Going for the roots

Intellectuals are urging root solutions to the problems raised by Copts in demonstrations late last month. Nadia Abou El-Magd reports
For two consecutive Wednesdays, 20 and 27 June, Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, did not show up for his weekly meeting with worshippers at the Abbasiya Cathedral. Instead, more than 5,000 people who had gathered for the audience were asked to watch a video- tape of the pope speaking in Alexandria. Large television screens were erected in the courtyard of the cathedral for this purpose.
In his messages the pope called for calm. "We should give the judiciary its due time; we are not going to run the state as we please," he said. "God exists, and he will have revenge on this man and his newspaper."
The man is Mamdouh Mahran, chief editor of the independent weekly Al- Nabaa, who is currently standing trial for publishing on 17 June three pages of text and photos of a defrocked monk engaged in sexual activity with women in what the newspaper claimed to be Deir Al-Muharraq monastery near Assiut.
Shenouda assured his audience that the affair would end for the good "not only of the Church, but of the country as a whole."
People lined up to buy Al-Keraza, the Church magazine, whose editor is Pope Shenouda himself. The lead story dealt with "the yellow newspaper insulting our sacred symbols, provoking Coptic public opinion and inciting sectarian strife." On the back cover, appeared a photo of the unprecedented Coptic protests inside the cathedral that followed the publication of the sensationalist article two weeks ago.
After watching the video-tape, Bishop Moussa, who is in charge of youth affairs, urged the crowd "to leave peacefully and without doing anything wrong."
"I didn't watch the pope's tape because I am unhappy that he didn't show up," Youssri Estafanoss, 20, told Al- Ahram Weekly as he left.
Many observers and intellectuals warn that relative calm in the Coptic community does not mean that the problems demonstrators were up in arms over have been resolved, or that protests will not recur. They warn in particular against the circulation of rumours that may aggravate the situation. Others who do not usually resort to "conspiracy theories" spoke of intrigues.
Veteran historian and Al-Ahram writer Younan Labib Rizk published an article in Al-Mussawar weekly magazine entitled "The Conspiracy."
"When illogic prevails and the incomprehensible has greater space than the comprehensible, we are obliged to resort to the conspiracy interpretation," wrote Rizk. "The conspiracy that was concocted did not target Muslims or Copts alone but the entire Egyptian nation, with the aim of distracting its attention from its concerns and involving it in fabricated disputes that only God knows where they will lead."
"Some of the slogans [chanted by the demonstrating Copts] were directed against the nation more than the government," Rizk, a Copt, wrote. However, resorting, after much hesitation, to a conspiracy theory, "does not absolve us from responsibility for creating an environment that is conducive to these developments."
Islamic intellectual Mohamed Emara claimed in an interview with the BBC that Copts chanted pro-Israeli and pro- Ariel Sharon slogans, adding that this infuriated Muslims and cast a shadow over the delicate relations between Copts and Muslims.
For their part, some demonstrators claimed that police, who surrounded the cathedral during the protests to prevent people from taking to the streets, fired on them with rubber bullets.
But reporters who observed the four days of riots did not hear any pro-Israel slogans and did not see police use rubber bullets. When some rioters hurled stones at police forces, police used water cannon and returned a volley of stones.
"Imagine what will happen to the country if such rumours gain credibility with the people. Conspiracy succeeds when it finds an audience ready to believe and fails when it is confronted by all Egyptians," Mohamed El-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told the Weekly. "The situation is pretty serious and we should neither deny this nor belittle it."
Said blamed the "polarised extremist mood" in society on "the prevailing culture of frustration and oppression and the legacy of extremist Islamist groups."
Prominent Coptic intellectual Milad Hanna, author of several books on Coptic affairs, predicted "more of these explosions as long as the government deals with the Coptic issue as a security issue, and not a political, social and humanitarian issue." According to Hanna, the solution is the establishment of a "committee of the wise," from both sides, to address all problems openly and frankly.
Youssef Seidhom, editor-in-chief of the Coptic weekly Watani, also affirmed the need for a national forum to debate "Coptic problems and grievances" and come up with an "Egyptian national declaration on the Coptic issue." In an editorial that appeared on Sunday, Seidhom complained that "the government persists in denying any flaws in the official system... thus maintaining discriminatory regulations and practices."
Seidhom concluded: "We would be completely at fault if we dealt with the problem by burning the rotten fruit while leaving the rotten roots to thrive, ultimately bringing down the whole tree."
Ali El-Samman, vice-president of Al- Azhar's Permanent Committee for Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions, told the Weekly: "This is a national problem and we should deal with it as such."
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Courtroom fireworks in Al-Nabaa case
In the gutter, looking at the starts
Copts are not cats 28 June - 4 July 2001
Adding insult to injury 28 June - 4 July 2001
'Save the press' 28 June - 4 July 2001
'Their pain is too deep' 28 June - 4 July 2001
Beyond the slur 28 June - 4 July 2001
'United under one flag' 28 June - 4 July 2001
Tabloids' outrageous toll 21 - 27 June 2001
We are all shaken 21 - 27 June 2001
Unprecedented show of Coptic anger 21 - 27 June 2001
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