WHEN the Crusades started, Eissa el-Awam, a Christian, was Saladin's most important leader. Eissa knew that the Crusaders really wanted to occupy our precious country. They came hungry for its blessings and its geographical and strategic position between east and west, even exploiting religion to achieve their greedy ends. But they made a mistake, because, in Egypt, as history tells us, the Christians stood side by side with the Muslims in defending our dear country, Egypt. When Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul launched his revolution in 1919, he was aware of the brotherhood between Muslims and Christians, making it easy for him to gather them all under one banner, with the crescent embracing the cross in one flag. We have been one, integrated family for thousands of years ago. I, for example, named Atef after one of the sons of our Christian neighbours when I was a boy, Atef William. My mother dreamt of giving birth to a baby who would be as good as Atef. I well remember the good old days, when I used to play with Mounir, Atef's younger brother. During the holy month of Ramadan, I used to eat the fast-breaking meal very quickly so we could watch the traditional Ramadan riddles on TV, which in those days starred the late great Egyptian actress Nelly, who is also a Christian. While watching the riddles, we would drink juice and play chess together. Mounir taught me to play chess; he always beat me and tease me about it. Frankly speaking, he was a professional. He even taught me how to ride a bike and we had a lot of madcap adventures together. We were like brothers. When I grew up, my work took me to Cairo, but whenever I visit my Delta hometown ofel-Zaqaziq, I always look up my dear friend and we laugh together, as we reminisce about the good old days. Once, when his young nephew started talking about sectarian strife in front of me, Mounir yelled at the lad, pointing at me and saying: "He's your uncle, just like me." Nowadays, everyone keeps talking about ‘dialogue with the other', which is unnecessary, as dialogue between Christian and Muslim is not dialogue with the other, because we are brothers. Unfortunately, many people seem to be obsessed with this ‘dialogue with the other'. In my view, this is sedition. Some countries, for their own ends, try and exploit this sedition, but they will always fail, as the Egyptian people will remain one family forever, because they are children of one mother, Egypt, the mother of the world. Abdel-Fattah is an Egyptian writer for children [email protected]
