Attacks on the Abbassyia Cathedral : The Price of Violence Against Egypt's Copts !!.

Attacks on the Abbassyia Cathedral : The Price of Violence Against Egypt's Copts!.

At midday on Sunday, April 7, 2013, a mob gathered outside the Cathedral of St. Mark in Abbassyia, Cairo, and began to pelt it with stones and Molotov cocktails. Soon the police also began to fire tear gas into the cathedral compound. Shots and birdshot flew. By last count, two were dead and scores injured. The initial melee outside the cathedral developed into a siege that lasted until darkness.

Earlier in the day, the cathedral, the main seat of the Egyptian Coptic Christian Church, was the scene of an emotional funeral for four Copts killed in the town of Al Khosous.

The events at Al Khosous are one example of the religious tinderbox that Egypt has become in the last few years. Early reports suggest that a youth drew a swastika on a mosque, although his identity and religious affiliation are unclear. A Muslim crowd mistook it for a cross and went on a rampage burning attacking buildings and stores, many owned by Copts. One Muslim and four Copts lost their lives.

Those with a deep understanding of the current state of the Copts in Egypt could sense immediately that Sunday’s attack was a more serious affair than the massacre at Maspero in October 2011, even if the loss of life was smaller and the horror less visible.

There are many reasons to emphasize the seriousness of Sunday’s attack. It should be noted at the outset that the Coptic community is not monolithic, but has many different currents running along economic, class, political and age lines. Many Copts warned against the Maspero march in 2011, whereas the attack on the cathedral drew unanimous condemnations across the community. The Maspero events were a brief spasm of violence by panicky soldiers, while the siege of the cathedral was a sustained affair, with the police occasionally standing by according to some eyewitness accounts . The Ministry of Interior blamed the riot on Coptic mourners.

Then there is also the symbolic importance of the Abbassiya Cathedral. Built in the 1960s with considerable effort, and inaugurated by the late president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1968 with great fanfare, it is seen by Copts as affirmation of their status as equal Egyptian citizens. The inauguration of the cathedral in June 1968 came on the heels of what the Coptic faithful claimed were apparitions of the Virgin Mary in April of the same year, dubbed “her return” to Egypt to provide maternal comfort to a defeated nation.

The siege produced iconic and searing images of parishioners huddled inside a church while a mob raged outside and of other parishioners asking to be let in by showing signs of the cross tattooed on their wrists. It is bad enough that in recorded history, there is no record of the papal seat ever having been attacked – the fact that it occurred under the new rule of the Muslim Brotherhood underlined the accompanying anxiety. This is, as far as Copts are concerned, a major watershed event – because they believe it is the first time it has ever happened. While President Morsi declared that the “attack on the cathedral is an attack on me personally,” young Muslim Brotherhood cadres took to social media with incendiary comments. Some tweets even expressed delight in the attack on the building that “Nasser built from money stolen from Muslims.” Morsi’s party, the Freedom and Justice Party, declared the events the work of hidden hands determined to wreck Egypt. To many Egyptians of all faiths, the attack on the cathedral seemed less an act of violence against a building than an assault on a certain vision of Egypt.

Two questions need to be asked. Was the attack on the cathedral an irrational event? Are the underlying causes the fault of the current Islamist leadership? The short answers are “no” and “perhaps.” Understanding the roots of the ills that caused the attack is central to any effort to lift Egypt out of its current funk.

The project of political Islamism devalues the concept of equal citizenship, which is essential for governing successful modern states. The strongest proof of political Islamism’s commitment to devaluing equality comes not from the views of critics, nor the writings of Islamist thinkers, but from the actions of President Morsi, who gambled his entire presidency, and risked plunging Egypt into chaos, to ram through a constitution designed to do just that. There is fear among Islamists that failure in Egypt will mean the rolling back of their project or perhaps its demise. Egypt is the birthplace of political Islamism and also its thorniest case because of the existence of the Copts—a large, stubbornly nationalistic, natively Christian and inherently Egyptian part of society.

Both Maspero and the cathedral siege have common roots. A video emerged late on Sunday showing Copts leaving the funeral chanting against President Morsi, declaring that “Egypt is our land” and demanding that “Copts raise their heads high.” These are similar to chants at the Maspero march. In both cases, Copts’ affirmation that they will not settle for second-class citizenship seems to have taken many, including Islamists, by surprise. Copts have a history of martyrdom, enduring centuries of persecution under many rulers, as their Book of Saints “the Synaxarion” makes clear. The faithful of the Coptic communion see the hand of God at work in that the Coptic Church is the only North African-founded church extant after the spread of Arab rule, while historians attribute it to the Church’s deep Egyptian roots and other factors. Regardless of this, many Copts today seem less inclined to accept anything less than full recognition of their Egyptian-ness and civic membership of the majority, while upholding their religious identities. In short, they demand respect for themselves as Copts and equality as Egyptians.

The change in attitude may have many causes. The sense that there is little ground left to cede, the effect of decades of Coptic modernization, which left the flock more confident in the face of modernity, the rise of global support for civil rights, and perhaps the new presence of large and successful non-Egyptian Coptic communities lending support when necessary. In a dialogue of the deaf, when Copts use the word “fight” they largely mean a peaceful moral struggle for recognition and rights, while the Islamists hear armed sedition. The idea that Copts will not cower seems to send many in the Islamist movements (such Salim Al Awa, Wagdy Ghoneim and Safwat Hegazy) into flights of fancy, spinning tales of monks hoarding automatic weapons and churches as cleverly concealed armories. But it would not do to simply dismiss these claims as fringe lunacy. They are an expression of deep fears among Islamists about the idea of an Egypt where religious identity and Islamist notions of power and privilege do not determine the face of the state and the country.

Long decades of unjust suppression of Islamists have allowed them to develop a dishonest narrative of their ideology. Now, at the threshold of power, they are unable to escape providing honest answers to critical questions. Can political Islamism govern in a free and democratic fashion, never mind liberal, with 10% of the population in effective second-class status? Liberal opposition to the Islamists is weak, but that has not redounded to their benefit. In an electoral field dominated by Islamists of one stripe or another, the risk is of competition based on the most restrictive and coercive version of political Islamism. Can a country flourish in such environment, especially one poor in natural resources and in need of massive foreign investments to support growth? Violence against Copts carries a high price, both for the safety of Copts and the prosperity of all Egyptians. Political Islamism is now facing its internal contradictions, and it is not fanciful to believe that Copts may be the rock on which the surging wave will break.

But what of the Copts? Their response to the increasingly precarious situation has been varied. Many are emigrating, denying Egypt of much-needed talent. Others are determined to stay. Few in the world at large appreciate the tenacity and serene faith of the Copts, even the non-religious ones. And the picture is not wholly negative as many Egyptian Muslims are supportive of Copts’ rights and continue to push for a civil state.

Perhaps it is best to close with the words of my uncle, Egyptian historian Aziz S. Atiya, written four decades ago; once thought, and now hoped to be, true, not only of the Copts but of their beloved Egypt.

“Like a great and solitary Egyptian temple standing sorrowfully on the edge of the desert and weathering sandstorms over the years until it became submerged by the accretions of time, the ancient Coptic Church led its lonely life unnoticed on the fringe of Christian civilization and was buried in the sands of time and oblivion. Like the same massive temple, too, it has proved itself to be indestructible though battered by the winds of change. As an organism, its potential vitality, though enfeebled by sustained fighting, has survived in a latent form under the weight of accumulated rubble. In the last few decades, with increasing security and liberty from within and support and sympathy from without, its sons and daughters have started removing the sands of time from around the edifice, which has shown signs of shining again.”

Dr. Maged Atiya is an Egyptian-American physicist and businessman. He often writes and comments on Egyptian affairs.