Between Omraniya and the parliamentary polls, Egypt's Copts are stirred but not quite shaken, concludes Gamal Nkrumah History is the best guide in unpredictable times. "There is a dire need for a unified legal designation for houses of worship in Egypt," Salama Ahmed Salama, veteran columnist, told Al-Ahram Weekly. The furore over the rioting among members of the Coptic community, concerning the construction of a church under the guise of a community centre in Omraniya and Talibiya districts in Giza, which has erupted in the media has given way to cold resignation in the wake of the parliamentary elections. The severity of the police response, many Copts claim, gives weight to the Coptic case. Dismiss such media focus on sectarian strife as sensationalism and cheap melodrama. Incidents such as the rioting in Omraniya are few and far between. To some, they denote the lack of full citizenship rights enjoyed by Egyptians of all walks of life and in particular the disadvantaged and under-privileged groups, be they Coptic Christian or Muslim. The Egyptian public is in the mood for something different. The lessons of modern history, however, do not always inspire confidence. Police have already taken a stronger rhetorical line on tackling troublemakers and political dissidents that are presumably deeply embedded in Egypt's Coptic community. The vast majority of Copts in parliament represent the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Those Copts who stand as candidates for opposition parties end up in political oblivion. "The problem is that a culture of hatred created a climate where gangs of violent youth representing rival religious and sectarian groups spread the incidence of sporadic violence in poor neighbourhoods. Both groups of youth, the Christians and the Muslims, are deprived and frustrated. They are also disfranchised and so they resort to violence to let off steam," Salama said. Egypt remains a much safer society than most. Still, according to Salama, if the authorities, security forces and police are to tackle the problem of sectarian violence in a fair and responsible manner, they will have to start by modernising themselves. For too long the police, and public opinion in general, have been harsh in their criticism of the youth -- Muslim and Christian -- and have not been sympathetic to their cause in spite of a few rhetorical statements. "Muslim and Christian youth feel politically peripheralised. They do not feel that they are part of the decision-making process. Naturally they are agitated and they take matters into their own hands disregarding the law in the process. They are jobless and angry," Salama noted. "Yet the Copts have focussed their frustration on the reluctance of the municipal authorities to construct new churches. The Egyptian population is mushrooming, and the Copts, too, are increasing in leaps and bounds," Salama extrapolated. Egypt's Christians are far and away the largest such religious minority in the Arab world. "The government needs to speed up the implementation of the law on this particularly vexing question. 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 mosques. This law must now be activated." Former United Nations secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, head of the National Council for Human Rights, himself a Copt, warned that the situation as its stands is untenable. "The authorities must act swiftly and every Egyptian regardless of religious affiliation must enjoy full citizenship rights." Veteran lawyer Ahmed Kamal Abul-Magd concurs, but believes that the full implementation of the law with respect to guaranteeing full citizenship rights might take a long time to achieve. "This is not entirely true," Mohamed Fayek, former minister of information and the head of the Cairo-based Arab Human Rights Organisation, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "The uproar over Omraniya was essentially about strengthening the citizenship rights of all Egyptians, Muslims as well as Copts. We aim to end discrimination in all its forms and strengthen equal opportunities to create a civil state in Egypt. Muslims and Christians speak the same language, both communities are yearning for the improvement of the country's human rights record. There is discrimination against bearded men [Islamists], for instance," Fayek explained. "The concept of citizenship rights itself needs to be changed, to be advanced," he added. "We must change our conception of authority. The authorities must understand that they are part of the civil, democratic state we want to create. The authorities must learn to understand popular participation in the decision-making processes. Democracy does not mean simply the rule of the majority, by a particular group. Rather, democracy means that no group is peripheralised or discriminated against." "We intend to insure that every citizen lives in security and without fear, and doesn't feel discriminated against and has a decent standard of living. Discrimination at work or in educational institutions must be outlawed. Torture is a national disgrace and should be totally banned," Fayek stressed. "Positive action, not negative thinking, is what is needed now," Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of the national Coptic weekly Watani, told the Weekly.
