CAIRO - Days after the majority of Egyptians approved constitutional reforms in a landmark referendum on March 19, a fundamentalist Muslim preacher appeared in a mosque in New Cairo to declare that Islam has won the Battle of the Ballot Boxes. According to a widely viewed video clip, Mohamed Hussein Yaqoub, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric, told his audience during his sermon that those who voted ‘Yes' in the referendum were on the side of religion. “Those who don't like the result can go to the US and Canada,” he added, in an apparent reference to Coptic Christians, who mostly disapproved of the proposed amendments in an obvious reaction to the Islamists' declared support for them. A few days later, Muslim fundamentalists in the Upper Egyptian city of Qena, took the Islamic law (Sharia) into their hands and punished a local Coptic man, allegedly for promoting vice. They cut off his ear and torched his flat and car. The two incidents have sent shockwaves across Egypt and understandably fanned worries among the Copts, who make up around 10 per cent of the 80 million population, about the growing clout of Islamists in post-Mubarak Egypt. In fact, over the past weeks, since Mubarak was ousted, Islamists have been maintaining a high profile in different parts of the nation. Their leaders are now frequent guests on official and privately owned TV stations. Several of them have become preachers-cum-politicians. This increasing showing has triggered concerns among Egyptian liberals and secularists, as well as the Copts. Their interpretation of politics along religious lines is definitely portentous. The question that immediately springs to mind is: How can their perceived threat be blunted? By and large, Muslim fundamentalists, who were long suppressed, should be encouraged to integrate themselves into society. At the same time, they should be convinced of the need to espouse the principles of citizenship and equal rights for all ��" rules already enshrined in Islam. Egypt should be for each and every Egyptian ��" regardless of their religion or gender. Meanwhile, as the ruling military proceeds to remove curbs on the creation of new political parties, such parties should not be allowed on religious grounds. Manipulating religion ��" on the part of Muslims and Christians ��" for political reasons should be strictly prohibited. I think the best way to safeguard this country against sectarian strife is to raise awareness among ordinary Egyptians that religion should not be a means to pit people against each other. After all, when the Mubarak police shot at protesters in a desperate bid to quell them, they did not discriminate between Muslims and Copts. All Egyptians were in the firing line.
