The Copts: their rights and our duties
Oslo, 5 September 2004
أرشيفي ينعش ذاكرتي
The Coptic presence in the fabric of Egyptian society grows ever more precarious when the authorities undermine their position by exposing it to partisanship, forming a wedge between those who support their demands and those who oppose them.
I am writing on Coptic issues from an Islamic perspective, for Islam teaches us that the rights of Egypt’s Copts should be no different to those of Muslims. The Copts are not merely another sect, minority or ethnic group; they are Egyptians who have opened up their hearts to Muslims for more than a thousand years. They preferred to retain their own religion but have never delayed in coming to the nation’s defence, despite it being an Islamic stronghold. They are not simply ‘people of the book’ or ‘people of the dhimma’, and neither are they the subjects of a foreign nation; they are Egyptian nationals who have the same rights and duties as Muslims.
A nation’s sanctity, security and safety are preserved by virtue of tolerance. Unfortunately, tolerance has waned ever since the late President Anwar Sadat began fuelling religious extremism and sectarian strife. The Islamic groups have swept aside the nation’s values and principles and replaced them with howling sectarianism and racism. The snake-like forces of extremism, fanaticism and radicalism that Sadat kept close to his chest may have stung him first, before going on to tear the country apart by way of terrorism, murderous attacks on tourists and Copts, and the exile of intellectuals, academics and journalists.
The problem is that the state does not recognise the equity of the Copts’ needs. Rather, it considers the matter a security issue and refers it to the Ministry of the Interior. President Hosni Mubarak has reaffirmed on many occasions that there is no problem with the Copts in Egypt. But this statement is not unusual for the same President who does not perceive that there is illiteracy in Egypt or religious extremism propagated by the press; who refuses to see that two million or so of his citizens live in cemeteries with the dead or that the Egyptians are the cheapest citizens of the third world both at home and abroad; and who is entirely oblivious to the fact that, should an Egyptian have the bad luck to find himself in the hands of a police officer in the rural provinces or Upper Egypt, he is unlikely to emerge with his dignity intact.
The president does not recognise the Egyptian Copts’ problems or do anything to alleviate their pain; nor does he even stand firmly in support of them when they experience discrimination. This is because his sovereign vision lacks a human dimension, as might be expected from a man who seized power via an emergency law. The Copts are therefore no different from other Egyptians, Muslim or Christian, who have been subjected, like citizens of Iraq, Jordan and Libya, to injustice, tyranny, robbery and aggression. The president’s policy is based on the assumption that Egyptians lack dignity. There is therefore nothing in them that deserves to be fought for or requires the state to exhaust its resources over; there is no need to hold emergency meetings or to exhort officers to stop trampling on the citizens’ dignity, if they don’t have any in the first place.
Egyptian Copts abroad, whose numbers exceed a million and who have been naturalised in their new countries, are essential and effective examples for Muslims and Christians alike. Their demands are perfectly just and fair, and they work to raise the value of citizenship, fight religious extremism in the name of tolerance, and achieve an equitable distribution of labour in accordance with efficiency, honour and integrity.
Citizenship is not a grant or a gift from the governor to the governed. No official has the right to discriminate when hiring for the highest state positions or to employ a Copt in a position with no upward mobility. Also, in accordance with just practice, no official should curb the ambitions or dash the hopes and dreams of any Copt, but rather keep the doors open to him, even if he were to nominate himself for the presidency of an Islamic country, just like Idi Amin Dada, who was the Muslim president of the majority Christian Uganda.
Discrimination is ultimately a form of arrogance and leads to the complete intellectual and ideological rejection of the other, especially in terms of religion and faith. As a Muslim, I know my religion well. I cherish it and believe rationally, emotionally and with complete certainty in Islam. No force can transcend my relationship with God or detract from my understanding of Islam. I believe that my Coptic brother must enjoy the same religious and national rights as me without exception. This means allowing a strict Coptic citizen, should he wish, to join the faculty of theology to major in law, to wear a robe and turban, or to participate in various positions and functions of the state.
Egypt needs a revolution of love and tolerance to return it to its former lustrous glory, but this revolution will not be driven by degenerate and racist men who preach mania.
The Copts make very legitimate demands that it is well within their right to make, after having stood for hundreds of years side by side with Muslims in defence of Egypt. God does not discriminate between people and all of us must stand individually before Him on the Day of Judgement. The scales will be in favour of the tolerant.
The Islam I know is based on guidance, tolerance, equality between human beings and the preservation of human rights. Furthermore, freedom of religion is a Quranic principle that no Muslim should ignore, for it is clearly commanded of all Muslims: “let those who wish to believe in it do so, and let those who wish to reject it do so.”[ From the Quran, Surat al-Kahf, The Cave (18:29)
] This divine command was directed to the prophet Muhammad who “[is] not there to control them.”[ From the Quran, Surat al-Ghashiya, The Overwhelming Event (88:22)
]
Thus freedom of religion is an established principle in Islam, and every Muslim must not only obey this fully but must also conclude from it that whoever lives among Muslims should enjoy their same rights and comply with the same non-religious duties that accompany those rights.
The history of the Coptic Church in Egypt is not the sole inheritance of the Copts but also that of every Muslim to take pride in. Every Muslim should teach his children about the Copts’ struggle against Roman apostasy and the Copts’ alliance over hundreds of years with the Muslims to fight colonialism in Egypt.
Full equality in the workforce and in education is the Copts’ most basic right. Any attempt to limit this to Muslims is no different than the racist apartheid that the whites practised against the indigenous population of South Africa.
The grievances of our Coptic brothers are many: religious intolerance in state institutions; a lack of representation on radio and television and in the national press; the state’s non-neutral position regarding dogma and its distortion of Coptic population numbers in the national census; the failure of security forces to protect Copts from extremist groups; inequality in leadership positions; the editing out of certain chapters of history; withholding endowments to the Copts that are their primary source of funding for places of worship; ill treatment by police officers (remember the el-Kosheh village[ 21 Coptic Christians were the victims of a massacre in el-Kosheh village in Upper Egypt in 2000.] and the Church of the Resurrection incidents?); a lack of religious freedom for those who convert from Islam to Christianity; the isolation and marginalisation because of doctrinal differences; the fanatics’ control over media and education; and the government’s utter failure to recognise that Egypt’s Copts have any problems, issues or concerns whatsoever.
When I read our Coptic brothers’ demands, I am extremely embarrassed. As Muslims, this should be our battle as well. The lack of a Coptic presence in the higher tiers of the Egyptian decision-making process is an offence to the Copts. It’s an unjust discrimination against our partners in our homeland. And it is an explicit call to the major powers in the international community to intervene on behalf of the Christian minorities and come to their defence, although of course the Copts are no less hostile to colonialism in all its forms than Muslims are. Is there not one enlightened soul among us who foresees the danger or are there locks upon our hearts?[ This alludes to a verse in the Quran (Surat Muhammad, 47:24), “Will they not contemplate the Quran? Do they have locks on their hearts?”
Mohammad Abdelmaguid
Taeralshmal
Oslo Norway
محمد عبد المجيد
طائر الشمال
عضو اتحاد الصحفيين النرويجيين
أوسلو النرويج
أرشيفي ينعش ذاكرتي
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