A contentious birthday celebration

By Nadia Abou El-Magd
The smile on people's faces in Demitiouh village fades when they are asked for directions to the Abu Hassira shrine. A number of villagers respond with: "Why don't they take him away from here?"
Abu Hassira is just one example of how politics and religion have become so intertwined in the Middle East. Egyptian solidarity with the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Intifada has translated itself into a popular intolerance for all things Jewish.
The annual mulid (birthday) draws thousands of Israelis and other Jews who flock from all over the world to celebrate the birthday of a Moroccan Jew whom they revere as a holy man. Abu Hassira died in 1880 and has been buried in Demitiouh ever since. Due to begin on 15 January, the festival-cum-pilgrimage lasts for a week.
Born as Yaccov Aharon in Morocco in 1807, legend has it that on a trip from his homeland to the Holy Land, Abu Hassira crossed the Mediterranean riding on a hassira (mat) until he reached Alexandria. He settled in Demitiouh village near Damanhour in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, some 150 kilometres north of Cairo. Abu Hassira, a cobbler, is said to have been a miracle-worker.
"Here lies a good man who came from Morocco and went back to the dust" is engraved in Hebrew on his gravestone. Pieces of paper listing the wishes of the previous year's pilgrims can be found near the memorial.
The heavily-guarded shrine -- situated atop a 10-metre-high hill -- has several tombs, including Abu Hassira's. A six-year-old girl in a red dress greets visitors with shouts of "shalom, shalom."
The road to the shrine is unpaved and flooded with waste water. Chicken, ducks, donkeys and cows are in full view. The majority of the two-story mud brick buildings have satellite dishes perched on their roofs. Nearly 2,000 people inhabit the village.
The celebration of Abu Hassira's festival was made possible when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. However, since that time, the inhabitants of Demitiouh village, as well as many other Egyptians, have resented having to host the festival on their land. This year, the resentment became more vocal as anger ran high because of the atrocities the Israelis have committed in the Palestinian territories.
Ahmed Sami, a 23-year-old farmer, told Al-Ahram Weekly that "Jews should be prevented from coming to our land in the same way they are preventing Palestinians from going to Al-Aqsa (mosque)."
Sami added defiantly, "Should the Jewish pilgrims insist on coming this year, we have prepared a large poster at the entrance showing the killing of [Mohamed] Al-Dorra."
Al-Dorra is a 12-year old Palestinian who was trapped by Israeli fire and then shot and killed as he attempted to take cover behind his father. He has become the symbol of nearly 400 Palestinian martyrs who died since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa uprising on 28 September.
Mustafa Rasslan, a lawyer with origins in the village, has filed a lawsuit with an administrative court demanding the removal of Abu Hassira's remains from Demitiouh and the renaming of the village after Al-Dorra.
"I'm sick and tired of Abu Hassira's shrine that Jews use as a wailing wall," Rasslan told the Weekly. "I'm offended and I don't want my children to see this mulid."
Rasslan, who has been filing lawsuits unsuccessfully since 1995, vowed to keep up the fight until Abu Hassira is out of Demitiouh. "Our children and youth will launch an Intifada against those who attend the festival," he warned.
Figures from all walks of life voiced their protest against the festival.
Renowned TV anchor Hamdi Qandil called upon the Israelis, on his TV programme, to relocate Abu Hassira's remains in Israel.
And Emad El-Gilda, the ruling National Democratic Party's MP for Beheira, recently asked Prime Minister Atef Ebeid at a People's Assembly session to order the immediate halt of "Israeli celebrations on Egyptian soil, especially since they include rituals that violate Egyptian customs and traditions." El-Gilda cautioned that this year's celebrations "are bound to have negative psychological consequences for Egyptians, who view them as a political demonstration."
"The mulid of Abu Hassira turns the quiet, placid life of Demitiouh into hell because of the tight security measures taken to protect participants," Mukhtar El-Sweifi wrote in a letter to Al-Ahram. "It is an opportunity for Israelis to mock and ridicule Egyptians in their own homeland every year."
The Egyptian-Israeli treaty of 1979 gave the two countries peace, but only a cold one. Ever since the Palestinian uprising, relations between the two states have become even chillier, with Egypt recalling its ambassador from Tel Aviv in November.
Not all Egyptians, however, share the same views. "Regardless of how angry we are, it is a shame that our grandparents were more tolerant than we are. They accepted Abu Hassira in their midst when he was alive, while we, in the 21st century, can't tolerate him dead," Dr Hesham El-Hadidi of the King Fahd Military Medical Centre wrote in Al-Ahram recently. "By engaging in these minor battles, we are ignoring the real cultural challenge."
Abdel-Wahab El-Messiri, author of the Encyclopedia on Jews, Judaism and Zionism, told the Weekly that he had attended Abu Hassira's mulid more than once. He believes the man's remains should be kept in Egypt and the observance of the festival should continue. "Asking Israel to take back his remains implies that it is in charge of all Jews and that Palestine is their homeland, which is wrong." According to El-Messiri, Abu Hassira is a product of Arab-Islamic culture and "consequently, he is ours."
El-Messiri blamed Israel for "equating Jews with Zionists and Zionists with Israelis, which is confusing to Egyptians and Arabs."
Moreover, the freedom of religious expression should be guaranteed, he said.
Contrary to news reports about this year's festival cancellation, a security source in Damanhour, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Weekly that "nobody told us the festival was to be postponed or cancelled." However, the source expects fewer visitors this year.
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Palestinian flag over the Nile 19 - 25 October 2000
'Why?' 5 - 11 October 2000
Underlining 'a clear message' 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000
'There are limits' 23 - 29 November 2000
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