Religious unrest is pushing officials to work with community leaders to break down walls of mistrust, says Gamal Nkrumah Marsa Matrouh Governor Ahmed Hussein has issued statements that the violent confessional clashes in the Mediterranean resort are under control. As they sit down to discuss possible areas of future cooperation, Muslim and Coptic Christian community leaders are drawn together to resolve long-standing grievances. The major driver of this new clash is the significant pressure on local government and municipalities to act in tandem with community leaders. Both communities want justice and would like to see greater government input, especially local political leaders. That, however, is a lot to ask of any politician especially in the far-flung and outlying governorates of the country. The Coptic leaders, in particular, are highly sensitive to public opinion. Hussein Fekri, the governorate's director of security, declared triumphantly that, "Matrouh is now calm. Everything is back to normal once again," he declared. Police arrested more than 40 rioters and protesters. "The assailants have been brought to book," Fekri noted. However, bad blood persists. That verdict is unacceptable as far as Copts are concerned. "We cannot ignore the fact that there are deep feelings of resentment and frustration among the Coptic Christian community in Marsa Matrouh and many other parts of the country. There is animosity between Muslims and Christians and an ominous sense of restlessness," MP Nabil Luqa El-Bibawi told Al-Ahram Weekly. El-Bibawi, an appointed MP representing the ruling National Democratic Party, member of the NDP's Policies Committee and a former police officer, is a Coptic Christian who laments the state of ill will that characterises Muslim-Christian relations in contemporary Egypt. "The problem is that after the 1960s Egyptian workers in the oil rich Arab Gulf countries returned with alien ideas that do not correspond with the once cordial relations between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Today, there is malice and hostility between the two communities. Each community is reluctant to accept the other. Good will is sadly lacking," El-Bibawi warned. "The masters of Marsa Matrouh have been humbled," an incensed Muslim resident of Matrouh told the Weekly, adding that Christian property speculators have converged on Marsa Matrouh and are now running the city. It is in the property speculators' own interest to begin taking the interests of the residents of Matrouh into account. Christians hotly deny the charge, saying that they are contributing to the local economy in a positive way. The idea of Matrouh as a wild frontier town on the way to Libya still permeates Egyptian popular culture. It is regarded as a governorate with much promise and economic potential. Matrouh has become a magnet of Egyptian youth and entrepreneurs seeking employment opportunities in the outlying regions of the country. The critical failure throughout has been the neglect of public opinion. The pressing interest of the Copts here is the construction of new churches. The imam of the Marsa Matrouh Mosque who allegedly instigated the violence against Christians, Sheikh Khamis Ahmed Khamis, has come under intense fire from Christians and human rights organisations. "The question is not that Christians built a fence for a church without the permission of the governor," El-Bibawi noted. "The problem is that the culture of hatred created a climate where 3,000-4,000 Muslims felt obliged to pull down the church and take the law into their own hands." El-Bibawi is of the opinion that the state security apparatus alone is incapable of containing the situation. "We cannot blame the security forces for the excitable and volatile situation in Marsa Matrouh or any other part of the country. We need to cultivate a sense of national good will and fraternal feelings between Muslims and Christians in this country. We need to understand that we are all compatriots and have a vested interest in the peace and prosperity of this country of ours," El-Bibawi stressed. "We need to inculcate a fresh feeling and a new notion of nationhood in which peaceful co-existence is paramount regardless of religious affiliation." Many Coptic political analysts concur. Samir Morqos, a prominent Coptic opposition figure and founder of the Citizenship Foundation, told the Weekly that we do not know precisely who did what and why, as usual. What is new is that the geopolitical implications of Egypt's sectarian strife are shifting. Now that is bad news. Previously such incidents were confined to Upper Egypt and Alexandria or certain districts of Cairo. Today, the violence has spread to the remote regions of the country. The geography of sectarianism is fast changing," Morqos warned. "This week's clashes in Matrouh provide the perfect excuse for zealots to fan the flames of sectarian violence," he added. Revealingly, after the violence died down there was no traditional reconciliation council as often happens in Upper Egypt. To be sure both sides are engaging in peace deliberations with certain nervousness, and a sense of déjà vu. The Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organisation (EUHRO) has filed a lawsuit against Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Matrouh Governor Ahmed Hussein. And even more ominously, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a statement condemning the Egyptian justice system for not prosecuting Muslims who incite violence against Coptic Christians and who persecute Christians. The Coptic community in the US has raised protests in the US Congress about the incident. MP El-Bibawi does not approve of internationalising the crisis, but says that if matters are not contained then outside forces will take advantage of the situation and interfere in the domestic affairs of Egypt. So what can the government do? Morqos insists that the fact that Christians need high level permission to repair or rebuild churches is unfair. "Muslims can easily obtain permission to build mosques; why can't Christians do the same with the constructions of churches? We have a liberal and just constitution and the 1972 report of Gamal Al-Oteifu which was issued after the infamous Khanka incident of sectarian violence, gives Christians the right to freely construct churches. Why are we not abiding by our constitutional obligations? Article 47 of the constitution gives Christians the right to build churches on an equal footing with the construction of Muslim mosques. This law must now be activated." Such an invocation can bring certain benefits in terms of peaceful co- existence and peace between the religious groups in the country. The time is ripe for breaking with the convention that confessional strife is a standard feature of social life in Egypt. If reforms falter now, it may be mere weeks before the next religiously instigated violent incident erupts somewhere else. Remembering what is at stake is not too much. The critical failure throughout has been neglect of public opinion. How far can all these discussions go? The issue of the political will to contain religious strife goes deeper than this, however. Ultimately much will depend on political will.
