Imbaba's deadly sectarian riot had Egypt reeling and questions still surround Bin Laden's capture. Doaa El-Bey and Gamal Nkrumah set the scenes The sectarian firefight in the district of Imbaba in Giza which killed 15 people and injured close to 240 left newspapers and writers in shock. The papers covered the incident extensively while writers warned that sectarian strife is a real threat to the Egyptian revolution and urged the army to deal with the problem decisively. Al-Ahram 's banner headline read 'Fire of sectarianism threatens Egypt with genuine danger', Al-Wafd noted in its banner 'Civil war in Imbaba', Al-Masry Al-Youm wrote 'Extremism burns the revolution', Al-Akhbar had 'Egypt in danger... prosecution to inciters of strife', and Nahdet Masr stated 'Christians call for international protection'. Mahmoud El-Kardousi warned that the people are burning the 25 January Revolution. Egypt is living through a new chapter of the old regime, he argued, not because the old regime is burning it, but because the people's relationship with the country has not changed after the revolution. The silent majority is still silent, the elite is still isolated and religious trends are exerting every effort to collect the gains of the revolution and tailor them to their own needs. While El-Kardousi acknowledged that Imbaba was not the first incident of its kind and that similar incidents happened before the revolution, sectarian strife was within the control of the state in the past. But now, he added, there is no state or regime; every citizen believes that he is a state onto himself. As a result, we do not know when a church will be burnt, when a thug will attack citizens and what we will do if we found ourselves responsible for defending our property, daughters, or even our lives. El-Kardousi wondered what Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and the head of the Higher Council of the Armed Forces Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi are waiting for, when they see Egypt is burning. He asked them to use their authority to protect the revolution and the people from opportunists, hypocrites and inciters of sectarianism. "Mr Field Marshal [Tantawi], sectarian strife has become an issue of national security. Why don't you wage a war on its inciters and deal with them as traitors rather than criminals?" El-Kardousi wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. Mohamed Barakat who described what happened in Imbaba as a crime, called for taking measures to guarantee that it would never be repeated. Thus, he called for a decisive stand against all forms of thuggery and violence and for dealing with the perpetrators without mercy. "It is no longer acceptable to leave criminals and extremists to behave as if Egypt is an open arena for them to commit any crime they want," Barakat wrote in the official daily Al-Akhbar. "These criminals should not be left unpunished. They should be strictly and quickly punished according to the law." Meanwhile, Barakat added, "we need to work hard at present to realise the dreams and aspirations of all Egyptians in establishing a civil and democratic state in which each citizen can enjoy justice, equality and live in dignity." Nabil Rashwan wondered why any group would insist that Islam would only be complete with the return of Camilia Shehata to Islam or retrieving Abeer from the church of Imbaba to marry her Muslim lover. He wrote in the independent daily Nahdet Masr that these were all absurd stories that set a whole nation on fire and gave hooligans a chance to spread anarchy. The way out of the problem, as Rashwan added, is in strict confrontation, activating emergency laws to face thuggery, send hooligans to military courts and issue strict, decisive sentences against them. The peaceful Egyptian revolution should not produce anarchy or destruction, he added. What happened in Imbaba, the columnist explained, was just a rehearsal to wider operations in other well-chosen places like Ataba and Abdel-Aziz Street. "One cannot separate hooliganism from the trial of prominent figures of the previous regime especially Mubarak and his corrupt entourage," Rashwan wrote. The tighter the rein on these figures, the stronger the likelihood of more anarchy and protests. Mohamed El-Saadani expressed his fear that 100 days after the great revolution, all hope for a better future would be dashed by sectarian strife that took a sad turn this week. It is obvious, he wrote, that the Salafist movement made a strong return to the social and political arena after years of surrender to the previous regime. It is also clear that the movement is being pushed by neighbouring regional parties that will not rest until Egypt surrenders to its will to control and humiliate the Egyptian people. Provided that the situation is extremely dangerous, the writer called on the army to deal with people who play with fire without mercy. "The civilised manner with which the army treated the protesters during the revolution is not suitable with those criminals. Unless the army treats them in the strictest sense, the end will be catastrophic. The army must extinguish sectarian strife even if it has to impose martial law. Liberty and democracy can never be achieved amid such anarchy," El-Saadani summed up in the official daily Al-Ahram. Mohamed Mustafa Sherdi confirmed that Imbaba proved that the country has decided to commit suicide. It has nothing to do with the National Democratic Party or the old regime, but reflects years of oppression, ignorance and absence of education and trust. Imbaba, Sherdi wrote in the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd Party, is the start of civil war, the beginning of deterioration in society. The army would volunteer, Sherdi added, to build the church and the buildings around it, and after a few weeks or months, the army would have to rebuild another affected village or city. Besides, "who is going to rebuild the wall of trust between the Egyptians? Can it be rebuilt as quickly as a church or a building?" Sherdi called on the army to confront extremism which has spread Christians as well as among Muslims. He called on the church to reconsider any move it is taking in a society that is in increasing turmoil and called on Muslim extremists to understand that citizenship is the basis of any society. "Kidnapping a girl is not an excuse to burn a church. Egypt will pay the price for that kind of reaction."
