“Is she really a Copt? That makes her the second Copt then, I mean after Mona Mina? I would not have thought this was possible. I think it is strange because we have not seen it happen before, or at least I have never heard of it,” Irine Youssef, a 29-year-old household help, said about the election of not one but two Coptic women at the head of the Doctors Syndicate and the Dostour Party. Youssef, who had learned from a TV talk show about the election of Mona Mina as secretary-general of the Doctors Syndicate a few months ago, was surprised by the news of the election of another Coptic women, Hala Shukrallah, as the head of a political party. Coming only a few months apart, the elections of these women, both civil society figures with an unmistakable association with the student movement of the 1970s, has meant that Coptic women now head a leading syndicate and hold a prominent post within a 25 January Revolution party. Mina's election came at a challenging time for the Doctors Syndicate, whose members have a long affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and who are also leading pressures to secure overlooked professional and financial rights. The election of Shukrallah, a sociologist, as secretary-general of the Dostour Party, came at a moment when many both within and without the Party had thought it could be falling apart, especially after the disappearance of its founder, Mohamed Al-Baradei, and many of its leading figures. There has also been dismay within the Party's mostly youthful ranks at the confusion within the higher echelons. The elections of Mina and Shukrallah have come at a time when there is apprehension about the position of women and Copts in society, their having been recognised in the newly approved constitution but having also seen their contributions challenged during the past few years despite their fully-fledged participation in the 25 January and 30 June Revolutions. According to Azza Kamel, a women's rights commentator and member of the Dostour Party, and Youssef Sidhom, the editor of the Coptic weekly Watani, the elections of the two women mark changing times. “When Hala was elected, the members of the Party, especially the youth, and Dostour is predominantly a youthful Party, were not thinking of her in terms of a woman or a Copt. Their choice was made without reference to a gender-religion profile, even if it was also made despite this gender-religion profile,” Kamel said. According to Kamel, the two women have offered their services “strictly in their political and union capacities, no more, no less. They did not bring in either their gender or their faith. They made no appeal to these things, and neither did they act to defend them. Instead, they muted these factors and acted exactly as they wanted to do — one as a prominent member of the syndicate and the other as a highly engaged member of the Party.” Their election is, however, a sign that old, maybe even old-fashioned, taboos are now being broken. Unlike some other Coptic women, or for that matter Muslim women or Coptic men, who have been successful in the past, Mina and Shukrallah were responsible for their own successes, and their elections cannot be attributed to minority tokenism. “I think that what happened in these elections shows that we as a society and a nation are moving forward, even if unconsciously,” Kamel argued. For Youssef, the elections could be the beginning of the end of religious or gender tokenism. “We have seen many good and talented people denied professional and political advancement in the past based on their gender or their religion. Thanks to the 25 January and 30 June Revolutions, we are now seeing this awful pattern being slowly but surely reversed,” Youssef said. Youssef also credits the Copts themselves for this change. “When they chose to break free from an otherwise society-imposed or self-imposed isolation, and when they made a conscious decision to act as citizens above religious faith or grievances, the Copts made a decision to enter the heart of society, such as the syndicates and the parties,” he said. “Perhaps Mona Mina and Hala Shukrallah were always readier for this change, as they were already integral parts of the student movement and later of political and union activities,” he added. Both Youssef and Kamel are hopeful that the elections will lead to further changes, sharing a cautious hope that future years will see a decline in anti-minority bias and in favour of merit-based choices of individuals who offer themselves for public service. Maybe we will also see more Copts and more women in the next cabinet. Kamel is hopeful that women and Copts will be given a more prominent place in the lists of parties put forward in the next parliamentary elections, expected late this summer, “should the party list system be approved either fully or partially.” Youssef is hoping to see fewer inhibitions in requesting the removal of the grievances still felt by many Egyptians of Coptic faith. “Just as we saw Mona Mina working with Muslim and Coptic doctors to treat the wounded irrespective of their religion during the 25 January Revolution, and just as we saw Muslim and Coptic youth lobbying for the election of Hala Shukrallah, now we hope to see MPs of Muslim and Coptic faith alike defending the full adoption of the recently approved constitutional principles of equal citizenship,” he said. What Kamel and Youssef both hope for is something that both Mina and Shukrallah reflected in their respective election campaigns: more empowered citizens and less bias and discrimination. Both women have for long been associated with human rights and anti-discrimination movements. Each has stressed that neither their faith nor their gender has been a part of their march towards the top positions they now hold. Both in their 50s, Mina and Shukrallah have an affinity with the leftist movement, which has experienced ups and downs in recent decades and was for long considered to have been defeated by Political Islamism. For leftist activists, their elections have not necessarily been about either the resurrection of the once-influential left or an anti-Political Islamism message, however. Instead, they have been owing to these two women's own remarkable profiles.
