http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1100/eg8.htm
31 May - 6 June 2012
Issue No. 1100
Egypt Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Copts' cause for caution
The misconception that Christians voted blindly for Shafik bears closer
examination, contends Gamal Nkrumah
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"I can add colours to the chameleon. Change shapes with Proteus, for
advantages," -- Shakespeare's Henry VI
Click to view caption
Christian nuns cast their votes
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"Let us go back to the beginning," MP Emad Gad tells Al-Ahram Weekly.
"What were relations with Muslims like before the 25 January Revolution? They
were not good," one of eight Coptic MPs in the Egyptian People's Assembly, he
expounded to the Weekly.
"The Copts have been forced to choose between the lesser of two evils," he
added.
Kamal Zakher, a distinguished Coptic Christian activist, secularist and layman,
refuted the notion that Copts voted for ex-president Hosni Mubarak's henchman
Ahmed Shafik en-masse.
"No one has the right to ask me in a democracy who I will be casting my vote
for. It's a personal prerogative. Coptic Christians suffer from much the same
deplorable social and economic conditions as their Muslim compatriots.
Christians have been subject to human rights violations and atrocities since
the 1970s until now. Copts have not faired particularly well under the Mubarak
administration. The massacres at Al-Khanka and Alexandria as well as in Aswan
2012 after the 25 January Revolution demonstrate that Christians have been
subjected to the most brutal human rights abuses, both before and after the
revolution."
It did not take long for Copts to understand that they are facing a political
dilemma. The less motivated the Christian voter, the less committed to cast his
or her vote for one of the candidates. Christians in Egypt have a natural
aversion to vote for what they perceive as a facist-Islamist trend as
personified by the Muslim Brotherhood's Mursi. The irony is that the less
certain the Christian voter is the more cartoonish the politics.
"Coptic Christian youth have voted overwhelmingly for Nasserist presidential
candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. The older generation of Copts have opted instead for
military strongman Ahmed Shafik. There is an obvious generation gap that splits
the Coptic vote. The very notion that the Coptic vote is a monolith is not
true."
Consigning Coptic Christians in Egypt to the counter-revolutionary dustbin is
unfair and untrue.
Indeed, some of the worst atrocities committed against Christians in the
country's contemporary history were committed under the regime of ex-president
Hosni Mubarak.
The Muslim Brotherhood's bid for Mohamed Musri as president lays bare their
hunger for political office, according to many Coptic Christians, and leaves
questions over their convictions and motives concerning giving Christians full
citizenship rights in Egypt.
What does come across strongly is that a majority of Christians will cast their
vote to Shafik, not particularly because they are enthused with the fulul, the
remnants of the Mubarak regime, but rather because of their dread of an
Islamist takeover.
Unfortunately, as many Muslims in Egypt perceive the situation, the gloves came
off this month when Mursi garnered the most votes. The impact was instant.
Christians decided en-masse to opt for Shafik. There are more than enough
policy differences between Shafik and Mursi to fill a campaign without
impugning on the character of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Yet it is a virtuoso display of Shafik's political instincts and tactical
skills to cultivate the Christian and the secularist Muslim vote.
It is a delicate task. Shafik has long been used to vicious whispering
campaigns about his association with Mubarak. But, frankly speaking, most
Christians could care less.
Mursi's pitch for the presidency is based on cultivating the trust of the
conservative constituency, invariably the Islamist one.
Christians in Egypt have to skirt round a tangled political scene. They are
obliged to vote for Shafik for the sake of their own survival.
Less clear is where Shafik's real convictions towards the Christian cause lie.
Christians, it appears, do not particularly care where he stands, or even if he
is going to champion their cause, what they care about is denying power to the
Islamists.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been ambiguous about the status of Christians in a
presumably secularist state. Again some Christians fear that the Muslim
Brotherhood's aim is to make a virtue of such ambiguity.
What counts as far as the Christians are concerned is constancy and
consistency. Mursi has not assuaged their fears, instead he seems to advocate
the notion that Muslims and Christians must go their own separate ways.
In Upper Egypt, Muslims and Christians invariably live in separate villages or
in certain sections of a village. In Coptic Christian majority areas of Upper
Egypt the pro-Shafik vote is estimated to have been as high as 95 per cent.
Titillating tales to tickle the diehard Islamists who view Christians as fifth
columnists bent on hijacking their political agenda.
In metropolises such as Cairo, Giza and Alexandria a sizeable number of Coptic
Christians voted for Nasserist presidential candidate Sabahi, this is
especially true of the younger and better-educated Christians.
Can it make sense for Islamist policy-makers to stick with their policies
regardless of adverse changes in circumstances and the results of the first
round of the presidential poll?
Most Coptic Christians in Egypt think not. That is why they are highly unlikely
to opt for the Muslim Brotherhood. Some Christians, admittedly a pitiful few,
voted for Islamist and former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim
Abul-Fotouh who once accused Christian monasteries of harbouring weapons and
sheltering underground Christian fundamentalist fighters.
It is of pivotal importance to put this in proper perspective. Overall, some 60
per cent of the eligible Coptic electorate voted for Shafik in the first round
of the presidential poll, which leaves 40 per cent as a sizeable chunk.
Samir Morcos, a notable Coptic intellectual, believes that Christians are in
danger of sinking into an ocean of analogies. This does not necessarily mean,
however, that they have little truck with logic.
He rightly argues that the policy of Shafik and his ilk is poorly designed. It
does not guarantee Coptic or minority citizenship rights and indeed might
trigger an anti-Christian backlash.
Unfortunately, this is inconsistent with the policy of the Muslim Brothers.
They, unkind souls, in Christian eyes, do not believe that Copts are entitled
to full citizenship rights.
Sabahi has a reputation for consensus building. This is why he has attracted
the attention of many young and secularist Christians.
Yet within this diversity it is possible to discern glimpses of the sort of
leadership Sabahi can provide.
As things stand, the best hope is that Christians are not turned into
scapegoats if Shafik wins, and those youth that orchestrated the 25 January
Revolution along with the Islamists who hijacked it.
This sounds like the script of a sickening horror film for many Coptic
Christians.
Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court has yet to rule over the disqualification
of Shafik.
"Full citizenship rights for all Egyptians must be guaranteed by the laws of
the land. I do not expect overnight change. Obviously, change is a long-term
process. At the moment Copts must either accept second, third or even fourth
rate class citizenship or flee the country," said Samia Sidhom, columnist with
Egypt's leading Coptic newspaper Watani."
The former United Nations secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, head of the
National Council for Human Rights, concurred. "Our urgent task at the moment is
to uphold citizenship rights, for Christians, for women and for all
disadvantaged groups."
In Upper Egypt, the Coptic vote was overwhelmingly in favour of Shafik, just as
the Muslim vote was predominantly in favour of Mursi.
Coptic Christian ³©migr³© communities in North America, Europe and Australia,
contrary to what might have been expected, did not vote overridingly for
Shafik. "We as ³©migr³© Copts champion the revolutionary ideals of Tahrir
Square," Coptic lawyer and rights activist in Australia Kamal Boutros told
Al-Ahram Weekly.
Mariz Tadros, research fellow at Sussex University's Institute of Development
Studies and co-author with Akram Habib of The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist
Politics in the Middle East, asserts that Egypt is at the threshold of a new
political dispensation. She is cautiously optimistic that if Christians play
their hand this could ease the way to further understanding and tolerance
between all parties in the future.
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