimed that the church had been set ablaze by Copts, who then accused the Muslims of burning it down. Hulsman vehemently disputed this version of events, by Dutch journalist Lex Runderkamp, and said the TV report was based on a story printed in Al-Misriyeen newspaper that month. The Dutch reporter, Hulsman said, did not know any Arabic and had not interviewed all the parties concerned.
Cornelis Hulsman and his long experience in covering sectarian incidents and his overview of the future position of the Copts in Egypt was the basic element of this interview with Watani.
When did you begin to look closely at the Coptic cause?
I studied sociology at Leiden University in Holland, where I specialised on the issue of Christians in the Middle East and the history of their relations with Islam. My Masters degree was on the history of the Armenian Church half a century before the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians.
As for the Copts, I visited Egypt for the first time in 1976, and I was interested in social development work. I went to Farascor in Damietta to take part in a Dutch project to produce milk. Up to that time I knew nothing about the Coptic issue. Then I met Anba Moussa, who sent me to a priest in Damietta called Father Boulos; he was a great person, and introduced me to the Orthodox faith and culture. Being myself a protestant, I was surprised to discover that there are many similarities between the Dutch and Coptic Churches. I also met Anba Samuel of the social services bishopric who talked to me a lot about the problems of Copts and who would frequently ask what things Western newspapers wrote about the Coptic Church. Anba Samuel was among the pioneers of social service in the Coptic Church, and lost his life in October1981 while he sat behind the then President Anwar al-Sadat as he was shot to death by Islamists.
Between 1984 and 1985 I founded the Irene Foundation, inspired by the Greek term mentioned in the Coptic Mass: Irene Passi (May Peace be upon you). The foundation is located in Leiden and mainly provides a service for the garbage collectors of Muqattam.
How did you come to start working on the sectarian file?
In 1994 I met the Egyptian Coptic lawyer Maurice Sadeq who drew my attention to the disappearance of young Coptic women or, as is frequently claimed, their “abduction and forced conversion to Islam”. He gave me a list which he said contained the data of these women, 100 of them. I took the list and visited the 100 families, but discovered that 99 of them hadn’t been kidnapped; they had disappeared because of family problems or love stories. Only one had been kidnapped. I listened to many people to avoid publishing lies.
Did you face any kind of harassment from the security apparatus while covering sectarian issues?
I remember during the Mallawi incidents in 2008, I was already in Minya but I was prevented from reaching the town of Mallawi. I was arrested and sent back to Cairo. Then I wasn’t allowed to go to Mallawi for ‘security reasons’.
You are currently preparing your PhD thesis on the number of Copts. Why did you select this topic, and what is your plan?
The issue of number of Copts in Egypt represented a big problem because there are always differences between the numbers announced—or not announced—by the government, the Church, or the Egyptian public. I have thought about this issue for years, and in 1986 I visited all the bishoprics in Upper Egypt and asked the bishops about the number of Copts. According to what I obtained, the number amounted to some eight per cent of the population, but they were the Orthodox people alone. Whereas the number claimed by the Copts, especially outside Egypt, is around 15 per cent. This is confusing because of the wide discrepancy.
Were the numbers you were given accurate?
No, not accurate, just approximate.
Do you think that the Coptic Church has the accurate number?
If you mean in 2011; I think, yes. The Church made its own statistics and it has the number.
Do you think it is accurate?
The problem is that there is a lot of internal immigration among Copts, and this is the thing that leads to confusion.
Why isn’t there an official department that pronounces on the number of Copts in Egypt?
I searched for a long time for an official answer to this question, but I never found one. A general told me they didn’t want to announce it in order to avoid hassle or problems, because the Copts would say the number was too small. The Church says it can’t announce it because it is not official. And when I asked in the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics and the Egyptian State Information Service, the answer was that they did not want to be [like] Lebanon: there was no difference between Copts and Muslims; they were all Egyptians. But all these are mere excuses; there must be officially announced numbers, but the information that is needed is not just the number but how did that number was obtained.
Watani International wishes to remind its readers that, in its issue of 7 December 2008, under the title “Copts in the Egyptian press”, it wrote: “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.”
So what are you going to write in your thesis?
I changed my mind about doing the PhD on the number of Copts because it was very complicated, so I decided to change my plan and make it on the number of Copts when the numbers were announced officially before 1950 and before the revolution, and then I will try to track these numbers up to now.
How do you see the future of Copts with the rise of the Islamists?
I think that, for the future, Copts need to hold a dialogue with the Islamists. This does not mean that the Copts should accept the Islamists’ principles, but that both sides should learn more about each other. As I concluded from my work, the main reason behind Egypt’s sectarian strife is that Muslims do not have good relations with the Copts, who live in a more or less intellectual isolation.
There is a magnificent example I should love to point out. There is a village called Kafoada in Maghagha, Minya, where 85 per cent of the residents are Muslims and 15 per cent are Copts, and the mayor is Coptic. Both sides have good relations. I’ll never forget the friendship between Father Yu’annis Antoine and Sheikh Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who is a moderate Salafi sheikh. The Copts of the village supported him in the elections because he rejected the extreme ideas of other Salafis.
Do you think it is possible for a religious state to exist in Egypt?
In my opinion, Egypt is not Iran and it won’t be. I also don’t believe that Egypt will be carved and divided between the Muslims and the Copts, because Copts are widely dispersed throughout Egypt from Alexandria to Aswan and it is impossible to isolate them in a specific ghetto.