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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Focus Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A snag in the national fabric
By Omayma Abdel-LatifA leading sociologist has vowed to forge ahead with organising conferences which lump the Copts of Egypt together with the ethnic and religious minorities of the Arab world. His gatherings have drawn heavy criticism in intellectual circles, but Saadeddin Ibrahim, head of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Developmental Studies, remains defiant.
"We will continue to hold these conferences every year in due time, even if we don't have anything new to say, because this is a matter of principle," Ibrahim said.
The sixth annual conference has gone almost unnoticed, but some of its proceedings that became public knowledge triggered a wave of opposition, recalling the events of May 1994 when the first such gathering when widespread criticism obliged the organisers to move the venue to Cyprus. "We don't invent any of these sectarian incidents and we don't call Copts a minority. We only document cases through surveys, interviews and studies," Ibrahim told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The conference, which opened on 27 May and lasted for two days, brought together more than 60 intellectuals from Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and Sudan.
According to the conference's final communiqué, it reviewed "the issues of ethnic groups in Kurdistan [Iraq], occupied Palestine, Sudan and Egypt." It was the latter point that triggered the anger of some intellectuals, who argued that the Copts of Egypt should not be lumped together with the southerners of Sudan and the Kurds of northern Iraq, since the latter are ethnic minorities with distinct cultures while Copts are not.
"The conference seems to adopt the agenda of a handful of Coptic expatriates," wrote Said Abdel-Khaleq, co-editor of the Wafd newspaper, mouthpiece of the Wafd party, in an editorial on Saturday. Abdel-Khaleq lambasted the conference's organiser, whom he described as "a self-appointed spokesman for the Copts of Egypt and the minorities of the Arab world." Abdel-Khaleq criticised a statement issued by the conference entitled "A Call to the Nation," putting on record sectarian events from 1971 until 2000.
"It contains the same claims and allegations often made by a few Coptic expatriates in the US and Canada who want to create sectarian strife in Egypt," Abdel-Khaleq told the Weekly. According to Abdel-Khaleq, Ibrahim threatened to publish the statement on the Internet. Abdel-Khaleq said that Ibrahim told the conference that he was going to buy space and publish the statement in newspapers and threatened that, if he was turned down, he would go online. "Why is he insisting on making an issue out of it? Why does he insist on putting Copts in the minority category when he knows, and we know, that they are not?" Abdel-Khaleq added.
In response, Ibrahim denied that he ever threatened to put the statement on the Internet or act as a spokesman for Copts. "No matter what the context in which such issues are discussed, the real problem is that these people have concerns and that these concerns have to be addressed and not completely ignored as is the case now," Ibrahim told the Weekly. Sources at the centre denied that the conference is funded by any foreign organisation. The conference coordinator, Sameh Fawzi, said that a separate day was devoted to discussing Coptic issues so that they might not be mixed with other minority issues under discussion.
It was after the Al-Kosheh incidents of December 1999, in which 20 Copts were killed in southern Egypt, that many voices were raised, urging a more serious approach to extremism.
However, the majority wanted the discussion of Coptic concerns to be within a national context. "The concerns and problems of Copts should be treated from the perspective that they are Egyptian citizens," Fawzi said.
A human rights activist, who is a Copt but chose to remain anonymous, said that what vests the Coptic issue with sectarian overtones is the fact that the Church intervenes in politics. "The Church should confine itself to religious matters and politics should be dealt with by civil society organisations," the activist said. He suggested that the Coptic Community Council, a secular body affiliated to the Church, should be charged with dealing with all Coptic social and political issues. In view of approaching parliamentary elections in November, political participation by Copts has been one of the issues that gained priority at this year's gathering. Talaat Gadalla, a former press officer for the Coptic Orthodox Church, in a paper on Copts and the 2000 elections, raised the question whether the Egyptian government was going to allow an acceptable Coptic participation that would put an end to the conspicuous absence of Copts from parliament.
"We believe, after all the guarantees and assurances provided by President Hosni Mubarak, that the elections will be free and fair, and that a wider participation by both Copts and Muslims will be allowed," Gadalla said. In his view, however, the road before Coptic candidates will not be smooth if candidates use the religion card. He warned that the nomination of Copts by both the opposition and the ruling party should not be "merely decorative so that it might be said that they had Coptic names." Instead, both the ruling party and opposition should fully support Coptic candidates, he said.
"We believe that the vote should not be painted as either Coptic or Muslim. Any candidate should seek the votes of all Egyptians; this is the only criterion to transcend the discourse that divides society along sectarian lines," Gadalla added.
According to Fawzi, this year's most important recommendation perhaps is the call on all political forces to nominate significant numbers of Copts and women in the forthcoming elections. Civil society and the intellectual elite were also urged to play a role in steering the relationship between Copts and Muslims clear from disharmony, rejecting the view that this relationship is a "security issue."
