Egypt and religious terror: we are all to blame for the deaths
This article was first published in 1993 and is now reprinted in the light of events in Egypt.
Religious terrorism appeared the day that the public auctioneering over Islam began, when religious identity came to play a dominant role in whitewashing crime and sin. Imagine an Egyptian father who decrees that any young man expressing an interest in his daughter must be overly religious and know nothing beyond the mosque and the home. Other matters such as culture, justice, compassion, honesty and this young man's role in his community are not of the slightest interest; the important thing is that everyone he knows sees him praying five times a day in the mosque. The head of the family only allows his children to befriend young people who are religious, that is, those who appear on the face of things to be a picture of piety and devotion. This father isn’t interested in looking beyond the surface, although he knows full well that appearances are the easy part and are just a way of coping with the difficulties and problems we all face.
In the last decade, Islamist writers have fallen over themselves in the race to describe a religious awakening, eager to declare the victory of the Islamic nation over its enemies and to sweep clean the Western world which attacks them as they kneel to praise the Lord, in the words of Abbud al-Zamar, writing in the al-Ahrar newspaper from his detention in Cairo. This was a strange, feverish race that has been joined by almost every Islamist writer or sympathiser with the religious awakening. They hurry to reserve their places in the new society, a society which Sayyid Qutb described as the nucleus of the Islamic nation, where all idolatry would be eliminated and God's judgment would be delivered, once society was freed from this latest era of ignorance.
And thereafter, it was no longer important who was in charge, the same steps were followed everywhere. As Sudanese President, Gaafar Nimeiri showed no mercy to the young or old, or to women for that matter but, as he started to cut off the hands of starving thieves who were being killed by famine, his mere announcement that he ruled in accordance with the message from God, was enough to rein in his enemies, including the mad zealots who were demanding democracy, citizens' rights and fair, honest elections. Every time a new murderer, such as Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a well-known thug, has come to power, there has been the need for an outward veneer of religiosity to provide him with the licence to stay in power, keep a tight grip on his people and deplete their resources. So, Nimeiri decided to "islamise" the laws of Sudan, cutting off the hands of the elderly in Khartoum and Omdurman and flogging vulnerable women who dared to leave their houses after eight o'clock in the evening.
Later on in the same role, Omar Hassan al-Bashir also found that of all kinds of religious groups came out to support him. Whether it was local groundroots movements or Afghan ones, the Muslim Brotherhood or followers of al-Tamimi or the Sudanese religious leader Hassan al-Turabi, they were ready to endorse him and defend him in the media. Even the newspaper of the Egyptian opposition, al-Sha'b, held back by just a modicum of reserve, was close to proclaiming him the next Caliph of the Muslims.
In Egypt, this religious monster was in full swing, being nurtured and fed by people of every class, all rushing to get ahead in the race. Notorious villains of the business world such as Ms. Kamila performed the Umrah pilgrimage every year and wore a veil to cover up her corrupt antics. Ahmad al-Rayan, Egypt's most infamous swindler of the twentieth century, interrupted court proceedings to respond to the call to prayer when in the dock. The jury and the entire court room had to wait submissively because al-Rayan could not wait half an hour until the end of the court session to pray. The Zahra Publishing House joined the race with the works by dozens of writers and journalists, many semi-educated and less than semi-literate, flooding the market with bizarre books about the crooks plundering Egypt, including the first public defence of terrorism by the Marxist Islamist writer Muhammad Jalal Kishk in his book The Banking Massacre.
The numbers of participants in this religious arms race continue to spiral up and up: in come the artists, dancers, girls fleeing the morality police, illiterates and El Haram Street prostitutes, respected journalists, market stall traders, councillors and members of parliament, athletes ... barely a single group in society stands idly on the sidelines.
The important thing is that every player in this game adopts a religious identity, and then doors and windows open up to him. It’s the secret password that opens up Ali Baba’s cave. There was even an Egyptian football player who found an easy way to come in at pole position. Invited onto TV to discuss the finer details of the art of his game, he scored an early goal by insisting on the female presenter wearing her hijab.
Because the whole of society has given succour to extremism on a local scale, Egypt is paying a high price as it grows and spirals out of control. It has spread everywhere, affecting everyone from tourists who have come to see this peaceful country to ordinary Egyptians minding their own business sitting in a café in the Nile Valley, from school children who have not yet reached adolescence to the leaders of Jihad obsessed with sex and violence, from the temples of Luxor to the thousands of local mosques which have turned into strongholds of terror, instead of houses where the name of God is uttered in reverence and the faithful turn to Him in thanks and praise.
Even university professors, who are supposed to embody rationality and enlightenment, have made their contribution, with many adopting a stance that is sympathetic to the dark side. Take the lecture hall: many would think nothing of standing up to speak in a room in which hundreds of lectures have been held. But then, along came the revelation of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and all of a sudden a lecture cannot begin until the hall has been split into female students on the left and male students on the right, with a barrier between them. The aim of the esteemed professor who upholds this rule is loud and clear: to suggest to the religious groups that have won seats on student unions and faculty boards that he is with them, and that, pleasing them is more important to him than any other principle he might have previously embraced, and who knows, wouldn’t it be good if they could play their part in governing Egypt?
The temperature started to rise then as this religious arms race got even more furious. A large number of Egyptian artists turn down the opportunity to participate in a television series condemning terrorism, both out of cowardice but also knowing that when these thuggish groups controlled every inch of Egypt, they would never get a foothold in the world of the arts. Even nationalist newspapers, which are supposed to stand against such backward and reactionary tendencies, turn down many articles on the grounds that they're too harsh and critical of extremist religious groups. All Egyptian newspapers and magazines have compromised to some extent, albeit to varying degrees, and some stand up publicly in support of terrorism against their country's future and against the future of their own children and their native soil.
In the courtroom and in all of the world's media, the extremists have stated frankly and clearly that they were behind the assassination of Farag Foda and are responsible for many assassination attempts. Their frank avowal is a threat to the entire nation and confirms their intent that their grip will extend to every single person who allows himself to be seduced by what they declare forbidden. But when a taxi driver asks his passenger if he's a Muslim or not, things have got dangerous and can no longer be tolerated silently.
The reality is, though, that this abhorrent phenomenon has spread to such a large extent to include every conceivable form of backwardness. Now whenever anyone speaks of his Islamic identity, it smacks of a public bribe to society to allow him to exist within it as a good person.
In the classic Egyptian film, The Flood, written and directed by Bashir El-Dik, there is a telling scene where the Mayor, who has committed a whole string of crimes, decides after successfully pulling off a major heist operation to donate a large proportion of his takings to the poor. He’s then accused by the refined female character in the film, a devout believer who symbolises Egypt, of even trying to bribe God.
The truth is that what is happening in Egypt now has been entirely predictable throughout the last ten years, since this feverish race to offer religious "bribes" first began. When doctors and ear specialists warned that loudspeakers in the mosques at too high volumes were deafening, they were prohibited by law within a few years. In fact, despite the ban, they are still widely used across Egypt; yet who dares to object? Even at the dawn prayer, to which no mosque draws more than a handful of individuals, the loudspeakers roar out, waking up the old, terrifying the young and upsetting the sick, and turning many others’ lives into hell. Yet, if anyone objects, the response is ready: do you really want to prevent the word of God from reaching His faithful worshippers?
In Egypt, if you arrange to meet up with someone, he'll suggest that he comes and finds you after the sunset prayer. It doesn't indicate a specific time, but the important thing is that the religious identity is asserted above all. He might ask, presumptuously, shall we do the evening prayer at the mosque or at your house?
Are we seeing a religious awakening in Egypt? Dozens of writers, thinkers, columnists and men of religion all claim we are. There have been countless articles and lectures heralding a religious revival as an omen of all that is good, while writers, like senior commanders of a literary army, have picked up their pens as arms to declare the “religious awakening” as a return to the tenets of pure Islam, as self-sufficiency in a Muslim’s life, and as the final choice after the fall of communism and almost entire collapse of capitalism.
The tragedy is, that by these measures, the great religion, which the glorious Lord chose for us to be the final of all the religions, the ultimate celestial revelation, is reduced to trivialities, a mere apparition behind which lurks a mountain of corruption, crime, attacks on the freedoms of others and backwardness of every kind.
What kind of a religious awakening is it, when it's linked to terrorism, extremism and aggression against others? What kind of a religious awakening is it, when the country is held hostage by an increase in corruption, bribery and worship of the new faith of capitalism rather than worship of the Almighty God? When it's characterised by laziness, unemployment, theft and looting, and when Egypt, a great country with a rich history of civilization, a standard bearer of Islam and a focus of spirituality, is dominated by oppression by Muslims of their brothers, fathers, mothers and their country? With growing illiteracy, why has not a single religious group proposed a project to put an end to it? What kind of religious revival is it, when it is associated with an era of embezzlement on a staggering scale, which seems to grow exponentially the more people cling to the idea of the revival? What kind of a religious awakening is it, when its vanguard so detests all forms of beauty, art and creativity, when they abhor music and cinema, theatre, opera and television, when they occupy a position of pure hatred?
From all the evidence we see and hear now, if there is any kind of awakening it is in a very passive sense. It clearly has nothing at all to do with anything more active, such as a Muslim individual waking up to his belief and developing his understanding of Islam; it doesn't suggest any renewed energy or active vitality, or any rational or honest belief in the moderate teachings of the faith.
The simple fact is that the term religious awakening should only be used for the aspirations and aims of the sincere Muslim who recognises the true message of Islam; it isn't a meaningful label for any real phenomenon in society at large.
As religious phenomena go, this is an easy one to get involved in because it doesn't require a lot of investment of effort or money. All you need is a face-covering veil, or a beard, a few books on the torments of the after-life and the Islamic view of women
Imagine a young man who has never worked since graduating and who is dying of sexual frustration, which is rapidly poisoning his blood like a snake's venom. Sitting surrounded by young impressionable followers, he tells them how close they are to the imminent return of the Caliphate. He waxes lyrical denouncing corruption and decay in Europe, deploring the disintegration of the family and hoping that Islam would soon lead its followers to crush the forces of oppression in the weak, impotent West.
Extremism takes many paths, but almost all lead to the same result. The most widespread, visible and influential was and still is false piety. This manifests itself in the pressure to put on a front of religious identity and in the social hypocrisy that glosses over corruption with a sacred whitewash.
The truth is that it is a crime against religion, the homeland and the future of Egypt, which everyone is implicated in.
We have all contributed, directly and explicitly, in Egypt's assassination attempts, the assassination of the country which began when, in our hands, religion turned into intellectual terrorism, rejecting the freedoms of others, attacking their privacy, and threatening hellfire for anyone who dares to hold a different opinion.
Doctor Farag Foda rejected hypocrisy in the guise of Islamic identity. Exposing cheap lies and deceit of all kinds, from double standards in society to the scandalous behaviour of asset management companies, he confirmed over and over that he would not play the game of auctioneering over Islam. He was struck by bullets forged from the treachery of the people who defended the extremists, strengthening their message of a total rejection of rational thought.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all murderers. The responsibility is ours for what things have come to in our dear, precious Egypt. There is a collective responsibility to be borne by the people who have lent their ears so eagerly to the voice of religious terrorism and who have bowed to it. We are all murderers, because we have lent terror a veneer of holiness and we have made religion into a licence to excuse all manner of scandalous and aggressive behaviour.
We are all murderers because we have not looked after Egypt's safety, but have defended extremism. We live amidst a duality of thought and behaviour that allows us to compromise with both angels and demons at the same time. We long for democracy and yet we are all despots. We distinguish between science and Islam, happily building thousands of mosques but niggardly holding back the funds when it comes to renovating a school or two. We are all murderers, because we have allowed these backward and dark forces to dominate our lives.
Mohammad Abdelmaguid
Taeralshmal
محمد عبد المجيد
طائر الشمال
عضو اتحاد الصحفيين النرويجيين
أوسلو النرويج
