Perhaps the one following the policy of the Egyptian government in its dealings with the Copts, may have several mental reservations, the most important one is that the Copts have demands, they form a considerable segment of the Egyptian society, they are real Egyptian citizens and not intruders or strangers, and that they are not just one of the communities.
Nevertheless this segment, which represents 16% of the Egyptian population, is still being treated by the State like a doctor with a patient, the senior towards the junior, or an owner of an organization towards a laborer; as if the Copts have to tell themselves, that they have to accept whatever ‘grants’ is bestowed on them by the State, and even those grants, are destined to be receive in small doses.
Let us discuss these facts just for the sake of confirmation. The Copts, as any other community in a society, suffer from harassments, which sometimes escalate to reach the level of persecution, and sometimes they are just pushed back into oblivion. What is considered as rights enjoyed by the majority in most countries’ systems and laws, are for the Copts, within their relationship with the State, still subject to ‘exceptional decrees’ being issued.
None of the countries in the whole wide world has ever prevented its citizens from building places for worship ‘by law’ except in Egypt. The issue of building places for worship is still in the hands of the ruler of Egypt, and the Ottoman decree still controls the destiny of millions of Christians in building their places of worship. However, the problem has reached the stage of controlling their daily lives, and bringing them to task in case of suspicion.
There are many of those incidents to which the Copts have been subjected to, specially in the villages of Egypt, when a simple villager wishing to add another floor to his house or to build a simple flat for his son or daughter to be used when married, his house has been quickly surrounded by the police, and the license for these modifications would be refused, on the pretext that this citizen intends to build a church, as if a church is something evil!
I have many serious incidents on file in the governorates of Minya el-Qamh, Sharqya and in Minofya, and I hold documents to back up my allegations, which proves the oppression against the Copts in these villages. We see the municipal authorities in these villages shift the burden to the security and the security shifting it to the municipals, and hence rights get lost in a country which claims the rule of law.
Let us go back to where we started, to say that the series of neglect or marginalization of the Copts is still the predominant factor in dealing with this segment of the Egyptian society. Do you know that the last ‘dose’ or last ‘grant’ given to the Copts was in 2004, when the President of the Republic amended his authority to license for the renovation or buttressing of churches and gave it to the governors, while he kept for himself the authority to grant a license for the building of any new church.
Except for making the 7th January (Coptic Christmas) as a public holiday, the series of attacks on Coptic churches and places of worship is still going on, something which is protected by the failure of the State to issue the ‘uniform law for the construction of places of worship’.
The Copts, a segment of society totaling more than 15 million people, are still living on the margin of ‘citizenship’, the pride of the regime, which despite the latest modifications to the Constitution came lacking in content.
Until now the State dare not appoint a Copt among the 23 public university presidents.
The governing political party spoke about a quota for women representation in the Peoples’ Assembly or the Shu’ra Council, allocating 2 seats for women from each governorate, apart from the seats for the independent or the other parties. We expect the representation of women in the next elections for the Peoples’ Assembly to be not less than 60 seats devoted for women, while the National party did not mention any ratio for the Copts.
The State approved many laws, such as the traffic law, the environment law, the bird flu law, without presenting even for discussion the ‘uniform law for the construction of places of worship’. The State gave due care to the Child’s Act, which is already issued, but did not bother to issue a law to stop the discrimination against the Copts in employment and in occupying important positions, a law which would put an end to the discrimination between citizens on the basis of religious affiliation, or to issue severe penalties against such practices.
The state is still lax and negligent in its fight to stamp out the culture of extremism and fundamentalism which has infiltrated the educational system and the municipalities. Hence we find those who Islamize education as a system and in the educational syllabus. We find those who Islamize the Capital’s streets and squares with Muslim names, without taking into any consideration the history or culture of Egypt.
The culture of Egypt could not rise without two wings, one of which is the Coptic culture. Even the Art and the Egyptian cinema, when it wanted to present the Copts, they searched for topics which interfere with the core faith of the Copts, such as fasting and marriage. The cinema insisted on the one model for national unity, when the movie’s Muslim hero marries the Christian heroine, without offering the possibility of a Christian hero marrying a Muslim heroine, a topic the cinema refuses completely and dare not tackle it.
When we reach this part, which is the one before the last in this article, it will explain that what we really meant by ‘marginalization’ was just a polite term, but the fact is, that the Copts do not occupy any place in the State’s conscious.
Is this oblivion on the part of the ruling regime on purpose or not? Is it to create a balance in society? Is it due to its fear of the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence which is widely embedded in the mentality, culture, trade, sale and buying practices, and the State certainly has to take all these factors into consideration.
Is it because the Copts are known to be kind-hearted and peaceful people, who interpret narrowly the Holy Bible’s verse "If someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other cheek as well", or the Egyptian proverb, "he took my lunch and took my dinner"? Is it because the Copts are not good at strikes and protests? Or was the State’s oblivion due to all these factors altogether? Are they just not present in the State’s conscious during this critical phase? Or is it that whenever there is a honeymoon between the State and the Church, the rights of the Copts go lost in turn? This is what we have witnessed when the obedient Copts went out in millions to vote for President Mubarak’s present term, as instructed by the Church.
I hope that my words would not be misunderstood as instigation to the Copts, or a call to abandon their calm and peacefulness. All the same we fear, and rightly so, that the State’s ‘thoughts’ might not be preoccupied with the rights of the Copts and their problems. We fear more that the problems of the Copts are discussed by the people in authority and specialists only on the margin of the main agenda; we also fear that the Coptic issues are only discussed when a fatal incident happens.
Would Muslims accept that their destinies, their civil and social status hang in the air for four years? They are neither married nor single, are they university students or just high school leavers? Well, this is what is presently happening to the filed lawsuits pertaining to the freedom of Copts to reconvert back to their Christian faith, which are still without verdict, on pretext that just one Muslim lawyer filed an appeal to the content of one of the articles of the law, considering those reverts to Christianity as apostates.
We are not able to ascertain where the mood of the State is heading for, to be able to work towards its moderation.
The Copts know only too well that if there is a political will to do or order something, then it will happen and nothing can stand in its way. It is to be remembered that the new law for the teachers’ classifications, was issued in July 2006 through a presidential decree, during the recess of the legislative Peoples’ Assembly.
Was it not possible for the President to issue a decree having the force of law for the ‘uniform law for the construction of places of worship’?
Let it be know to all, that the Copts, through the principle of citizenship, have the patience and will never ever forget that they have equal rights to their Muslim brothers; besides, they also have the hope that can never fail and the peace that fills every heart. ‘He, who has an ear, let him hear’.
Dr. Naguib Gibrael,
President
"Egyptian Union"
Organization for Human Rights.
Translated from Arabic into English by Voice of the Copts member.