CAIRO: The tragic sectarian incident that took place on Coptic Christmas Eve in Nag Hammadi on January 6, when Muslim gunmen opened fire and attacked the worshipers who were attending the service in a local church, leaving 7 killed and dozens injured has left much to talk about. The incident has raised outrage of Copts, protests of Copts abroad and Egyptian human rights organizations here in the country. It also overwhelmed the attention of local Egyptian newspapers, where the issue has taken over for the past two weeks, resulting in a large amount of opinion articles and a debate on sectarianism and its solutions. Although most local newspapers, whether independent or state-owned, condemned the incident, each newspaper described it in a different way. Some considered it as an individual incident and some described the incident as “sectarian†or something that took place due to sectarian motives. The Editor-in-chief of the daily independent al-Dostour newspaper, Ibrahim Eissa, said in his recent editorial, that the incident is “a bloody massacre,†describing those who attributed the attack to a repercussion to what happened in Farshout city – when a Coptic man allegedly raped a Muslim girl and the ones who justify the incident as taking revenge – as underestimating the intelligence of the Copts, and blamed the security forces for a lack of carrying out “its duty and role.” Khaled Al Kelani, the well-known writer, who writes in the independent weekly “Sawt al-Ummaâ€, in his column addressed the issue from a point of view related to the hate atmosphere in Egypt, where he described the incident as a result of “the hatred culture that is being widely spread and promoted by the religious channels and some clerics from both mosques and churches.” He compared the Egyptian media coverage to the incident to its coverage to Marwa el-Sheribini, also known as the “veil martyr†when she was killed by a German citizen in a Dresden court, calling the coverage of the Egyptian media of Nag Hammadi “unfair†just as the Egyptian media described Sherbini as “a martyr†and now they are considering the Copts who were killed there as “ victims.†“All what we expected to happen, has finally happened and here comes the culture of hatred – which has been cultivated for more than three decades – in mosque, in churches and some satellite channels, and for years there has been a long ugly and desperate attempt to destroy this country through promoting hatred and discrimination,†wrote Said el-Kelani in his opinion article. He continued: “Can somebody explain to me why demonstrations broke out in the cities of Egypt and universities that demanded everyone to avenge the killing of Marwa el-Sherbini, and to the extent that some others called for boycotting Germany, while no similar protests took place to condemn the incident of Nag Hammadi?” Khaled Montasser, a prominent liberal writer, suggested ten solutions to sectarianism in his article, entitled “Ten commandments for handling sectarianism.†They are: 1 – The need to issue immediate ministerial decisions to erase any religious posters and stickers from any walls in governmental offices, public hospitals, public transportation, universities and preventing praying in the workplaces during working hours and the cancellation of the grant of the delay for Copts on Sunday. 2 – The abolition and prevention of social activism for any houses of worship, whether Islamic or Christian. This includes clinics, social clubs, nurseries, homes for the elderly, and handing the responsibility of all current activities by these places to the concerned ministries so that it could be administered without any religious identity. 3 – The immediate review of all curricula in public schools and curricula of al-Azhar university and schools and the immediate deletion of any provision inconsistent with the principle of citizenship, even if they claim it conformed to the divine law. What matters is the principles and laws of citizenship. 4 – There is no need to publish any fatwas or any statements by religious leaders or scholars in state-owned newspapers or any other independent means of media, as the publication of a fatwa on the legitimacy of the wall with Gaza, or decoding Al Jazeera sports channel to watch the match would help in anything that stresses the citizenship principle. 5 – Abolition of the religious pages of national newspapers, and replace them with articles urging morality without any religious character, whether Islamic or Christian. 6 – Alerting the media in the governmental apparatus not to intentionally disclose their religious identity, whether by citing Qur'anic verses or hadiths in explaining any issue. Supposedly the audience is not concerned with the religion of the reporter or the presenter. The writer wondered “can anyone identify the religion of any broadcaster in the BBC, for example?” 7 – An apology by any priest or sheikh who ever committed any insult against either religion. 8 – The expansion in the establishment of sports clubs and youth centers that strictly prohibit any religious activity and increasing the internal trips for young people and families. 9 – The abolition of the principle customary reconciliation in sectarian or non-sectarian disputes, with the speed of legal action in dealing with sectarian murders and interest in the publication and highlighting of the deterrent provisions of law in national newspapers. 10 – The implementation of these recommendations without any remarks by the media, as the advocates of a religious state, have acquired their gains in quiet and we must retrieve our gains quietly, too. BM
