One-Dimensional People

by Dr. Abd El Moneim Said (د. عبد المنعم سعيد)
Published in the 24 April 2006 issue of Nahdat Misr (نهضة مصر), Egypt
Original title: أصحاب البعد الواحد!‏

(For background on the topic of this article, please see Muslim-Christian Relations in Egypt.)

I was invited to begin this article with a kind of beginning that I have never used; I don’t think any other writer would venture to use it either, because in the art of writing, there is nothing worse than beginning with a prediction. To make predictions about human beings and society is to court disaster; it is generally accepted that, the relevant factors and circumstances being highly interconnected and changeable, to state one’s expectations about what may happen is to risk one’s reputation and one’s standing as a scholar. But things are different in this case; I am more certain this time than I have ever been before, or am likely to be in the future. What happened in Alexandria in recent weeks held no surprises for me, except for the identity of the person who attacked churchgoers with his two swords, the identities of the victims and the fact that it took place in Alexandria. I wasn’t expecting any of these details, nor did I know anything about the time or place or the people involved, yet I knew that some sort of ‘sectarian strife’ was going to occur. What I can predict now, before the end of the first paragraph of this article, is that what happened in Alexandria will happen again. This prediction cannot fail to come true, because we have not done, nor will we do, anything different from what we are used to doing in all cases of sectarian strife; therefore, there is no reason to be surprised when the entire situation repeats itself, even though the time, the place, the people involved, and the other details are different.

The certainty of this prediction does not reflect any lack of demonstrations attended by well-intentioned people carrying crescent moons and crosses together, or any shortage of attempts by intellectuals to raise people’s awareness of the rules of citizenship. It is a realistic expectation because the nation has undergone a structural change; it has become a one-dimensional nation, producing only different sorts of bigotry and aggressive behaviour. The most dangerous aspect of this transformation is that is has taken place under the gaze of the government, the political parties (both within and outside the opposition) and the civil society organisations (liberal and otherwise), and that none of them has been able to have the slightest effect on it. This doesn’t mean that what has gone wrong can no longer be set right; on the contrary, it seems to me that we can still return to the normal course of Egyptian patriotism and citizenship, but that we lack the courage and the will to make this happen.

Unstable Nation

by Ibrahim Eissa (إبراهيم عيسى)
Published in the 19 April 2006 issue of Al-Dustur (الدستور), Egypt
Original title: وطن المختل!‏

(For background on the topic of this article, please see Muslim-Christian Relations in Egypt.)

It’s a disaster when the greatest victory for Muslims in Egypt is a Christian teenage girl’s announcement that she’s converting to Islam.

A girl’s conversion, or a [Coptic] woman’s attempt to divorce her husband [by converting to Islam], is widely praised. Then there is strong support and great rejoicing, as if we had invaded Europe with our science and our exports, as if we had invented a cure for hepatitis C, or discovered an equation in physics that was going to change science and the world, as if we had defeated Israel. Indeed, there are enthusiastic young people campaigning for the sake of that woman or that girl, as if they were doing battle alongside the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), while preaching inane, repugnant sectarian hate. The abundant, worthless sectarian media bring us this sort of news every day, expressing feelings of joy and nourishing feelings of malicious glee. It’s a disaster when Muslims demonstrate not to end the tyranny of the State, or to bring to justice the corrupt officials and powerful crooks who are robbing our country, but when instead, a village is shaken or a whole town is up in arms because Christians were contemplating, planning or beginning the construction of an additional room in a church, or the installation of a bell on a wall, as if the very existence of Islam was in danger and the whole Muslim world was facing disaster. Therefore thousands of people set out to demolish the church, or beat up the Christians, as if the building of a church was a defeat for Islam and a victory for Christianity, a reason for a holy war!