WATANI International
20 April 2011
“Will a Copt govern us again? Will the Coptic Major General Emad Mikhail be imposed upon us as the new governor? Qena Muslims, rise up and reject that with all your might.” Such was the message angrily blared through mosque microphones by the imams of the Upper Egyptian town of Qena, some 30km north of Luxor, during Friday prayers on 15 April. From their pulpits, they egged on Qena’s Muslims with such rhetoric as: “We [Muslims] are [according to the Prophet Mohamed’s words] the finest of all nations; we endorse virtue and ban vice. We want it [Egypt] Islamic, Islamic. There is no god but Allah; Mikhail is the enemy of Allah. We want a Muslim governor.”
Mobilising the mob
According to Mohab al-Qadi who heads the Qena branch of the liberal al-Ghadd political party, the Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Qena exploited Friday prayer sermons to effectively mobilise Qena’s Muslims against the newly-appointed Coptic governor. They reminded of the Islamic principle that a non-Muslim should never ‘patronise’ over a Muslim. This prompted a massive outburst of anger against the new governor who had not yet arrived to Qena.
Some 10,000 demonstrators surrounded the governorate building in Qena, chanting angry slogans against the Coptic governor, and vowed to demonstrate till he is removed. They moreover rejected the concept of having a governor from the Interior Ministry, and demanded that he should come from a non-military non-police background.
The protestors insisted that, as a Christian, the newly-appointed governor Major General Emad Shehata Mikhail was in no position to implement Islamic law, a major demand by the Islamists.
Efforts by top officials, not least among whom was Interior Minister Mansour el-Eissawi who visited Qena, to defuse the crisis were rebuffed.
On Tuesday, the newly appointed governor of Qena resigned his post before even assuming office, but the Military Council did not accept his resignation.
The previous Copt
Major General Mikhail, 58, who was previously director of the tax evasion department at the Interior Ministry then later deputy to Giza security director, had scheduled a meeting with the tribal chiefs in Qena to discuss with them an outlook for the development of the province. Qena is a community heavily dominated by tribal and family loyalties.
Major General Mikhail was assigned to replace Major General Magdy Ayoub, also a Copt. The Salafis rejected what they saw as an official plan for Qena to become a ‘Coptic quota’ governorate, meaning that the official practice of appointing a single Coptic governor among Egypt’s 28 governor should always be to assign the Copt to Qena. They claimed that Major General Ayoub’s term as governor had led to a rise in sectarian tension in the province.
For its part, the Church did not comment on the appointment of Major General Mikhail. Some Qena Copts, however, thought it wise not to go against the Islamist current, and approved the appointment of a Muslim governor. Noteworthy is that Major Genral Ayoub had not enjoyed any cordial relations with the Church; in fact he was seen to have restricted the Copts’ rights to high-ranking posts in the governorate and to church-related issues for fear of being accused of favouring the Copts.
Islamic emirate?
On Saturday, the Islamists challenged the ruling Military Council and the Cabinet by initiating civil disobedience. Joined by thousands of other Islamists from neighbouring governorates such as Aswan and Sohag, they blocked main roads and held prayers there; cut train tracks, took over government buildings and threatened to cut the water and electricity supply to Red Sea towns and to the famous sugar refineries in the nearby town of Nag-Hammadi, whose water and power supply comes from Qena. They said they would keep up the pressure till the government responds to their demand and appoints a Muslim governor. Some enraged Islamists wrote down the name of Mikhael on the butt of a donkey and made it run through Qena’s streets, while others burnt an effigy of the newly appointed governor.
The situation escalated so that the protestors held Saudi flags and called for a “Qena Islamic emirate”. Women were banned from using means of public transportation on the pretext that they should not be riding with men. The rampant unrest obliged Copts to keep to their homes; many were unable to celebrate Palm Sunday (17 April) in church as is the tradition.
Underestimating the conspiracy
“Are we going to stand helpless in front of such incidents which are now occurring at an alarming pace?” said Galila al-Qadi of Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination (MARED). “Salafis and their allies are becoming more defiant by the day because no one stands up to them,” she said, adding that the threat to kill the new governor is in itself a crime. Dr Qadi called for a new law to penalise perpetrators of sectarian strife or religious-based discrimination. Talking to Watani, she insisted that what was taking place in Qena was religious discrimination and terrorism, pure and simple. “Where is the government?” she asked.
The January 25 Youth Coalition issued a statement entitled “Qena’s people are now relegated to their homes”. “We thought,” members of the coalition told Watani, “that it was just a matter of a few hundred Salafis roaming the town with sectarian slogans. We thought it wise not to clash with them. But we had underestimated the magnitude of conspiracy.”
