Egypt in Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution by Adel Iskandar

Author:Adel Iskandar [Iskandar, Adel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Essays, Middle East, Political Science, History, General
ISBN: 9789774165962
Google: yPHnCwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17077920
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2013-01-15T08:28:38+00:00

October 9, 2011 is an unforgettable day in modern Egyptian history. Of course there are many landmark occasions to celebrate and mourn in the lifetime of a nation like Egypt’s, whose seven-thousand-year lineage spans civilizations, dynasties, empires, cultures. And while two dates, January 25 and February 11, have both etched their place in just the last year—the first for the eruption of the revolution and the second for the toppling of Mubarak—2011 has been a year of almost daily sacrifice and bloodshed.The Egyptian calendar has become filled with days to commemorate and remember. But on October 9, some eight months after Mubarak, the political fault lines in Egypt were redrawn, and the revolution was reignited.

Egypt’s Christians, the majority belonging to the local Coptic Orthodox denomination, had spent the last thirty years in relative hibernation. They had retracted themselves from public life, grown increasingly insular, and lost trust in state institutions. They had delegated all social, cultural, religious, and political duties on their behalf to the Church. Their contribution to Egypt’s history was being gradually omitted from the national curriculum, they became increasingly invisible, and the state rendered everything related to them an issue of national security. Using a combination of blackmail and fearmongering, the ruling National Democratic Party had effectively silenced them and ensured their full compliance. The government was guaranteed Christian loyalty by waving around the Muslim Brotherhood opposition as a bogeyman to scare them. In response, like all institutions in Egypt during Mubarak’s era, including all ministries and al-Azhar, the Church actively disengaged its clergy and congregation from politics. As a minority with a ‘special status,’ they were taught to be cooperative, quiet, and, on all political matters, completely disengaged. So although they were facing the same predicaments as all Egyptians, many of them were indoctrinated to believe that remaining a spectator to events guarantees self-preservation. But some of them broke from that mold. History had taught these few that their community’s suffering is greatest when they are disengaged from public life, not the opposite. Having committed myself to Egypt’s prodemocracy movement some years ago, albeit from a distance since I resided in North America, I was always saddened by the modest turnout of Christians at protests and I had given up trying to compel other Copts to participate. Although I understood their fears and concerns, I was convinced that the emancipation of Egypt’s minorities would come only in the context of an intertwined, multidenominational, unified, collective movement against the autocracy and corruption that disempowered Egyptians of all stripes.

When the revolution erupted, the Coptic Church, like al-Azhar, discouraged its adherents from joining the protest movement. Many disobeyed this call to stay home. On the first Friday of the revolution, January 28, 2011, the now infamous “Day of Rage,” Christian protesters surrounded Muslim worshipers, and hand in hand, many bearing tattooed crosses on their wrists, guarded their Muslim brethren in Tahrir Square in the face of attacks from security forces and Mubarak’s gangs. They did so for every prayer. When Mubarak was finally toppled, the country rejoiced as one—Muslim and Christian.

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