Crisis in the Middle East – 1 DANIELLA PELED
Egypt’s fearful Christians
As turmoil engulfed Egypt this week, concern was mounting among minority Catholic and other Christian groups about their future in a post-Mubarak nation. Our correspondent reports from the streets of Cairo where she spoke to Christians, afraid of the possibility of a hardline Islamist government
T
his week Egypt teetered on the brink of revolution, with angry protesters demanding the immediate resigna- tion of President Hosni Mubarak,
and the country’s beleaguered Catholic com- munity braced itself for a new era of uncertainty. Demonstrators in Cairo and other major
Egyptian cities defied the security forces and a curfew to stage daily mass marches against the current regime, vowing that the protests would not stop until Mubarak resigned. More than 100 civilians were killed in clashes with the police and army, and there were wide- spread fears of looting and criminal attack after the police melted away following violent confrontations with demonstrators. For Egypt’s tiny Catholic community, num- bering barely 200,000, political instability brings with it the fear of future trouble. Most Christians here are Coptic Orthodox – they number about 8 million or 10 per cent of the total population – while Catholics are notably poorer and less well educated, and are often migrant workers. As well as fears over the current lawlessness, many Christians are con- cerned that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist faction that is the best organised of the opposition groups, will gain power in the absence of a strong autocratic leader. “Under Mubarak, we were protected,” says one Catholic missionary, who asked to remain anonymous. “We used to have police guards at the church and now they are not there. It’s true that their presence was symbolic rather than functional, but now anything can hap- pen.” The previous night, said the missionary, people had been banging on the gates of his church. “It was very tense; we just kept quiet and stayed indoors, pretending we weren’t here.” Members of the Christian community say
they already had very serious security fears. On New Year’s Eve, 23 people were killed in a bomb attack on a Coptic church. Pope Benedict condemned the attack and the “dis-
4 | THE TABLET | 5 February 2011
crimination endured by Coptic Christians in Egypt”, later adding that the killing highlighted “the urgent need for the governments of the region to adopt, in spite of difficulties and dangers, effective measures for the protection of religious minorities”. In response, the highly influential Islamic Research Academy at al-Azhar University cut off relations with the Vatican, decrying the “repeatedly insulting remarks issued by the Pope towards Islam and his statement that Muslims are discriminating against others who live with them in the Middle East”. But that is a reality that many in the Christian community say they fear, and believe that only the relative stability brought by Mubarak’s autocratic regime can protect them. After services at the Sacred Heart Church, its chapels painted sky blue and the crucifix behind the altar marked out with green fairy lights to match the vestments, Fr Victor Barin is apprehensive of what the future holds. “The feeling is that of general fear,” says Barin, who is originally from Italy but has worked in Egypt for 15 years. His church is frequented by Sudanese and African refugees, and the situation is doubly bad for them, he says. “They cannot move from their houses.” Hundreds usually flock to the church for
Mass every Sunday; last Sunday morning there were 12, said Barin, adding that “Mubarak was good for the Christians, reas- suring in a certain way”, especially for the Catholic community, which, as he puts it, “is a minority of a minority”. The civic equality of Christians is mandated
by Egyptian law but observers are not confi- dent that their rights are guaranteed. “There are laws regarding the fair treatment of Christians but these are not abided by,” Barin said. The little influence the Catholic Church here has, he says, is through institutions of soft power, with more than 180 Catholic schools in Egypt open to Muslims and Copts, and numerous charities carrying out social and educational work. At the Basilica of the Holy Virgin in
Egyptian Christians protest outside an Orthodox church in Cairo on 2 January, demanding more protection following a New Year’s Day bombing at a Coptic Orthodox church that killed about two dozen people. Photo: CNS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh, Reuters
Heliopolis, the vast majority of the 1,500 con- gregation stayed away on Sunday. Just 150 came for services. “We are praying that peace comes back,” says Fr Farid Said Ibrahim. “It’s not about Muslim, Catholic or Copt. We all want peace to come back for the good of all.” But the Christian community, he concedes, has its own concerns. “We know Mubarak, and he tried to do something for security and he was strong against the Muslim Brother - hood. That’s why we prefer him. I think he has the experience to judge what is good for Egypt. The problems here are very old, and not just for Catholics, for Copts too. We live together and share the same concerns.” Elsewhere, in the Abbassiya neighbourhood of Cairo, the congregants of the Peter and Paul Coptic Orthodox Church file out after Mass. Not many turned out for services there either; people are afraid to venture out and many roads have been closed. “It’s a very difficult situation,” says Suzanne Edwards, a parishioner in her fifties. “I am scared for our children, there are no police any more, and the feeling in the streets is very frightening. Our situation was hard enough before this. We Christians hope that the Muslim Brotherhood never have power: it would be very bad for us.”
“Sure, we are frightened of the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Imad Arin, 47, a business- man, his arm protectively around his young daughter. “We don’t want them to have power, and maybe Hosni Mubarak is preferable to the Muslim Brotherhood. We are now afraid of everyone, and nowhere feels safe.”
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