In the wake of the Alexandria church bombing, a new online initiative promotes dialogue between Egyptians instead of incitement, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky Just a few hours after the deadly terrorist attack on the Two Saints Church in Alexandria, Facebook and Twitter pages in Egypt turned into a battlefield of words between Muslim and Christian youths accusing each other of hatred and extremism. But in the first morning after last week's attack which killed 23 people and injured more than 100 others, other groups came up with slogans and profile pictures showing solidarity with the victims of the terrorist attack. The blast was in the view of many observers a wake-up call for Egyptian society to the dangers of Internet websites and social networks being used to sow the seeds of hatred between Egyptian Christian and Muslim youth by promoting questionable ideas and dubious information. "The terrorist attack on Alexandria's church that killed and wounded over 100 people is an accumulation of hundreds of comments and thousands of news items meant to feed hatred between people who are born equal" read the mission statement of Sharek Fil-Kheir, or "Share in Doing Good", a new initiative launched by the influential Egyptian Muslim televangelist preacher Amr Khaled. The initiative's main goals are to promote the ideas of tolerance ordained in all religions by reducing verbal violence and incitement on the Internet and raising awareness among youths in the difference between the freedom of speech and incitement. The Khaled website asks young Muslims and Christians to use Facebook and Twitter to stand together against sectarian tension and warned that although the church blast killed tens of people, sectarian strife could kill hundreds or thousands in years to come and destroy their country. The first target of the campaign in the first weeks is persuading two million Christians and Muslims to change their profile picture on Facebook with the campaign's slogan instead and share a video of the campaign that talks about its goals and targets with a million people. "Creating a platform where youth share their ideas about the future of their country and how to face their problems together with faith could end sectarian tension in the coming years," Khaled said in a media interview. The next step is organising online activities with Islamic and Christian websites that promote tolerance and unity among people and to support these websites to counter other Internet forums that support extremism. Khaled added the campaign also sought to reinforce patriotism among youth to restore confidence in their country and to fight external incitement that aims to weaken Egypt by weakening its unity. He said he invited the Egyptian Coptic Church and Al-Azhar institution to take part in the proposal. He said they welcomed the idea and were willing to offer their help. Last week, Khaled held an hour-long meeting with Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayeb discussing the role Al-Azhar could play in the initiative. More than 100,000 people joined the scheme on its Facebook page and changed their profile picture to that of the logo of the initiative which shows two people with different coloured skin holding a banner which reads: Share in Doing Good. An online forum suggested that the idea should be included in schools in Egypt where thousands of students could get together online to discuss what they think about the country's future. Popular Arabic sports, entertainment and news websites and TV channels announced that they will sponsor the campaign and will help in disseminating its ideas among its millions of readers and viewers. In the past several months Khaled has been focussing his efforts on fighting extremism among youth in the Arab world. He recently paid a visit to Yemen where he talked to an audience of hundreds of thousands of youths about tolerance in Islam and how their nation is in need of their energy to be invested in good.
