Egyptians Mourn

Massacre of Coptic

Christians

19 November 2011

How much has
Egypt really
changed?

The euphoria that followed President Mubarak's resignation faded quite quickly

As Egyptians prepare to vote in their first parliamentary election since last February's revolution that ousted President Mubarak, have they really seen the changes they were fighting for?

Autumn darkness has enveloped Cairo. I am waiting outside high, fortified gates as my papers are being scrutinised by an armed guard.

A sullen nod ushers me into a crowded compound. Uniformed soldiers are huddled near their armoured vehicles.

This is Egypt's Ministry of Information. It is my first visit to Cairo's house of propaganda in almost 20 years. It strikes me that very little has changed.

The last time I was here I was in trouble.

I had made a television documentary which infuriated the then Information Minister Safwat Sharif.

"You're undermining this country," Mr Sharif had raged at me back then. "Overstep the mark again and you will no longer be welcome in Egypt."

Safwat Sharif now has his own, more pressing problems.

Hosni Mubarak is charged with conspiring in killing of protesters and abusing power to amass wealth

He is currently in jail facing trial on a host of corruption and conspiracy charges alongside his political master of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak.

But do not be fooled by the striking images of Egypt's former rulers languishing behind bars in their prison pyjamas.

Last winter's revolution claimed some prized scalps but it did not tear down the old regime.

For the past nine months, Egypt has been ruled by a military council, a junta, headed by the man who loyally served Mubarak as military chief and defence minister for 20 years.

Last February, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi promised Egyptians the army was on their side.

His words then were reassuring, his actions since have been anything but.

"The real revolution hasn't happened yet," declares Tarek Shalaby, a veteran of the Tahrir Square protests.

Six months ago he was arrested, roughed up and handed a suspended prison sentence by a military court.

Now every time he blogs or marches, he runs the risk of joining thousands of other activists in long-term detention.

Why has the army lost the trust of so many of the Tahrir generation?

For an answer, I seek out one of my oldest friends in Cairo - Mohamed Gohar, a canny veteran of almost four decades in the media business, a TV entrepreneur with the hide of a rhino.

"If you'd been with me on October 9th," he says, "then you'd understand."

He gives me an account so vivid it takes my breath away. How a crowd of protesters - mostly Coptic Christians - gathered on the street below his office that evening to protest about a series of sectarian attacks.

How unseen snipers opened fire on the crowd, then Egyptian army vehicles ploughed into the throng, crushing and breaking bodies.

How the dead and wounded were carried to his ground-floor stairwell and how he hid 17 desperate men and women in a back bathroom, while troops searched the building looking for Christians.

"You know that movie Schindler's List? I felt I was reliving it," he tells me. "I was ashamed, seeing soldiers doing this to my people."

Twenty-five people died and hundreds were injured in clashes between Coptic Christians and troops

"But why did they do it?" I ask.

"To send a message that, without them, Egypt is chaos. The generals have run this country for 60 years, you think they want to give it up now?"

Next weekend, Egyptians will vote in parliamentary elections.

They will face an alphabet soup of political parties from strict Islamist to committed secularist but, when the votes are counted, real power will still be in the hands of the junta.

There is already talk of a new constitution granting special powers to the armed forces. And a mysterious but seemingly well funded political movement is calling on Field Marshal Tantawi to run for president in 2013.

Which brings me back to the Ministry of Information.

After the revolution, Tantawi decreed that this hated source of censorship and official deceit was to be closed down. Five months later the generals changed their minds.

Osama Heikal was recently appointed as Egypt's minister of information

I find myself shaking hands with Egypt's new minister of information, a dapper former journalist called Osama Heikal.

Just months into the job, he exhibits the slippery skills of a veteran. The killing of more than two dozen Copts was unfortunate, he concedes, but the army is investigating. The state of emergency will be ended just as soon as stability has been restored.

As I am heading out of the ministry compound, one of his staff approaches. I suspect he is going to berate me for my impertinent questioning of his boss.

Instead he slaps me on the back.

"Great interview," he says. "What a liar that guy is. They still think they can say what they like and the people will believe them.

"But they can't, not any more."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15766246

 An Egyptian woman reads a ballot list at a polling station before casting
her vote during the parliamentary election in Cairo November 28, 2011





Egypt Islamists
expect gains in
post-Mubarak poll

CAIRO  - Egyptians voted on Tuesday in a parliamentary election that Islamists hope will sweep them closer to power, even though the army generals who took over from President Hosni Mubarak have yet to step aside.

The election, the first since a revolt ousted Mubarak on February 11, unfolded without the mayhem many had feared after last week's riots against army rule in which 42 people were killed.

General Ismail Atman, a ruling army council member, said he had no firm figure, but that turnout would exceed 70 percent of the 17 million Egyptians eligible to vote in the first round that began on Monday. "I hope it will reach more than 80 percent by the end of the day," he told Al Jazeera television.

Atman was also quoted by Al-Shorouk newspaper as saying the election showed the irrelevance of protesters demanding an end to military rule in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere.

Les Campbell, of the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, one of many groups monitoring the poll, said earlier it was "a fair guess" that turnout would exceed 50 percent, far above the meager showings in rigged Mubarak-era elections.

The United States and its European allies are watching Egypt's vote torn between hopes that democracy will take root in the most populous Arab nation and worries that Islamists hostile to Israel and the West will ride to power on the ballot box.

They have faulted the generals for using excessive force on protesters and urged them to give way swiftly to civilian rule.

A senior figure in the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood said its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) had done well in the voting so far. "The Brotherhood party hopes to win 30 percent of parliament," Mohamed El-Beltagy told Reuters.

SALAFIS ADMIT SHORTCOMINGS

The leader of the ultra-conservative Salafi Islamist al-Nour Party, which hopes to siphon votes from the Brotherhood, said organizational failings meant his party had under-performed.

"We were not dispersed across constituencies, nor were we as close as needed to the voter. Other parties with more experience rallied supporters more effectively," Emad Abdel Ghafour said in the coastal city of Alexandria, seen as a Salafi stronghold.

But he told Reuters the party still expected to win up to half of Alexandria's 24 seats in parliament and 70 to 75 nationwide out of the assembly's 498 elected seats.

Soldiers guarded one banner-festooned Cairo voting station, where women in Islamic headscarves or Western clothes queued with their families. Judges kept an amiable eye on proceedings.

Islamists did not instigate the Arab uprisings that have shaken Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, but in the last two months, Islamist parties have come out top in parliamentary elections in Morocco and post-revolutionary Tunisia.

Egyptian Islamists want to emulate those triumphs. The new assembly, flush with a legitimacy the generals lack, may assert itself after rubber-stamping Mubarak's decisions for 30 years.

"Real politics will be in the hands of the parliament," said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political analyst.

One general has said parliament will have no power to remove an army-appointed cabinet due to run Egypt's daily affairs until a promised presidential poll heralds civilian rule by July.

Many Egyptians applaud the army's role in easing Mubarak from office in February, but some have grown angry at what they see as its attempts to retain military perks and power.

POPULAR EXPECTATIONS

The election is taking place in three regional stages, plus run-off votes, in a complex system that requires voters to choose individual candidates as well as party lists. Full results will be announced after voting ends on January 11.

Whatever the outcome, nine months of turmoil have plunged Egypt into economic crisis as growth slows, investment and tourism shrink, and foreign reserves dwindle, limiting any government's ability to satisfy soaring popular expectations.

Mohamed Radwan, equities head at Pharos Securities, said his biggest fear was the government's liquidity crunch, adding that devaluation looked imminent "unless the new cabinet to be formed does something drastic and miraculous in a very short time."

Last week Egypt's pound hit its lowest since January 2005. Foreign reserves have sunk by a third to $22 billion this year.

Election monitors have reported logistical hiccups and campaign violations but no serious violence.

Armed with laptops and leaflets, party workers of the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing and its Islamist rivals have approached muddled voters to guide them through the balloting system and nudge them toward their candidates.

In the Nile Delta town of Kafr el-Sheikh, Muslim Brotherhood workers were selling cut-price food in a tent where they also distributed flyers naming the FJP candidates in the area.

Some Egyptians respect the Brotherhood for its decades of social welfare work, its opposition to Mubarak and its image of piety and honesty in a country riddled with corruption.

Others worry that resurgent Islamist parties may dominate political life, mold Egypt's next constitution and threaten social freedoms in what is already a deeply conservative nation of 80 million people whose 10 percent Coptic Christian minority complains of discrimination from the Muslim majority.

Copts, like Muslims, were voting in greater numbers than in the Mubarak era. "Before, the results were known in advance, but now we have to choose our fate," said Wagdy Youssef, a 45-year-old company manager in Alexandria.

As voting took place in the chilly, rain-swept coastal town of Damietta, Sayed Ibrahim, 30, said he backed the liberal Wafd Party over its main local rival, the Salafi Nour Party.

"I'm voting for Wafd because I don't want an ultra-religious party that excludes other views," he said, in jeans and a cap.

http://news.yahoo.com/egy...rs-mayhem-000304621.html

CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood has fired a warning shot at Egypt's ruling generals, declaring that a swift end to military rule is the country's ''top priority'' as it prepares to take charge of a newly elected Parliament.

With provisional election results confirming a strong result for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, the movement's leaders emphasised that now was the time for ''consensus not collision'' and agreed to work with parties across the political spectrum for a smooth transition to civilian government.

Results from the first round of voting were due to be announced last night with delays caused by a high voter turnout, election officials said.

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In a sign the Brotherhood will not tolerate the Parliament being treated as a rubber stamp by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, senior members of the organisation said the generals risked further unrest if they defied the people and failed to return to their barracks next year.

''I am confident the military will choose to co-operate with Parliament and not confront it - any other path will create more chaos,'' the vice-president of the Freedom and Justice Party, Essam el-Arian, said.

The Brotherhood's leader in Giza, Amr Darrag, said a quick and painless handover to civilian rule was the most important issue facing the Arab world's most populous nation. ''Parliament must be formed, a president … elected and power must be transferred to civilian authority,'' he said.

The Brotherhood had been criticised for refusing to back demonstrations against SCAF, which left more than 40 dead and thousands injured.

Apparently acknowledging the shifting political sands, Egypt's ruling generals announced on Thursday they would convene a civilian advisory council, which has been largely denounced.

Khaled Tellima, a member of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, told the local news outlet Ahram Online: ''Our demands are clear … we simply want the military rulers to go.''

http://www.smh.com.au/wor...1obbo.html#ixzz1fRZeJHi9

Arab Spring or
Islamist Winter?

by David Schenker

In October 2011—ten months after the demonstrations that ended Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s thirty-year tenure in office—a Cairo court upheld a 2005 conviction disqualifying Ayman Nour from participating in the state’s first post-revolt presidential elections. Nour, who in 2005 had the temerity to challenge Mubarak for the office, paid for his insolence by spending the next four years in jail doing hard labor. Clearly disappointed, Nour lamented upon hearing the verdict, “I thought that there was a revolution that had happened in Egypt.”

A year after the revolt in Tunisia hailed the onset of the so-called “Arab Spring,” Nour is not alone in his frustration. From Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, where tyrants were toppled, to Syria and Bahrain, where uprisings against dictators persist, the trajectory of change in the Middle East remains uncertain. Throughout the region, anti-democratic forces—Islamists, former regime elements, militaries, and external forces—conspire to subvert positive developments. Meanwhile, challenged with insurrection, the dictators still standing have tried to forestall a thaw in their own countries by any means necessary.

There are some potential bright spots. Bolstered by substantial pledges from the Gulf Cooperation Council and a new government led by a jurist from the International Criminal Court, Jordan is currently pursuing unprecedented meaningful political reform that’s moving the kingdom, albeit slowly, toward more representative government. But aside from this, in the near term at least, prospects for the proliferation of liberal democracy in the Arab world do not look particularly promising.

Not surprisingly, disillusionment is starting to take hold throughout the region among “liberals,” a term increasingly hard to define. In Washington, too, the initial excitement over the unprecedented display of people power in the Middle East has faded, replaced by growing talk of “Arab Winter” and a fear that a shift in momentum will help illiberal forces and hurt US interests.

In Bahrain, the minority Sunni–led kingdom’s initial brutal repression of the majority Shiite (and, according to the king, Iranian-inspired and -assisted) protesters, culminated in March 2011 with the destruction of the iconic three-hundred-foot monument in Manama’s Pearl Roundabout. While the circle has been paved over and renamed, the opposition continues to call for representative government and a constitutional monarchy.

The crackdown, and the Sunni government’s repeated accusations of meddling by the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, among others, has accentuated the already extant sectarian divide on the island and in the Gulf in general. Should the findings of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry—which documented the extensive human rights abuses and recommended that officials be held accountable—be ignored by King Hamad al-Khalifa, it will only fuel the discontent. Today, tensions and violence persist as the tiny island hurtles toward another seemingly inevitable showdown. Regardless of whether the largely Shiite opposition prevails and irrespective of its preferred flavor of government, Tehran would view any transition as a strategic opportunity.

Meanwhile, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in his effort to avoid the fate of Egypt’s Mubarak and Tunisia’s Ben Ali, has overseen the killing of more than five thousand extremely tenacious pro-democracy protesters. Even as the violence spikes, it’s difficult to imagine the regime surviving the crisis, and the state could slide toward civil war as the demonstrators, increasingly under pressure, begin a transition from peaceful protest to armed insurrection.

Although only about nine percent of the opposition National Council’s 230-member government-in-exile General Assembly seats have been set aside for Islamists, the fact that this level of representation is equivalent to that of the liberal democratic “Damascus Declaration” organization is cause for concern. Given the escalating violence, it is tempting to say that whatever comes after Assad will likely be better; but given the brutalization of the Syrian people, this may be a fallacy, and in any case it’s far from assured that whatever comes next will be democratic. In the meantime, Assad has threatened to “burn the whole region” should NATO or the UN pursue military action against his regime.

The political trajectory in Libya—which engaged in a nine-month NATO-assisted war of liberation from Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi—is also unclear. The initial public face of the National Transitional Council, the Benghazi government led by a University of Pittsburgh Ph.D. and a former Minister of Justice who resigned to protest Qaddafi’s human rights abuses, was reassuring.

More recently, though, the gruesome summary execution of Qaddafi, and the NTC’s failure to investigate this and other high-profile killings, has raised questions about the commitment of the new Libya to human rights. Equally alarming to some have been Islamist rumblings coming from the NTC and the former Justice Minister’s October statement that the Qaddafi-era proscription against polygamy was “contrary to Sharia [Islamic law] and must be stopped.”

With a population of six million, a functioning interim government, and potential annual oil revenues in excess of $40 billion, post-Qaddafi Libya should have been able to emerge from the fighting in good shape. But the nation is awash in arms. Militias have refused to lay down their weapons and have begun tribal clashes with rivals, terrorizing civilians and engaging in a reign of reprisal against supporters of the former regime.

Further complicating matters, one of the militias that has balked at disarming is the Tripoli Military Council, led by Ahmed Bilhaj, the former emir of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate. At the same time, the TMC as well as other prominent militias, including reportedly the Zintanis, are receiving support from various Gulf states, perpetuating rivalries. With one hundred and forty tribes, more than three hundred extremely well-armed militias, and weak central authority, the challenges facing the new Libyan government are legion.

Putting aside concerns that some of the regime’s remaining stocks of chemical weapons, which went unsecured for a time, may now be missing, it’s already been confirmed that more than twenty thousand man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) have vanished. Reports suggest that these missiles—which are capable of downing both military and civilian aircraft—as well as other heavy weapons, have found their way to Chad, Niger, Mali, Egypt, and Gaza.

Even in Tunisia, long considered among the best-educated and most liberal and Western-oriented of Arab states, the fate of liberal democracy is unclear. During its first post–Ben Ali elections this October, Ennahda, the Islamist “Renaissance” Party, won more than forty percent of Tunisia’s Constituent Assembly seats.

While the internationally monitored elections were judged free and fair, and the Islamist party’s leader Rachid al-Ghannouchi has vowed to establish a pluralist state and enter into a coalition with secular parties, and has articulated his opposition to “the imposition of the head scarf in the name of Islam,” earlier and less expedient statements made by Ghannouchi during his twenty-two years in exile reveal a more militant agenda.

In 1990, for example, he demanded that Muslims “wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.” More recently, in May 2011 Ghannouchi referred to Israel as a “germ” and predicted the state’s annihilation by 2027.

At the same time, there are already indications that Ghannouchi and Ennahda are not as democratic as suggested. In October 2011—in a stunning example of the type of liberties that are at risk in Tunisia—Ghannouchi defended protesters who ransacked a local television station that aired Persepolis, a film critical of the Iranian revolution. These days, Ghannouchi says he’d like Ennahda to follow the model of Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development or AK Party.

While the AK typically passes in the West for “moderate,” secularist Turkish advocates of liberal democracy who are watching the erosion of basic rights such as freedom of the press do not any longer consider their state a “model.” In any event, it’s not at all clear that Ennahda’s constituents are as “enlightened” as the organization’s leader, or that the party won’t be outflanked by Tunisia’s growing, indigenous, militant Salafist movement.

While politics in Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria are important, what transpires in Egypt with its eighty-three million people will largely determine where the extraordinary events of 2011 lead in the region. The toppling of the thirty-year president, Hosni Mubarak, dramatically raised expectations among the population. Egyptians anticipated not only better governance, but an improvement to their financial situations. One year after the revolt, however, little if any progress has been made on either front.

Indeed, in terms of economy, there has been a marked deterioration of conditions since February 2011. Frequent, large-scale demonstrations and a generally poor security situation have scared away tourism and foreign direct investment, two key sectors of the economy.

Not only are incomes down, so is growth, which is contributing to a rise in unemployment. The numbers tell the story: even if Egypt is fortunate enough to reach zero percent growth in FY2011, an additional 750,000 (mostly youths) will be added to the state’s already considerable ranks of the jobless.

Making matters worse, with all the uncertainty surrounding Egyptian politics, it’s unclear when either sector will rebound. These internal developments are having a real impact on the state’s macroeconomic well-being: since the uprising, Egypt’s foreign reserves have plummeted from $36 billion to an estimated $20 billion and are being disbursed at a rate of $2 billion a month.

The political trends in Cairo likewise provide little reason for optimism. While the freedom of expression immediately after Mubarak’s fall was unprecedented, this brief springtime was soon replaced by stormier weather. In the fall of 2011, reports proliferated of arrests and detentions of Egyptians for violations of speech prohibitions.
In October alone, one blogger was arrested and sentenced in a civil court to three years for “contempt of religion” for articulating an unfavorable view of Islam, and both activists and bloggers were incarcerated and put before a military court on charges of “insulting the army.” The latter of these crimes—brought by the ruling Supreme Military Council (SMC)—consisted of civilians complaining about the nondemocratic nature of the Army.

Throughout Egypt, polling suggests that the military remains popular and respected for its role during the revolt. Among the so-called “liberals,” however, the institution has lost its luster. The SMC’s heavy-handedness, faintly sinister opacity, and peremptory decisions on a host of issues, from the new constitution to the timing of the elections, have proved quite unpopular, particularly among Egypt’s non-Islamists.

Given the creeping authoritarianism, one US-based analyst recently asked whether cynics might be wondering whether the revolt was “merely replacement of an eighty-two-year-old Air Force general”—Mubarak—“with a seventy-six-year-old Army general”—Minister of Defense Mohamed Tantawi.

Islamists aren’t particularly pleased with the SMC, either. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is deeply opposed to the military’s efforts to enshrine supra-constitutional principles ensuring the “civil state” and preventing the legislature from passing laws affecting the armed forces without the military’s consent.

The Islamists likewise reject the SMC’s attempt to insinuate itself into the constitution-drafting process. Should the SMC’s gambit succeed, it would prevent the Islamists—who are likely to control the parliament—from selecting the committee that writes Egypt’s new constitution. It would also institutionalize a military role in Egyptian politics going forward.

The military’s attempt to change the rules so late in the game prompted a significant popular backlash in November 2011 that continues to today, resulting in Tahrir Square demonstrations reminiscent of the February revolt that toppled Mubarak. With dozens killed and hundreds wounded, it was unclear, just days before the start of the elections, whether they would proceed. In the midst of this violence, the Egyptian daily Youm Saba ran the headline “Egypt returns to point zero.”

If and when the SMC actually return to the barracks, it’s not going to be the “liberals” who set the tone. While it’s possible that Egypt will retain a presidential system of government, the Islamists will control the parliament. In fact, taking a cue from Ennahda’s electoral victory in late October, the MB announced that its Freedom and Justice party would increase the number of candidates standing for the People’s Assembly from forty-nine percent, or two hundred and forty-four, to four hundred of the lower house’s four hundred and ninety-eight elected seats. Together, Freedom and Justice and the more hard-line and increasingly popular Salafist party al-Nour will control a decisive majority in the new parliament.

Given the changed political culture of post-Mubarak Egypt, an Islamist landslide could have a significant impact. Putting aside the potentially serious implications for the peace with Israel and Egyptian-US relations, the MB’s policy that sharia, or Islamic law, will “represent the governing principle in defining priorities of objectives, and policies, and strategies” cannot help but affect domestic governance.

Consider, for example, that Hazim Abu Ismail—a leading Islamist who is floating a run for the presidency—advocates the re-imposition of the jizya, a special tax on all non-Muslim men of military age. While there’s no need to panic that Egypt will soon join Iran as an Islamic Republic, over time (but beginning immediately), an Islamist parliament could chip away at the largely secular legal framework.

Indeed, notwithstanding the Muslim Brotherhood’s irritation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s September 2011 suggestion that Egypt should adopt the Turkish system of government and ensure the secular nature of the state in its constitution, it appears that the MB is indeed pursuing the Turkish model. Not the old, pre-Erdogan paradigm, wherein the military served as the guardian of secularism in the state, but a new model, in which an Islamist party (i.e., the AKP) secures a majority in Parliament and then gradually leverages its legislative authority to divest the military of its traditional power and target secular political opponents.  

Few who have traveled to the Middle East since the uprisings began would dispute the vastly changed atmosphere there, especially the increased freedom of speech and the animation of political discussion. Regardless of how one views the future of the ongoing uprisings, ending authoritarian regimes is a positive development for the peoples of the region. But that assessment could change should secular dictators be replaced with theocratic dictators.

In light of the trends, it seems almost inevitable that much of the political space in the region will soon be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists, who will, as always, focus on dawa, or Islamic propagation. By controlling the education and social affairs–related ministries, the Islamists will have even more of a leg up on radically transforming society in their direction. It will be difficult in this environment for “liberal” or secular parties to survive, much less thrive.

Instead of liberal democracy in the region, populist and Islamist politics will likely fill the gap left by the authoritarians. Of course, should the Islamists take power and fail to govern well, eradicate endemic corruption, create jobs, and improve the economy, they too can be voted out of power. That is, provided that these states continue to hold elections and viable alternatives are not snuffed out. The challenge for Washington in the coming years, then, will be to maintain relations with Islamist states, while simultaneously helping to preserve and strengthen ostensibly liberal parties.

Accomplishing these goals will not be easy. Some of the emerging governments in the region—Islamist or otherwise—may be overtly hostile toward the US. It’s also conceivable that a democratically elected Arab government or two will be committed to the destruction of the state of Israel, a policy that would complicate productive US bilateral relationships with these states. And supporting the non-Islamist opposition in these states—via the provision of US technical assistance, for example—would almost certainly be viewed by the Islamists as interference in domestic affairs.

The Arab uprisings—the intifadas against tyranny—were and are a remarkable accomplishment for the peoples of the Middle East. But they were only the end of the beginning. During a speech given in Washington in early October, Abdel Monem Said Aly—a Mubarak appointee who served until the revolt as head of Egypt’s government-funded Al Ahram Center—opined that he didn’t like the term “Arab Spring.” In the Middle East, he explained, “We go from winter to summer and in between there are only sandstorms.” Abdel Monem’s reference suggests the turbulence and uncertainty of the period ahead. But based on the current trajectory, an even better metaphor might be February 2nd, Groundhog Day, when we find ourselves waiting to see just how much longer winter will last.





http://www.worldaffairsjo...ing-or-islamist-winter-0

By Greg Burke

March 21, 2012

A little more than a year ago, as the Arab Spring swept through North Africa, people in the region began experiencing a taste of freedom.

That was certainly true in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, where Egyptian Muslims and Christians celebrated the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power for more than 30 years.

"Christians are still considered second-class citizens in Egypt."

Egypt has the largest Christian population in the Arab World, about 10 percent of the nation’s 85 million people. And most Egyptian Christians are Coptic Orthodox. But the Christian community is a minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, and its relations with Muslims remain strained, even after the Arab Spring.

While you see churches in many places around Cairo, there is almost always a minaret right in front of the church or right around the corner. The great majority of women you see on the street are wearing the headscarf -- something that has increased in recent decades. If a woman does not wear it, it’s a sign she’s probably a Christian or a moderate Muslim; in either case, she

is in the minority.

Christianity has a long history in Egypt, dating back to the Apostle St. Mark, who is believed to have brought the Gospel to Alexandria in the 1st century.

"Egyptian Christians have history in mind, and it’s a history full of hardship, suffering and even bloodshed," says Bishop Mouneer H. Anis, the Anglican Bishop in Cairo.

Anis, who presides over a small but thriving Anglican community, said that every time he goes to Alexandria, he feels the witness of St. Mark and other Christian martyrs. "Without the blood of the early Christians, we would not be Christians today," he said.

Christian suffering in Egypt is not just the stuff of history books. More than two dozen Christians died during a demonstration at Maspero, in downtown Egypt, just last year, many of them run over by Army trucks. Anis recalled that he went to the funeral of the Maspero victims and saw how people were mourning as each coffin was brought out of the church. But he said they also clapped, and "You don’t clap except for a hero."

The Muslim Brotherhood, which Mubarak had kept under tight control, has now won more than 40 percent of the seats in Parliament, and the more radical Salafists have won 25 percent; together, the groups have an absolute majority.

The rest of Parliament consists mostly of moderate Muslims and their Christian allies.

What does that mean for Christians? The answer is not yet clear, though they hope the Muslim Brotherhood will allow for some protection of minorities when a new constitution is written.

Anis said the Muslim Brotherhood might learn from Hamas in the Gaza Strip and not follow its example of radical Islam, which has ostracized it. He said the Muslim Brotherhood will get recognition from the international community if it protects minorities and emphasizes high standards of education for young people.

Poverty and illiteracy are two of the biggest problems in Egypt, and they both play a role in fostering religious conflict.

"This is the greatest sin of Hosni Mubarak," said Father Antoine Rafic Greiche, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Egypt. "He kept the people illiterate for 30 years."

Anis admitted that life for Christians is getting more difficult now, with more churches being burned and demolished. "That never happened under Mubarak -- although it was not easy under Mubarak," he said.

And yet, even under Mubarak, there were some serious incidents, with Christians being thrown in prison or even killed for religious reasons.

"The truth is that if a Muslim kills a Christian, nothing ever happens," complained Adel Abd El Malek Ghali, a doctor who helps out at the Salam Center, a hospital, school and home for seniors on the outskirts of Cairo.

The Salam Center, run by the Daughters of St. Mary, an order of Coptic Orthodox nuns, is located very close to a Cairo dump. Most of the city’s garbage collectors are Christians.

The center is an oasis in the middle of an extremely poor neighborhood; some 19 nuns cater to both Christians and Muslims in an impoverished but peaceful setting.

Sister Maria, the head of the convent, who, like all of the nuns, proudly wears her habit, acknowledged that recent developments in Muslim-Christian relations have scared her.

"Things all looked good during the revolution, but now you’re seeing a lot of attacks on Christians," she said. "It’s a bit worrisome."

But Ghali displayed a joyful disposition as he gave a tour of the classrooms and clinics at the Salam Center, and he stressed that "despite everything," Christians should be calm. "It doesn’t mean there won’t be persecution," he said, "but we shouldn’t be afraid."

On the surface, relations between Muslims and Christians can look pretty good in Egypt. You see a flourishing school for girls of all faiths, for example, in the Heliopolis section of Cairo. It’s run by Catholic nuns.

But according to Father Rafic Greiche, the parish priest next door, one of the nuns was attacked not long ago while returning home after a class at the university.

He said two men arrived on a motorcycle, pulled the habit off the nun’s head and demanded she say, "Muhammad is the Prophet." Then they cut her face with a razor. The men took her bag, but it was discarded near the convent a few days later with everything still inside, a message that this was not a robbery.

"As a priest I should not be scared, but we are a little scared," Greiche said.

The Christian population in Egypt may be small, but it’s determined. People don’t try to hide their faith; in fact, many men and women have crosses tattooed on their wrists.

"Humanly speaking, we don’t have a great future," said Catholic Coptic Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina. "But there have been worse times for Christians in Egypt, and Christians are still here. This could be a moment of purification."

Aziz Mina recalled that the uprising in Egypt initially made him quite optimistic about the future of the country, but that didn’t last long.

"We Christians have not gained a thing," he said. "I don’t know where it’s going to end."

He said whenever a church gets burned or destroyed, the army helps repair it, but that no culprit is ever found.

"We’re ready to pay for the church to be repaired, but we want the guilty parties found and tried," he said.

Aziz Mina referred to a recent incident in which six Christian families were forced out of a village after reports of an illicit relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim girl.

"Where’s the law?" the bishop asked. "If today they kick us out of a village, eventually they’ll kick us out of the country."

Christians in Egypt hope that the Arab Spring will lead to a springtime for both Muslims and Christians, allowing them to live in peace and mutual respect.

But there is no guarantee that will happen in Egypt, and some feel it probably won’t.

"As an Egyptian Christian, I feel that hardship and suffering are part of the package," Anis said.

"If you are a Christian, there will be a price to pay."

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