Problems on hold

As we celebrate Watani’s golden jubilee this year, we are reminded of another jubilee, this time a silver one, of a problem that has yet to find a solution. The problem concerns the monastery of the Holy Virgin in the western mountain of Assiut, which was presented in full detail in Watani several times before, but no official ever took any action to resolve it. Today I ask: Is 25 years not enough?
The monastery of the Holy Virgin in Assiut’s western mountain is a gem of religious tourism since it marks the site where the Holy family resided for some six months while on its flight into Egypt. Besides the cave churches, the monastery conglomerate includes guest facilities of outstanding architectural harmony, to accommodate the thousands of visitors it receives. A vacant area at the foot of the mountain stands between the monastery and the Assiut-Ghanayem motorway. Planners agree that the area should remain free of any buildings so as not to distort the view, and to play the role of a spiritual prelude to the place of worship and praise above. The obvious option would be to turn it into a lush, green area. Yet what happened in this respect is the core of our problem.
In August 1983 a committee from the Middle Egypt’s antiquities department decided that the area should be retained free of buildings, as a precinct to the monastery. The committee again in 1984 and in 1993 affirmed the decision. In June 1997 the antiquities department recommended that the area should be preserved to maintain the monastery’s panorama, and sent a letter to this effect to the governor. To further protect the land from usurpers who might exploit it for commercial purposes, the committee decided in June 1998 that a fencing wall should be built around the land, at the monastery’s expense. Three months later, a committee from the Islamic and Coptic antiquities department approved the decision to build the fencing wall.
But between a decision to build a wall and the actual building of one is a world of difference. With security approvals and building permits pre-requisite to any building work, all efforts to build the fencing wall before the end of the 20th century failed, and the matter had to be carried on into the 21st century.
The Culture Minister decided to form yet another committee embodying all the authorities concerned to investigate the case once more. In October 2001, the committee approved all the previous decisions. Yet the security and local authorities did not issue approvals to build the fencing wall and ploys by the greedy who sought to seize the area did not stop. The worst disasters are the laughable ones: matters went back to square one and the documents had to go through the full cycle all over again. On 19 March 2006 Assiut Bishopric received a letter again approving the erection of the fencing wall. But to date no step whatsoever was taken to enable the decision to materialise.
Will nothing short of the President’s personal orders get this job done? So much for the institutional State we supposedly live under.

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