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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Meeting Mr Seipel
By Salama Ahmed Salama
Anyone looking for evidence of oppression in Egypt will be hard pressed to find anything remotely resembling racial or religious persecution, or even legal discrimination on the grounds of sex or religion. In certain neighbouring states, on the other hand, Arabs and Jews are physically segregated in settlements, cities, and villages; entire regions are set apart for those of a certain religion and there is absolutely no equality in the constitutional and civil rights of the different religions.
When Robert Seipel, head of the special congressional committee on religious freedoms, met with prominent Egyptian Muslims and Copts over a working lunch hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, observers had proof that right-wing trends in the US are spearheaded by Zionists and by Egyptian Copts who left Egypt decades ago and have no idea what is going on in the country. The US administration, clearly, can hardly claim to defend religious freedoms in Egypt.
Two leading opposition figures, No'man Gomaa, deputy head of the Wafd Party and Rifaat El-Said, the secretary-general of the Tagammu Party, expressed their astonishment at US attempts to intervene in Muslim-Copt relations. Our society has been free from religious bias for many centuries. The culture, habits and traditions passed from one generation to the next have culminated in a unique situation, unknown to other societies: most of the differences between Muslims and Copts have faded away.
A noted Coptic priest said recently that there is no religious oppression in Egypt because there has never been a war between Copts and Muslims. Copts and Muslims alike have borne oppression by foreign powers together.
There is a problem, however: one of social development. If the US really wanted to see human rights respected and religious freedoms guaranteed, it should be working to help nations develop socially and economically. The ongoing crisis in the nations of the Third World is not a religious but a development crisis, and one example is that wealthier urban Egyptians rarely harbour a religious bias one way or the other. It is usually in poor areas, deprived of funds, health care and education, that religious fanaticism raises its head.
Well-known businessman Samih Sawiris said that US intervention in Egypt's religious affairs created more problems than it solved. The US has been around for no more than 200 years; Egypt has been here for several millennia, and Muslims and Copts have learned to solve their problems without outside intervention. As Mona Makram Ebeid noted, it is only natural that Egypt, like all other societies, should have problems; the important thing is that they be discussed freely. There are no taboos as far as discussing relations between Muslims and Copts in Egypt goes. The government has never hesitated to change school curricula when these gave students false information. In the same manner, Egyptian history was rewritten during the revolutionary era to include those who had been voiceless for so long.
Adel Bishay, professor of economics at the American University in Cairo, is also convinced that campaigns carried out by Copts living abroad are behind all the trouble. He believes that most of these emigrants left Egypt under difficult economic and political conditions; after many years abroad, they missed their homeland and blamed themselves for leaving. Then they searched for pretexts to justify their departure. Every Egyptian who emigrated has sought to justify his or her decision in a similar way, Bishay noted.
After all these remarks, Mr Seipel had no further questions. His silence seemed to indicate that he was both pleased and, perhaps, disappointed. I am certainly looking forward to reading the US's report on religious freedoms in Egypt when it is made public next September.
