Abstract
The blood of Egyptian Copts on the streets of central Cairo on 9 October 2011 could be accurately described as the first major set-back for the Arab Spring. Preserving the rights of minorities as full citizens in the face of long-standing persecution and neglect is a pressing challenge for the Arab revolutions. However, the dilemma of the rights of Christian minorities within the Arab world is a historical one, deeply rooted in a complex interplay of social, economic and political factors predating the Arab Spring and its unpredicted implications. The growing signs of a radical Islam empowered by the loosening grip of Arab dictatorships raise concerns that go beyond the question of security and political representation for minorities. There is a bitter race between, on the one hand, secular forces weakened both by the absence of any previous organisational cadres and by the misuse of secularism by nationalist Arab regimes and, on the other, religious forces that are pushing forcefully for further overlap between religion and the state. As the results of the first free elections in Tunisia demonstrate the popularity of Islamism in the midst of entrenched secular countries, it is clear that the battle between the two trends is an unequal one.
Introduction
From Iraq to Syria, the fate of minorities under the awakening of radical Islam as one of the emerging faces of the Arab Spring is spreading fear, whether realistic, exaggerated or imagined. It is true that the transition to democracy in Iraq dealt a serious blow to Christian communities, whose populations are dwindling in numbers in the post-Saddam era. However, it is also true that the ordeal of Iraqi Christians is the result of the failed US-led intervention to reconstruct a new and modern Iraq. The situation of Arab Christian minorities is diverse and therefore comparisons between different minority groups are not realistic.
The Christian minority in Syria (up to 10% of the population) has enjoyed a peaceful relationship with that country's regime, itself ruled by the Alawite minority, which has monopolised the major positions of power in the state. Christians enjoy freedom of worship and are decently represented in institutions without having real weight in the decision-making processes. They are usually known to be loyal to the regime, which is considered their protector against discrimination. While a minority of Syrian Christians support the revolution against the regime, the community's leaders and the majority of its members are openly supportive of Assad, praying for him in their churches and stressing their fears for their own fate should the regime finally collapse into a violent civil war.
In Jordan, the tiny Christian population (up to 3%) also enjoys freedom of religion, although conversion to Christianity is severely rejected by tribal Jordanian society and marriage between persons belonging to different religions is not recognised. Nine of the country's 110 parliamentary seats are reserved for Christians, in order to guarantee their representation. Christians are traditionally granted high positions in institutions and are known to be very loyal to the Hashemite royal family.
Lebanon hosts the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Although there is no recent official census of their numbers, current estimates suggest that they are no longer the majority group. This is the only Christian community in the Arab world that retains significant power. Tradition stipulates that the president should always be a Christian Maronite. However, the civil war between Christians and Muslims effectively ended with the Taef Accord, signed in Saudi Arabia in 1989 between the Lebanese warlords. The agreement implemented a drastic shift in power from the Christian president to the benefit of the Shia speaker and the Sunni prime minister, restricting the extremely wide-ranging powers once enjoyed by the Christian head of state. The president's powers are now considered symbolic and the Christian community is becoming more vulnerable.
Although there are no tangible signs so far that the Syrian rebellion against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad will unleash a backlash against the Christian minority in that country, reference to the Iraqi nightmare is becoming fashionable. Fears of a backlash are also shared by Lebanese Christians. ‘Christians are afraid of the future’, says Abdullah Abu Habib, chair of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, and a former Lebanese ambassador. ‘Extremist Islamic forces are very strong, as are new democratic forces, but the stabilisation of democracy takes a long time. We are looking at a transitional phase that is long enough to empty the Middle East of its minorities’, he argues [1].
In the remainder of this article, I will address in greater detail the situation of the Christian Egyptian minority known as Copts. This choice of focus is driven by the fact that the situation of this minority represents the most disputed case with regard to the future of minorities in the Middle East region. I will describe the situation of this community, then elaborate on its future, particularly its representation within the transitional political phase and beyond. I will also consider the roots of radical Islam and its rise in Egyptian society.
The formal state of denial: the ‘foreign hand’ of sedition
In its coverage of the deadly Cairo riots of 9 October 2011, the Egyptian public television channel carried the headline: ‘A soldier martyred by Copts’ bullets’. The propaganda run by this channel in its coverage of violence, the worst in Egypt since former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February 2011, says much about the long and complex struggle between Egyptian Christians and the state. The Egyptian newspapers reproduced the same narrative the day after the demonstrations, while some, more liberal, media outlets talked about ‘martyrs from both camps’.
On the BBC network, the story of the Cairo confrontations, in which 25 people, mostly Copts, died, was totally different. A Christian eyewitness told the BBC correspondent in Cairo: ‘Everything took place directly underneath our house. It all happened so fast. The army moved in with tanks and were literally running over people. You could see bodies all over the place. People were running and screaming’ [3].
This was the most violent day of the Egyptian revolution, when Egypt's largest minority group—Copts—took to the streets to claim their right to worship freely. The first months of the post-Mubarak era have witnessed a spectacular increase in attacks on Copts, along with an increasing show of strength by ultra-conservative Islamists. Although Muslim and Christian Egyptians demonstrated together in Tahrir Square, holding hands and carrying the cross and the crescent, this symbolic show of unity was not expected to go beyond folkloric slogans to tackle the heart of the dilemma of Christian Egyptians.
The formal discourse of the Egyptian authorities, as well as that of al-Azhar, the country's top Muslim institution, and, strangely, the discourse of Coptic religious leaders, reflects the same state of denial that led to long years of ignoring a deep crisis over citizens’ rights and equality before the law and the institutions. Most surprisingly, the leader of the Coptic Church used a slogan dear to the Syrian Assad regime, accusing ‘infiltrators’ (mundassun in Arabic) of being behind the violence. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Shia militia of Hezbollah claimed to have spotted the hand of America in Egypt's sectarian strife!
Although spectacular in its violence, what happened on the night of 9 October offered a sense of déjà vu: for the Egyptian authorities, and for a large part of Egyptian public opinion, it was seen as a security threat to national unity and automatically blamed on foreign hands. ‘This tragedy targeted the security of all Egyptians’, was the first comment made by Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of al-Azhar, in the wake of the riots [3]. Calls for national unity are still resonating as drastic security measures are being taken: forming a fact-finding committee, calling for an emergency meeting, installing a night-time curfew, and deploying additional troops outside the parliament and cabinet buildings. However, the problem lies elsewhere. The political transition to democracy cannot succeed without first recognising minorities as full and equal citizens of the state.
Copts claim that they are treated as second-class citizens, suffering several forms of institutional discrimination. The law requires that Christians request presidential permission for a church to be built, while there is no such requirement for the building of a mosque. Conversions from Christianity to Islam may be legally recognised, but not the other way around. The representation of Christians within institutions is restricted to certain categories and grades, denying them access to the highest ranks. The revolution that began on 25 January 2011 promised to bring some remedies to this situation, but this promise has not materialised.
Facing difficulties in being elected, most Christian political representatives are appointed, although not at satisfactory levels. In the last government under Mubarak, there were 3 Christians among 32 ministers and only one among Egypt's 28 provincial governors. Christians are nearly invisible in the senior ranks of the armed forces and internal security forces. Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) nominated 10 Christians out of a total of more than 750 candidates at the parliamentary elections in November 2010, clearly a poor percentage. Only three of these won seats and Mubarak had to appoint seven others, so that in total Christians represented 2% of the seats in the People's Assembly.
Conversions of Christian women to Islam have frequently been a source of sectarian strife. The media report on women being held ‘hostage’ by the church for fear of their wish to convert to Islam. Islamist groups frequently riot for the ‘release’ of these women. Much media ink was spent on the famous ‘Camilla saga’. In rural Egypt, a young Christian woman married to a priest was unable to get consent from the church for a divorce and desperately sought another way out by converting to Islam. When she tried to carry out this plan, the police handed her over to the church, causing a flurry of demonstrations by Islamist groups demanding her ‘release’, which led to violent confrontations (May 2010). This story was exploited by al-Qaeda in Iraq, which cited this Christian woman as the main reason for the siege of a church in October 2010 that left 68 people dead.
But beyond religious reform and political representation lies a crisis of mutual mistrust between the Egyptian Sunni majority and the largest Christian minority groups. In popular discourse, Copts are often presented as benefiting from economic prosperity and dominating the country's growth. This mistrust can reach the point of questioning the loyalty of Copts to the state and considering them insufficiently trustworthy to occupy powerful positions in decision-making spheres. Behind the traditional official denial of the Copts’ plight lies a popular belief that if they are attacked, it is because they deserve it. This victimisation has led to more religiosity and radicalism among Copts.
Fears about the fate of the Copts after Mubarak: real or exaggerated?
The first months after the ‘25 January revolution’ witnessed a series of attacks on Christians. The large scale and frequency of these attacks pushed Christian communities and their leaders into the anti-democracy camp, not only in Egypt but in various other places in the Arab world, even though Christian communities are usually fierce defenders of Western democratic values. In the last few months, two prominent voices of global Christian leadership have voiced concerns about their communities being persecuted as a result of the Arab Spring. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, predicted ‘extremists filling vacuums left by the ousting of autocratic regimes’, expressing concern about the fate of Christian communities in Egypt and Syria and even speaking of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Christians in northern Iraq [4]. Pope Benedict XVI considered the unrest resulting from the Arab Spring to be ‘a source of anxiety throughout the world’ [6]. A direct reference to Christians being under attack in Egypt infuriated that country's new rulers, who recalled their ambassador from the Vatican for consultation and described the Pope's remarks as ‘unacceptable interference in … internal affairs’ [3].
The media frenzy over the fate of Christians in the emerging new Arab world reached the level of comparing the situation of Christians there today with that of the Jews in Europe on the eve of the Second World War. However, this frenzy neglected one very important reality: the large scale of the attacks on Christian communities under the ousted regimes, which has often had the effect of implicitly empowering Islamic trends. Consider just a few examples from Mubarak's Egypt: the Upper Egyptian village of al-Kosh witnessed the killing of 21 Christians and one Muslim in January 2000; 6 Copts were killed in a drive-by shooting in southern Egypt (in the town of Naga Hamadi) after leaving a late-night mass in January 2010, on the eve of the Coptic Orthodox Christmas; 4 Coptic Christians were shot dead in broad daylight at a jeweller's shop in a busy district of Cairo in May 2008; and in 3 churches in Alexandria, knife attacks took place in April 2006, described by the government as the actions of a ‘deranged’ man. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights recorded 52 cases of attacks on Christians between 2008 and 2010, with none of their perpetrators brought to justice.
The fear of Islamic sharia and constitutional change
Although the likely victory of Islamist groups in the coming elections will come as no surprise, the worst scenario for Christians, who form 7–14% of Egypt's population of 80 million, would be constitutional amendments implementing Islamic sharia law. The failed attempt to abrogate Article 2 of the Egyptian constitution, which states that ‘Islamic sharia law is the main source of legislation’, was the first victory for Islamist groups in the referendum organised after Mubarak was toppled. According to their spokesman Mohammed Hussein Yaaqub, the issue of Article 2 is ‘a matter of life and death for the Salafists’.
However, the roots of these Islamic trends go back beyond the current revolution to the post-Nasser era. When he took power in the 1970s, Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat released Muslim Brotherhood activists from prison and granted them freedom of movement and assembly after being persecuted by Nasser. Most importantly, he amended Article 2 of the constitution to stipulate that ‘Islamic sharia is the principal source of legislation’. Mubarak further nurtured this trend towards greater confusion between religion and the state.
Dr Dalal el-Bizri, a Lebanese researcher who writes extensively on Egyptian political Islam, describes the subtle and malignant Islamisation of Egyptian society under the old regime ‘both because of the beatings to which the Muslim Brotherhood was subjected by Mubarak's regime, and because this oppression was followed or accompanied by highly publicised, cultural support for a religious way of life’ [7].
Mubarak ‘restrained the Ikhwan [the Arab name for the Muslim Brotherhood] on a security level, while he bolstered their intellectual control over society, by unleashing Islamist rhetoric to a degree of utter chaos: sheikhs, preachers, muftis, platforms, screens, media’, writes el-Bizri [7]. These chaotic new trends ‘went beyond the Ikhwan's power of framing and organising. Indeed, a majority of Islamic manifestations in Egypt, women's veils for example, did not automatically imply loyalty to the Brotherhood’, she adds.
Religion and Islam will be central in the coming elections
Although the Muslim Brotherhood were not part of the revolution in its first days, expressing a cautious attitude towards it, they are expected to be the front-runners in the first legislative elections of the post-Mubarak era, scheduled to be held in three phases beginning on 28 November 2011. The new parliament will have six months to draft a new constitution before the presidential elections in 2012.
Although confident of their chances, the Muslim Brotherhood are using a soft approach in growing their popularity. Interviewed by the BBC, Dr Essam el-Erian, the leading figure of Ikhwan, declared that the party is not aiming for a majority: ‘The Egyptian people should see all the major trends represented in parliament: Muslims, Copts, young, old, men, women, leftists, liberals, nationalists, Islamists’ [8]. He added, ‘We learned a lesson from the inclusion of Hamas’, whose election victory in 2006 led to an international boycott.
However, the Muslim Brotherhood face several challenges, including internal divisions between the old guard and the youth, who deserted the organisation after levelling accusations of laxity. The growing competition with Sufi and Salafi factions, which have both proved to have large popular support bases, is also a worrying factor. A likely coalition between Islamist parties will increase the fear of a much more radical stance by the Muslim Brotherhood, who are at present claiming support for the concept of a civil state.
Marina Ottaway, a senior associate with the Middle East programme of the Carnegie Endowment, notes that the attempts by different parties to present themselves as centrists are not convincing to voters, who will cast their votes mainly on the basis of their Islamic or secular affiliations [9]. Thus, while the new Egyptian political scene is buzzing with more than 50 political parties, most of them unknown to voters, the coming landmark vote will witness a bitter competition between secular and Islamist parties, although Islamist forces are confidently expected to win.
Copts keep a low profile in the political transition
In a move to appease the fears of Christians, the Muslim Brotherhood appointed a Christian vice president for their new political party in May 2011. According to the party's own figures, its members include 978 women and 93 Copts [10]. However, this move appears much more as a cosmetic attempt to embellish the party's image ahead of elections than as a real sharing of power. The Islamic group has denounced the recent violence between Copts and the military but blames the Copts for poor timing of their protest, saying that ‘legitimate demands have their channels, way and time’, and adding that ‘Egyptian people as a whole have demands and not just Copts, so that was the wrong time to call for these demands… This is a transitional government and the general circumstances are “abnormal”’ [2].
So far, the Copts seem to have adopted a very low profile when engaging in the political transition process. This can be explained by the growing concerns about a likely alliance between the Ikhwan and Salafi groups. Although they are undeniably competitors, the rise of the Salafi and their ultra-radical discourse is granting the Muslim Brotherhood the opportunity to present themselves as centrists and moderates in their bid to win the confidence of undecided voters. The Coptic human rights activist Wagih Yacoub expressed these fears in a report issued by International Christian Concern: ‘There is no doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi are allied. The Brotherhood plays politics and the Salafi are causing chaos so they can empty Egypt of Christians and make it an Islamic state’ [11].
The costly price to Copts of not engaging
The sad incidents of the 9 October Coptic riots in central Cairo were also an illustration of the discrimination suffered by Copts, a matter which should now be considered as one area of reform to be tackled by any new government. The Maspero riots (the site of the public Egyptian television station, which witnessed the bloody confrontations between the army and demonstrators) allowed the cause of Copts’ rights to be more visible, at least in the cyber-activist arena. Indeed, social media is booming with websites dedicated to the ‘Maspero martyrs’ and especially to the fate of a young Coptic activist, Mina Daniel, who was killed in the confrontations—reported to have been shot in the head by the army. The story of Mina, with his romantic looks and long hair resembling the revolutionary icon Che Guevara, inflamed the new media feeds and became a symbol of young Copts fighting for their rights. Most importantly, the Maspero incidents pushed Coptic activists to loudly voice their grievances about one of their most prominent difficulties: the image usually transmitted by public media in Egypt of Copts as outsiders, even as conspirators against the state. Hundreds of Facebook sites broadcast a video film showing a presenter on Egyptian public television announcing with anger that some soldiers of the Egyptian army had been killed ‘not by Israeli fire, but by an Egyptian group’ who had dared to attack the army, the symbol of the country's independence and power. This video, in which the presenter is openly inciting viewers against the Copts, provided a perfect opportunity for Copts to voice their anger about how they are represented in the media, as well as in popular imagery beyond the media. Mina's mother has been a frequent guest on televised debates, along with the mother of Khalid Saeed, a young Egyptian Muslim activist allegedly beaten to death in June 2011.
The implied message of this media surge goes beyond the traditional slogans of unity between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. It is an indirect recognition of the validity of the Copts’ cause as one of many reforms that Egyptians are striving to realise in their struggle for democracy. Mina is not being represented as a troublemaker but as a fighter for his rights.
But beyond this recent experience of taking to the streets and voicing their grievances via social media, the historical passivity of the Copts and their inability to organise themselves into efficient structures integrated into the larger community is also a source of their marginalisation. In Coptic discourse, the main problem is protecting the Christian community rather than fighting for the rights to full citizenship and thus questioning the community's relationship to the state and its institutions. Much has been said about their right to build churches and to protect them. A lot of media ink was used to write about the Copts’ anger over their women converting to Islam to liberate themselves from the firm restrictions of the church. While freedom of worship, equality of sects and security are essential, the political arena has yet to be explored by Egyptian Copts, especially in this transitional phase. Indeed, Egyptian Copts seems to be absent from the debates surrounding the transitional phase, confined to their long-standing security concerns and their fears of Islamic extremism. This can be explained by the large scale of the attacks against them and the lax reaction of the authorities, implicitly encouraging a situation of impunity.
But can the Coptic community afford to risk even greater marginalisation by opting for more exclusion at such a crucial time for the future of their country? Yousef Sidhoum, editor of the Coptic newspaper al-Watani, admits that Christian Egyptians cannot afford to pay this price. He has written that ‘the Copts of Egypt cannot afford to fall into grief and desperation. They must strive to be an integral part of the current transitional process by stepping into the political arena and joining liberal parties where they are now welcomed.’ He argues that ‘along with moderate Muslims they can support the idea of a civil state for Egypt and keep fundamentalists at bay’ [5].
The position granted to a Coptic intellectual as deputy leader of the new Muslim Brotherhood political party has not led to a real empowerment of the community. Many Coptic intellectual and financial figures are trying to find their place in the new phase, but without real weight. One, the telecom mogul Naguib Sawiris, launched a secular political party (the Party of Free Egyptians) in a bid to challenge the growing influence of Islamists. However, this party requires equal numbers of Muslim and Christian members. Being labelled as ‘the Coptic party’ will severely hinder the party's chances to realise any breakthrough.
Going beyond their church's fate, it is crucial for the Copts, as the largest Egyptian minority group, to reposition their struggle for their rights, in order to tackle the most important grievances—those related to citizenship and political rights. It is equally important to free this debate from the banner of religiosity that has limited it and transformed it in some situations into a fight between two extremist groups, Muslim and Christian, leaving the authorities unquestioned about their responsibility for acknowledging Copts as equal citizens who do not need special protection in order to survive in their country, but equal rights and status before the law. The emerging Coptic activism is very much governed by fears of the future, not by the will to secure a decent place in it.
Conclusion: will the Arab revolutions break with the legacy of the past?
Along with women's rights, the status of minorities has often been used by rogue regimes to paint an image of themselves as tolerant and modern. While their political opponents were being subjected to the most horrifying torture in prison, these regimes were open to modernising their legislation with regard to women's representation and status. They also marketed themselves as the main guarantors of security and fair representation for minorities. Indeed, most minority communities’ representatives have made their way to power through appointments and rarely by ballot. The difficult integration of these communities, nurtured by negative stereotypes and animosity, was used by the regimes to grant themselves an alternative legitimacy, thus counterbalancing their abuses of human rights.
This preferential treatment did not mean that the minorities had been granted real political or economic weight within the system. In return, they had to demonstrate absolute obedience and play the role of the cane that supports the regime when crises arise and its legitimacy is seriously questioned. Obedience has been the price of security. For these vulnerable communities, such suspect relations with the regimes were inevitable. The wall of fear is thick.
The Arab Spring faces many challenges, especially that of defending religious tolerance in the face of fanaticism. The Lebanese writer Hazem Saghieh has brilliantly described the thorny test the new Arab world is facing in order to break with its past of passivity and submission. He writes, ‘This is a crucial moment for the Arabs. They have employed modern methods to make revolutions and build protest movements. So far these tools have been put to use in a skilful way. But different elements are needed to build democratic republics. The test of the other Arab exception is pressing’ [12].