The police usually do not belong in the papers. The criminal should take the headlines, with the officer behind the scenes. In Egypt, sadly, this has not been true. The pendulum, hopefully, might yet reach balance.
Police abuse and corruption was a prime catalyst of the revolution. Demonized, the papers scrutinized every fault. Later, the police stood with the army and multitudes of demonstrators against Morsi. Lionized, the papers rehabilitated their reputation.
But once again the police are back in the papers. Carefully, cautiously, reports of abuse and corruption hit the front page.
Some say it is sanctioned directly from the top. To reform an institution requires public will; shaping public will requires media dissemination.
Sisi may be saying: Get your house in order.
The police chief has also been vocal: We will treat citizens humanely, we will train in human rights.
And a few police have been arrested, accused in the deaths of detainees.
God, you know the realities of how Egypt works. You know the practices inside police stations. You know the relationship between government and press. And you know the sincerity of each man’s heart.
May good laws be enforced by good men in good institutions. Reform all to the extent necessary.
Let public rhetoric shape public behavior, and curb private but official violations. Let media shaming evolve into legal accountability. Let police take pride in their performance. Let justice and rule of law characterize the social order.
And give wisdom to Egypt to know how to get there.
‘Be sure your sins will find you out,’ says the ancient wisdom. Perhaps this is the longest application on record.
But it is still incomplete, as the culprit remains hidden by the obscurity of history. Surely he is mentioned in the hieroglyphic records somewhere, but as the all-thumbs sloppy apprentice to the famed embalmer of Thebes.
From The Guardian, describing the CT scan results on a number of ancient mummies, on display in London.
There will be eight mummies in the show. Details of two were revealed yesterday. The unknown Thebes man, mummified around 600BC, is particularly interesting because of the bits of tool that were left in the poor man’s skull.
Daniel Antoine, who is responsible for the museum’s human remains collection, said embalmers had “great skill and knowledge of human anatomy”, managing to extract a brain through a hole no bigger than 2cm by 2cm.
In this case, something went wrong. The embalmer would probably have used a metal rod to break the bones at the top of the nose to then extract the brain with a wooden or perhaps reedy spatula – it is this that somehow broke and remains in the man’s skull.
So what happened? Was this poor man, who was also suffering from severely painful dental abscesses, thrown to the young student for his training? When he made his error, did he just cover it up and trust no one would notice? Did he show such contempt for the afterlife that this poor worker would live his next life with tool bits in his head?
Or does the scandal go deeper? The chief embalmer was a man of great skill, working on the finest of corpses:
Tamut lived in Thebes around 900BC and had a top job as a temple singer, or chantress, of the god Amun. Because of her high status she was given the best possible mummification. Researchers have scanned and made 3D copies of amulets that adorned her body.
They have also detected a pair of small metal plates which cover the incision that the embalmer would have made in her left abdomen to drain out her internal organs. They have on them carvings of a protective eye, presumably to help heal the wound magically.
Would such shoddy student mummification have escaped the notice of this renowned embalmer? It seems more likely there was a love triangle between Tamut, the surgical chief, and the worker with dental issues. The high executive in the mummy office maintained an affair with her, one of the notoriously loose temple singers. As one last expression of high class snobbery, he botched the operation of her jilted working-class husband and left him brain-dead in the afterlife.
Tamut, he planned, would be preserved for him forever.
That is, until his modern-day equivalent in London discovered the scandal. Ancient wisdom proves true after all.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concludes cantankerous negotiations to finalise his right-wing cabinet, Palestinian-Israeli evangelicals are hoping for something better.
Alienated by campaign rhetoric stigmatising Arab citizens as an electoral threat, they turned in response to the source they know best: the Gospel.
In doing so, they seek to reverse a disturbing trend of isolation from society as a whole, and in particular their Jewish neighbors.
‘Are we not asked to be the salt and light of the earth?’ asked Revd Azar Ajaj, president of Nazareth Evangelical College, in an open letter shortly after the Israeli elections.‘How important, then, to show love to those who have been styled as our “enemies”. In fact we are asked to be peacemakers.’
And from April 16-18, he gathered 60 local and international leaders to discuss how.
The ‘Evangelicals and Peacemaking’ conference was sponsored in part by the Baptist Mission Society UK. It urged participants as Palestinian Christians in Israel to seek justice and reconciliation to create a state for all its citizens.
Present at the conference was Salim Munayer, head of Musalaha, which since 1990 has bucked the trends of intifadas and settlement building to call for peace between Israeli Jews and Palestinians.
The election rhetoric was quite discouraging, Munayer told Lapido Media.
Netanyahu rallied his supporters saying the Arabs were coming out to vote ‘in droves’. His foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab Joint List which placed third in total Knesset seats, ‘you’re not wanted here.’
Meanwhile the Joint List – a merger of secular, communist, and Islamist parties – included the symbolic presence of a politician calling for a caliphate in Jerusalem. It received the strong endorsement of Hamas.
Pressed between a regional rise in Islamism, mirrored by the gains of religious Zionism, Christians are being squeezed.
And as a result, they are withdrawing from both.
Separation
Evangelical leaders estimate their numbers in Israel are only around 5,000, among 157,000 Christians and 1.4 million Muslims. Israel’s population is 7.91 million, according to the 2012 census.
‘Most interaction between Palestinian Christians and Israeli Jews comes by necessity, not as a result of a relationship,’ Munayer told conference attendees. ‘We see them at school, at the bank, but much more must be done.’
And it has never been worse, according to his research co-authored with Jewish professor Gabriel Horenczyk from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The October 2014 issue of International Journal of Psychology details how Christians have soured toward Jews.
In 1998, the predominant attitude of over 200 Arab Christian adolescents surveyed was of integration with Israeli Jewish culture. By contrast, the attitude toward Arab Muslim culture was one of separation.
But 10 years later, adolescents exhibited a primary posture of increasing separation from both.
‘Many of us have given up on trying to improve our relationship with both the Jews and the Muslims of Israel,’ Munayer said. ‘We say it is a waste of time, they are not going to change, they are becoming more religious, and they don’t want us.’
Munayer’s Musalaha is doing all it can to fight the reality of this withdrawal. It has created a three-hundred-page curriculum on reconciliation between distinct peoples, applying its principles during inter-ethnic summer camps and encounter groups.
But he increasingly aims to influence society as a whole, not only at the grassroots but also in academic engagement. Munayer received his PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies at Cardiff University, and is collaborating with a number of young Israeli Christian and Jewish scholars to further his research.
For example, in a survey of 700 Muslims, Christians and Druze, Sammy Smooha of Haifa University found only fifty per cent of Christians have Jewish friends they have visited at home. But 57 per cent have experienced discrimination, and thirty per cent reported receiving threats or humiliation.
These and other findings were presented at a January conference on Palestinian Christian Identity in Israel, co-hosted by Musalaha and the Hebrew University. It was unprecedented, Munayer said, for an Israeli university to sponsor such an event.
Bridges
And it is an Israeli Jew who is helping Ajaj take his baby steps toward peacemaking, moving beyond his simple convictions.
‘Very little is being done to build bridges with the Jews,’ he told Lapido Media. ‘I’m still in the beginning of the journey and I pray that good things come out of it.’
In October last year Ajaj participated in an interfaith dialogue at a Jewish conference centre. A rabbi from the village of Kiryet Tiv’on, ten miles from Nazareth, invited him to speak at his synagogue during Hanukah and explain the Ten Commandments on his radio program.
In May they begin a six-month experiment to bring eight from each community to discuss matters of faith and society.
‘We are classified as enemies, but we don’t accept this,’ Ajaj said of the national political discourse. ‘So we must encourage those who are silent to take action and express respect for the other.’
Ajaj hopes the April conference can empower Nazareth Evangelical College as a centre for theological education in peacemaking. But as a minority within a minority within a minority, there is only so much they can do.
To help, Ajaj recently invited leaders from seven different denominations to a conference on Christianity in the Holy Land. Several said it was their first meeting with an evangelical.
But with Christians withdrawing into a self-imposed ghetto mentality as Israeli Arab citizens are labelled a demographic threat, these evangelicals are calling for a halt.
‘If we want a better future built on respecting and loving the “other”, then let us take part in building it,’ Ajaj wrote. ‘Otherwise, those with other values will determine what this future will be.’
So boasted the black-clad narrator of the latest ISIS video, this time chronicling their slaughter of 30 Ethiopian Christians captured in Libya. Two months earlier, the victims were Coptic Christians, whose beheadings came entitled: A message signed with blood to the nation of the cross.
But what is the ‘nation of the cross’?
Some have embraced the terminology. The Christ Church United Methodist of the Woodlands, Texas, posted a Je Suis Charlie inspired message of support: ‘Here am I, I too, am a member of the nation of the cross.’
But Bishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK thinks they are making a grave mistake.
‘This divisive terminology implies that we as a “nation” of Christians are at war with the “nation of Islam”,’ he wrote to the youth of his church.‘Of course this is not the case, and we must not be coerced into a state of enmity.’
ISIS labeled the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church an ‘enemy’, likely for the ongoing Ethiopian military response against the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia. Likewise, the Coptic Orthodox Church is targeted to a great degree for the Egyptian government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
But ISIS is not just after these churches. ‘Our battle is between faith and blasphemy,’ the narrator declared. ‘We swear to Allah: You will not have safety, even in your dreams, until you embrace Islam.’
In seeing itself as a caliphate, Angaelos told Lapido Media, ISIS wants to put itself at war with Christianity.
Alarmed
‘Because there is a Muslim ummah, there must be in their eyes a Christian ummah, the nation of the cross,’ he said, using the Arabic word that can be translated as ‘nation’.
‘This is why I am very alarmed when people use it naively, because they are buying into a rhetoric that is not ours.’
And according to Muslim scholars, ‘nation of the cross’ is not part of Islamic rhetoric either.
The word ummah is used 62 times in the Qur’an, sometimes referring to ‘peoples’ in general. But over time it becomes more specific to the Muslim community, according to Frederick Denny’s chapter, ‘The meaning of ‘ummah’ in the Qur’an’, in The History of Religions.
Christians and Jews are viewed as an ummah as recipients of divine revelation, but Christians are labeled ahl al-kitab, or ‘people of the book’.
‘This phrase [nation of the cross] is unknown, ISIS has invented it to divide people,’ Muhga Ghalib, dean of Islamic Studies at al-Azhar University told Lapido Media. ‘We have the three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and we are brothers in humanity.’
The editor-in-chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English website agreed. ‘I cannot really make any reference of “nation of cross” to Islamic heritage, or history, and I’m not sure what the origin is,’ Hazem Malky told Lapido. ‘It looks like something they use in their own literature to serve their needs and ideology.’
But even where the rhetoric turns negative in Islamic history, terms like ahl al-dhimmah or kuffar are employed, to refer either to a protected community paying jizya tax, or to infidels.
ISIS’ video also highlights the fact that Syria’s Christians admit paying the tax, having been brought to the point of submission. Rejecting the nation-state system, ISIS sees the caliphate at war with distinct religious communities with the aim of subjugating them.
Obscure
Its extremist scholars have made a science out of reviving obscure concepts in Islamic history, like the selling of sex slaves and the burning of captives. These are rejected by the vast majority of Muslims today.
But even a group with traditional animosity against Christians finds the term ‘nation of the cross’ unfamiliar. Hany Nour Eddin, a member of Egypt’s dissolved parliament with the formerly militant al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, told Lapido Media ISIS tries to invoke the Crusades in its effort to pit East against West.
‘ISIS uses the logic of power and jihad in order to create conflict,’ he said. ‘They are trying specifically to recruit the Islamist current to their side, telling them the democratic experiment has failed.’
Bishop Angaelos, on the other hand, interprets it as the recruitment of an enemy.
He says ISIS wants a military response motivated by Christian sentiment. ‘The West must not give in. This ideology must fall, otherwise those killed will be replaced by others,’ he says.
Instead, those motivated by Christian sentiment have a responsibility to exhibit their faith.
After the beheading of the Copts by ISIS, Angelos tweeted #fatherforgive, and it quickly went viral. When BBC and CNN reported it, the popular discourse shifted.
Angaelos is calling for his own redefinition of terms to be taken up more broadly, to prevent the world being sucked into a false dichotomy.
‘When we disengage from this language, we move away from the simplicity of Christian West versus Muslim East, because it’s wrong,’ he said. ‘I find this concept of the Muslim world quite offensive. Do I not have a place? For millions of Christians, this is our world also, plus Baha’is and non-believers beside.’
He adds that ‘the nation of the cross’ does not fit the West in its religious diversity. Coining a phrase foreign to Islam, Christianity, and modern civilization, ISIS is threatening to set the terms.
‘They are killing Muslims not just Christians’ says Angaelos. ‘This ideology considers everything unlike itself an enemy.’
In case anyone needed reminding, the use of religion to further militant political goals is not exclusive to Islam. The Intercept reports from Ukraine, where middle aged Dmytro Korchynsky has formed a private battalion, the Jesus Christ Hundred, dedicated to St. Mary, to fight the Russians.
In the 1990s he fought alongside Muslims in the Caucasus. Now he consciously borrows from them:
Korchynsky points approvingly to Lebanon. There, Hezbollah participates in government as a political party, while its paramilitary wing wages war independent of the state (and is thus considered, by the United States and the European Union, a terrorist organization). Korchynsky believes that sort of dual structure would be beneficial for Ukraine. He sees himself as the head of an informal “revolutionary community” that can carry out “higher order tasks” that are beyond the formal control of government.
That’s the theory. In practice, Korchynsky wants the war in eastern Ukraine to be a religious war. In his view, you have to take advantage of the situation: Many people in Ukraine are dissatisfied with the new government, its broken institutions and endemic corruption. This can only be solved, he believes, by creating a national elite composed of people determined to wage a sort of Ukrainian jihad against the Russians.
“We need to create something like a Christian Taliban,” he told me. “The Ukrainian state has no chance in a war with Russia, but the Christian Taliban can succeed, just as the Taliban are driving the Americans out of Afghanistan.”
The article is long and interesting, but here are his Christian foundations:
Just as Islamic extremists selectively highlight Quranic passages that endorse violence, the St. Mary’s Catechism opens with the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” The Catechism then adds its own interpretation: “Christianity should be treated like a sword, and not as a pillow.”
And like the jihadi emphasis on the glories of martyrdom and life in the afterworld, the Catechism explains that only those who follow the path prescribed by the Brotherhood shall receive the highest reward in heaven: “The end of the world is joyous, the destruction of the solar system will be a great celebration, and the second coming of Jesus to earth will be unexpected, and the terrible Final Judgment will become joyful. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
The battalion naturally has a chaplain. Here is how he came to fight:
When the fighting first started, he saw supporters of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic bullying young girls on Ukrainian Independence Day simply because they wore traditional Ukrainian embroidery. One time, he says, the separatists brutally punished a woman for wearing the embroidery. They drove nails into her feet and forced her to walk through the street.
It was pure evil, he explains, and is why it’s now necessary to fight. Father Volodymyr invoked the words of St. Paul, who said, “if you do that which is evil, be afraid; for he bears not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil.”
Here is the testimony of one of his fighters:
“Everything with us is based on faith in Jesus Christ,” says Partisan. “We believe that only a religious community can win in today’s world, and in a society where all our values have declined in importance, and only faith survives. War makes this evident. There is no place for atheists when there are mortars and rockets firing.”
In posting this story, I do not wish to claim an equivalency between Christianity and Islam, concerning violence. This topic is deep and nuanced, deserving of careful analysis. But the misuse of religion for any goal is as well known as the inspiration of religion toward any ideal. Drawing the lines between them is crucial.
And besides, Korchynsky does not claim an equivalency either:
I asked what distinguishes his organization from Islamic jihadists. The radical Islamists in Afghanistan and the Middle East are, according to Korchynsky, interested in destroying the world order. Not so with the St. Mary’s Battalion.
“We really like civilization,” he explained. “We want to have hot water in the bath and a functional sewage system, but we also want to be able to fight for our ideals.”
Maybe he has something to teach the Christian pacifists of this world, rightly divining the goals of jihadists through purer methods? Maybe not. Here is the article’s closing quote:
Korchynsky wants to move the war to Russian territory, and he says his people have already formed underground structures there. Like the Islamic State, one day his “brothers” will receive orders and begin their work.
Former president Morsi received his first prison sentence this week: Twenty years for inciting violence against protestors while in office. Afterwards his supporters took to protesting, but far fewer than once before. Even so, again, there was violence.
But by the end of the week the Brotherhood abroad reconstituted itself. And the first public statement included a seeming admission they were wrong to pursue a revolutionary path.
God, with passions divided let each pray their own way.
Further confuse the Brotherhood as it disintegrates, suffering the consequence of sins sowed over many years.
Further consolidate the Brotherhood as it reflects, recovering from sins suffered over many years.
Either way, may both pray to bless Egypt.
Either way, the Brotherhood is twisting. Twisting in the wind as prison sentences hit closer and closer to home, threatening death. Twisting in contortion to stay alive and stay united, as pressure pushes harder and harder from within and without.
And let each interpret again in turn.
Twisting the truth to fit the need. Reacting nimbly to those twisting the plot.
Either way, may all pray to bless the Brotherhood.
Bless them with wisdom, God, to reflect rightly. Bless them with courage, to act upon the truth.
Blessing friend or enemy, God, grant Egypt a righteous outcome.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rev. Justin Welby visited the Anglican All Saints Cathedral in Cairo and opened his sermon with a surprising comparison. Earlier he visited Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyeb, and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II.
“It has been an interesting and useful day,” the archbishop told the packed cathedral of his high profile itinerary, “but worshipping with you is the most important part.
“Here we meet with Jesus Christ and become his witnesses.”
Welby’s visit was to offer condolences for Egypt’s most recent witnesses, the twenty Coptic Christians and one Ghanaian martyred in Libya in February. The word ‘martyr’ is derived from a Greek word meaning ‘witness.’
Symbolically, Welby delivered to Pope Tawadros twenty-one letters written by grieving British families. One is believed to have been related to David Haines, the aid worker captured in Syria and beheaded last year.
“Why have the martyrs of Libya spoken so powerfully to the world?” Welby asked. “The way these brothers lived and died communicated that their testimony is trustworthy.”
The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, archbishop of the Anglican diocese of Egypt, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa, hosted Welby and welcomed him warmly.
But an unfortunate symbolism coincided his visit with the release of another video from the Islamic State in Libya, this time of Ethiopian Christians. Two groups totaling twenty-eight people were martyred, one beheaded and the other shot in the head.
Welby paid tribute to them, along with others killed for their faith in Kenya and Nigeria.
He noted the certainty of their resurrection, but stated, “We must grieve for them, support their families, and seek to change the circumstances that lead to their deaths.”
Welby’s sermon did not go into specifics, but he has earlier defended military strikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, while urging local governments to exercise their mandated use of force to restore order.
And concerning the flood of refugees to the region, “Europe as a whole must stand up and do what is right,” he told the BBC, and share the burden of accepting them.
According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, over 125,000 Syrians have fled to Egypt. Refuge Egypt, a social service arm of the Anglican Church in Egypt, extends food and medical care to those the UNHCR designates as of particular concern.
Welby praised the Christians of the Middle East for their trustworthy witness. But in order to be communicated, it must be acted out.
“If the church hears the world’s cries for help, but turns its back,” he said, “they will not believe in the love of Christ.”
Visiting with President Sisi, the archbishop heard him emphasize that Egyptian Christians are not a minority, but enjoy their full rights as all other Egyptian citizens.
Visiting with Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyib, he heard that love and mercy are the two elements that must characterize both international and human relations, and that the true picture of Islam and Christianity must be presented to the world.
“When a community is full of light,” Welby said in his sermon, “people will see through it and perceive God, and know they are loved by Christ.”
During communion, he sought to demonstrate this. Aware the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic bishops present could not share in full fellowship, Welby went to them and knelt down, asking for a blessing. In response, the two reciprocated and each prayed for the other in turn.
So many are having hard times in this region, Welby said, he wanted to come and offer condolences. Finishing his sermon, hepromised the audience that he was praying for them in the Middle East, but closed with a request of his own, for the West.
“Please pray for us, that in our comfort we do not forget to be faithful witnesses.”
A few excerpts from my article for Christianity Today, published April 20:
Once again, ISIS has orchestrated and filmed the dramatic mass killing of African Christians who refuse to deny their faith.
This time, the approximately 28 men targeted by the Libya affiliate of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as Daesh) were Ethiopian Christians. In February, the killing of 21 mostly Egyptian Christians drew widespread horror and fears of future massacres, but also led to Egypt’s largest Bible outreach.
…
The video was released the same day the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, arrived in Cairo to offer condolences for the previous martyrs in Libya: 20 Coptic Orthodox Christians and a sub-Saharan African. (CT reported how their deaths were unifying Egypt and inspiring Muslims throughout the Arab world, as well as honored in the Coptic calendar.)
“Why has Libya spoken so powerfully to the world?” asked Welby during a public sermon. “The way these brothers lived and died testified that their faith was trustworthy.”
…
The Ethiopian government has not yet been able to confirm the video, or certify the victims are its citizens.
But Grant LeMarquand, the Anglican bishop of the Horn of Africa, says they certainly appear to be.
“If they were given the chance to convert and did not,” he told CT, “they should be considered what ISIS calls them: ‘People of the Cross’, and therefore true followers of the crucified one.”
Bishop Angaelos, the general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, underscored the Ethiopians’ testimony.
“Once again we see innocent Christians murdered purely for refusing to renounce their faith,” he said in a statement.
“As Christians, we remain committed to our initial instinct following the murder of our 21 Coptic brothers in Libya, that it is not only for our own good, but indeed our duty to ourselves, the world, and even those who see themselves as our enemies, to forgive and pray for the perpetrators of this and similar crimes,” he said. “We pray for these men and women, self-confessed religious people, that they may be reminded of the sacred and precious nature of every life created by God.”
Please click here to read the full article at Christianity Today.
Too much should not be made of these markers, but they may reveal a mindset of some. Long on the defensive, Egypt’s non-Islamists feel empowered.
Among the results are a book burning at a school, seized from the Brotherhood. And a call for women to remove their head coverings, at a summer rally in Tahrir.
Give wisdom, God, for both substance and form.
The Azhar as an institution is non-Islamist, but it is also conservative, and pushing back. Subject to attacks in the media, it defends itself and traditional Islamic belief.
Egypt is still in flux, and the push and pull from various visions will take time to settle. In the meanwhile, each advocates its cause.
So how to pray? May all who invoke you in their vision pray from a pure heart. However different, may they seek the good of society. However conflicting, may liberal and conservative virtues all be honored, neither accused nor corrupting into vice.
Let books be written, and critiqued. Let heads be covered, if from faith. Let religion speak, with humility.
Let society find a way to incorporate all, amid respect. Let those who push find freedom, but failure – if they push too far.
Sort them out, God, and define the limits. Help Egypt arrive at the optimal place, with each in a mindset of peace.
IN IRAQ, ISIS zealots smash centuries-old artifacts and blow up churches. In Yemen, Shia militias plough through cities as Sunni neighbour Saudi Arabia rains down missiles.
Egypt is not without its own religious tension, but a timely interfaith art exhibition in Cairo intersects with perhaps the only potentially good news coming out of the region.
Iran may be rejoining the international community, and Iranian-born Azadeh Ghotbi is coming to London.
Born a Muslim, educated in a Catholic school and married to an atheist beside a Jewish bridesmaid, Ghotbi has lived in five countries across three continents.
Her parents fled the Islamic Revolution when she was a child.
Today,Ghotbi is one of 47 premier and emerging artists featured at the CARAVAN visual arts exhibition. Founded in Cairo in 2009, its yearly offerings travel the world, dedicated to the message of interreligious peace and cultural understanding between East and West.
‘I jumped at the opportunity to participate in this noble mission,’ Ghotbi told Lapido Media. ‘I highlight in my art that strength and beauty come through openness to the “other” and the cross-fertilisation of differences.’
Soar
[Change your viewpoint. Photo: Sixpillars.org]
Her piece is entitled Crossroads, and her message fits perfectly with the theme of the exhibition, The Bridge.
‘I have suffered the consequences of religious obtuseness,’ she wrote in her artist’s statement, ‘but have benefitted immensely among open-minded souls from diverse religious backgrounds.’
Ghotbi’s art has been exhibited in top galleries in Europe, the United Statesand Iran. The last of these has informed several pieces.
Faced straight on, the black letters of peace are hard to read behind the iron bars of a cage. But the inset of the letters is radiant turquoise, a colour she associates with the beauty of Iran, and only visible if you changeyour viewpoint.
‘As for the small fragile turquoise bird that represents hope, peace and freedom for us all,’ she explains,‘I left the cage door ajar for it!’
Ghotbi crafted Peace in 2013, eager for change.
Savvy
Two years later, Ghotbi is enthusiastic about the framework agreement signed by Iran and Western nations. As Tehran reduces its nuclear capabilities and allows comprehensive inspections, international sanctions will be gradually eliminated.
Sanctions have disproportionately hurt the poor and middle class, she said, while strengthening the political hand of the hardliners. The US Congressional Research Service reported a five percent contraction of the Iranian economy in 2013 along with a 56 percent currency devaluation and a 45 percent rise in the rate of inflation.
‘What Iran needs eventually is political change from within,’ said Ghotbi. ‘It’s youthful and highly educated population is quite savvy, but desperate for more freedom and better economic opportunities.’
‘I am very pleased about the deal going ahead,’ he told Lapido Media. ‘We have to work toward peoples coming together.
‘Opening up Iran, which it will do, allows more people to experience the “other”, on both sides.’
Indirect
An American, Chandler grew up as a minority Christian in mostly Muslim Senegal. He was deeply influenced by the local arts scene, but also disturbed by the tensions between the two faiths.
It was not until his ten years as an Episcopal priest in Cairo’s historic St. John’s Church that a vision began to form. Initially, CARAVAN was held only in Egypt, but over the past two years more than 300,000 have viewed the traveling exhibition in London, New York, and Washington, DC.
This year, The Bridge opened at the oldest church in Paris, the Eglise Saint Germain-Des-Pres, during the United Nations week for interfaith harmony. Following its current station in Cairo it will move to St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square from June 1 – July 31.
But CARAVAN is not intended only for the Western elite, as important as it is for them to see this example of cooperation between Arabs, Persians, Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The exhibition will travel also to rural areas in the United States, where misunderstanding of the Middle East is prevalent.
‘Art provides a context to address issues indirectly,’ Chandler told Lapido Media. ‘ It provides an atmosphere of contemplation and discussion that is neutral, when being direct causes tensions to rise.’
And in the Middle East, where spin-off projects are in development in Jordan, Tunisia, and Malta, the indirect approach of art can make all the difference.
Sheikh Abdel Aziz of the Azhar and Bishop Mouneer of the Anglican Church, observing the CARAVAN artwork.
According to Bishop Mouneer Hanna Anis, archbishop of the Anglican diocese of Egypt, structured efforts at dialogue between religious professionals have not impacted reality.
‘We have to be creative so that dialogue reaches the people,’ he said at the exhibition opening in Cairo. ‘Paul-Gordon has done this through art, to help build harmony between cultures, and to bring people together.’
The Middle East needs CARAVAN, Ghotbi believes, but art is not enough.
Education, jobs, and women’s rights are necessary to ease religious clashes between groups that used to coexist peacefully.
Chandler agrees, noting that transformation through art is a long term process.
‘Art doesn’t stop conflict, but that is not its function,’ he said. ‘It can’t change events but it can change people.’
However much the Middle East needs this message, it can also export the example. 47 artists are living testimony.
The following pictures show a lot of handshakes, but the message should not be lost in the repetition. Government officials, most of them Muslim, congratulate Copts for their holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.
Similar pictures could be seen on Christmas, but Easter is a far bigger deal. In Egypt, Christmas is an official holiday, and there is no Muslim religious objection to the birth of the Messiah. Muslims agree with Christians that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and though they object to the interpretation of incarnation, there are few reasons not to celebrate a common prophet.
Easter is different. In Islam, Jesus die not die on the cross so therefore he cannot have been raised again. There are real theological barriers, and less if any common ground. Some conservative Muslims are vocal about the inadmissibility of congratulating Christians on their holidays, but especially Easter.
The Muslim governmental and religious officials of the current Egyptian regime do not agree. Certainly they would not share the spiritual meaning of Easter, but they are keen to demonstrate congratulations to Copts in recognition of the importance of their holiday.
In these contested times in the Middle East, a handshake communicates much.
(More reflection to follow after the pictures)
Prime Minister Ibrahim MehlabShiekh Mohamed Abu Hashim, representing the AzharSheikh Mohamed Gamia, representing the Egyptian Family HouseAmr Moussa, head of the constitutional committee and former head of the Arab LeagueNabil al-Arabi, head of the Arab LeagueLabor Minister Nahed al-AshariPlanning Minister Ashraf al-ArabiCulture Minister Abd al-Wahid al-Nabawi
Easter greetings were also extended in the governorates.
Bishop Thomas of Qusia received Asyut governor Yassir al-DesoukiBishop Kyrillos of Nag Hamadi received Sohag governor Gen. Abd al-Hamid al-HeganBishop Bisada of Akhmim received Sohag governor Ayman Abd al-MunamBishop Maqar of Sharqia received Sharqia governor Rida Abd al-SalamA military designation visited the St. Mina Monastery outside Alexandria
Just as at Christmas great importance was given to the visit of President Sisi to the papal mass, the first ever honor bestowed by an Egyptian president, perhaps meaning should also be taken from his absence at Easter services.
Religious relations remain tricky in Egypt, and the president may not have wanted to alienate conservative Muslims with such a symbolic endorsement. But his government was not shy to risk it.
America is a secular state; Egypt is less so. When President Obama frequents a Muslim Iftar, it is an honorable recognition of the place of Islam within a nation that constitutionally guarantees the non-establishment of a religion and the freedom of all.
In Egypt it is a bit different, for Islam is the state religion and its law is the source of legislation. While the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, Islam retains a priority of place in interpretation.
The gesture in Cairo, then, is weightier than that offered in Washington. It is greater still in the more conservative governorates. It is not just that Copts have freedom, it is that as a government we honor even their Islam-challenging Easter holiday.
Of course the reality is not yet complete, and a cynic is excused if he accuses the government of insincerity. It is the practical demonstration of executive enforcement of law that speaks far louder than a handshake, and in this many parts of Egypt are still lacking.
But a handshake still speaks, and it speaks in relationship. Far more handshakes are needed, but let the message resonate.
Last summer the body of Hisham Rizk turned up in a Cairo morgue. The 19 year old graffiti activist had been missing for a week, and the official autopsy labeled him as having drowned in the Nile River.
No further information was given on the English language Ahram Online. But withholding comment only fuels speculation – rampant among many revolutionary activists – that the security apparatus is coming after them. Orchestrated to begin on Police Day, the January 25 revolution humiliated them but now is the time for payback. So goes the theory.
Rizk was a member of the Mohamed Mahmoud Street Graffiti Union, whose images are among the few to remain prominently displayed in Cairo. They are at the site of terribleclashes in November 2011, between protestors and police on a side-street off Tahrir. They contributed also to the rift between revolutionaries and the Muslim Brotherhood, who did not participate in defense of the square.
The Brotherhood has since suffered its own terrible losses at the hand of police. Though these groups share a common enemy, there is little sympathy offered. During their year in power the Brotherhood marred revolutionary icons and dismissed the ongoing struggle with the military and security apparatus, with whom these activists say they readily accommodated.
News of Rizk’s death reminded me of my last visit to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, several weeks earlier. President Sisi was not yet elected, though his victory seemed inevitable. An interview subject postponed our meeting two hours, so I had lunch in McDonalds facing the ubiquitous graffiti.
To pass the time I alternated between reflecting on the images and reading ‘A Theology of Liberation,’ tucked away in by bag to read on the metro. It was written by Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Latin American priest who demanded that Christianity pursue justice for the poor, as reflected in the character of God. For Gutiérrez, the cross of Christ represented the total involvement of God in the suffering of mankind. As such, Jesus identified with all victims, and his resurrection presages their own, toward which his followers must strive.
Consider then the following picture, as seen behind the bars of McDonalds, while eating French fries and a cheeseburger from the Egyptian equivalent of the dollar menu:
Here is the image in question:
The three crucified pairs of legs are covered by a belt bearing the name ‘Central Security,’ the revolutionary activists’ archenemy. What is not clear to me is what the symbolism means. Are these the victims of police, mocked and tagged with state insignia? Or have the police themselves been stripped, hung, and crucified? Does the image commemorate, or anticipate?
If the former, it is a remarkable statement of the power of Christian imagery within a revolutionary struggle of Muslim majority. Islam rejects the cross of Christ, believing instead God saved Jesus from the humiliation of crucifixion at the hands of his enemies. But the clashes and aftermath of Mohamed Mahmoud represent a losing moment for these activists. To depict their suffering they drew a cross.
To my knowledge there is no revolutionary graffiti of an empty tomb. They can hardly be blamed; they have had no victory. Initially pleased with the military removal of the Muslim Brotherhood, many now see in President Sisi the restoration of the security state. But some Christian revolutionaries have spoken of how they comforted their Muslim colleagues with tales of Jesus. Struggle involves suffering, they said, and perhaps even death. But victory comes as God resurrects.
This is how most non-revolutionary Egyptian Christians view the emergence of President Sisi. They, with millions of Muslims beside, project upon him the image of savior. He is the answer to their prayers, the remover of the Muslim Brotherhood.
And now it is the Brotherhood which is now being crucified, though this particular image is not found on Mohamed Mahmoud Street. Their opponents might cite a different Biblical parallel in the story of Esther. Following the failure of his plot to exterminate the Jews, Haman was hanged on the gallows he prepared for Mordecai.
Instead, the graffiti interpretation is possible that it is security which receives its comeuppance. A triumphant revolutionary movement finally secures the reins of power and holds the police accountable for its crimes. Their execution is in order. Perhaps the picture draws on Islamic imagery: Crucifixion is among the punishments commanded for those who sow discord in the land.
Liberation theology anticipates such a grand reversal. Salvation is not simply from personal sin, but from the corruption of society which binds the poor in their place. Certain strands of this theology call for participation in the necessarily violent struggle to overthrow the powers-that-be.
Certainly those who fear God should be involved in the pursuit of justice. The question is how best to interpret justice, and where on the spectrum of participation a red line should be drawn.
But the alternate interpretations of the graffiti – whether identifying the Brotherhood or the security on the cross – should not be tolerated. Neither is consistent with the Jesus who cried out, ‘Father forgive them,’ according to the Biblical account. Jesus intended his crucifiers also to be beneficiaries of the liberation he offered.
For according to Christian theology, his crucifixion was the wisdom of God to put right the universe. This is not the case for Hisham Rizk, even if he drowned a martyr. It is not the case for any of the revolutionaries who have died for their cause. They represent a tragedy, a reminder of a world not yet put right. Whether one fights nobly, foolishly, or not at all, death is still the reality for everyone amid extensive injustice.
But to put it right, God expects his followers to work for justice in the face of death, unafraid. Such is the glory of a martyr, who will receive God’s compensation in reward of uncompromising faith. Many revolutionaries have been motivated by this promise.
The hope of liberation theology is that the promise is greater still. It is that through crucifixion resurrection comes. This is certainly true of personal Christian theology. It is only through death to self and identification with Christ on the cross that God’s life can inhabit an individual, in this world and the next. But is it true for society as well?
Here, liberation theology appears to be of two minds. For one, the answer is yes: We struggle on behalf of the poor and oppressed and whether or not we die, we await God who will put right all things through our sacrifices.
For another, the answer is no: It is obvious our idealistic struggles fail, so we must in a sense crucify the other and wrest power from him. Then we can put right all things in view of what God has commanded.
The first is of faith, perhaps naïve. The second is of pragmatism, perhaps ungodly. Where in this analysis is Egypt?
Perhaps Sisi has put all things right. Perhaps he is struggling to do so. Perhaps he only pretends, putting all things wrong.
Let each Egyptian judge, mindful of the following: Faith must be lived in the world, but the ways of the world must not sideline the convictions of faith. Countenance no manipulation, and avoid no crucifixion.
Securing the first assures God’s blessing; enduring the second enables God’s liberation. Such is the hope of faith.
Even as I type I am filled with dread should such hope prove empty. If Hisham Rizk died an inopportune death, where is the liberation to follow? Is it found in his enduring images on Mohamed Mahmoud Street? Is there some collective cosmic tally to which he contributes?
Perhaps. Paul wrote that his sufferings filled up what was lacking in the suffering of Christ. Jesus said his followers would do even greater works than himself. An earlier prophet summed up all requirements: Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.
The world will not be put right until God puts it right. But God desires us to put it right in the meanwhile, flawed and incomplete our efforts will inevitably be.
Wherever Egypt is along the path of progress, she has not yet arrived. Blessings to all Egyptians who seek to move her forward.
The public statements coming out of Egypt are positive. Help the public reform to follow.
You know what is needed, God, but officials surely have an idea as well. The housing minister announced efforts to eliminate slums within a year. The interior minister called on citizens to report police abuse. And following visits by the National Council of Human Rights, the prison system will be subject to random and ongoing investigations.
Words are good, though deeds are better. Similar words have been spoken before. That they are spoken again puts confidence on hold.
So let confidence be earned, God. Place Egyptians in solid dwellings. Hold police to the highest standard. Respect criminals despite their crimes. And honor officials who honor your will.
Apply this will to the nation at large, God. In Upper Egypt the law is weak. In Alexandria the buildings collapse. Everywhere the poor exist.
And as Egypt follows up on its economic conference, create a context to facilitate investment, curb corruption, and distribute wealth.
Hope is high, God, and words are many. But reform is always difficult. Humans flee accountability and hide their faults.
Be gentle, but shine your light. Be merciful, but root out the wrong.
Stand with those who have declared reform, God. Strengthen their hand and firm their resolve. May they work with integrity to fight the status quo.
Make the benefit public, for all to enjoy. Bless Egypt and help her prosper.
Priests and imams celebrate the second birthday of Fr Kyrillos’ son
A scant eighty feet from St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in Port Said, two small bombs exploded last month. Despite the second detonation being delayed until after a crowd had gathered and police were summoned, no one was killed. Even so, it is one more mark of an insurgency aiming to destabilize Egypt.
‘It is a psychological message that terrorism is near you,’ said Fr. Kyrillos Ghattas, the local priest.
Fortunately, despite the hundreds killed in the waves of protest and violence in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Egypt has not suffered the horrors witnessed in Syria and Iraq. But throughout the region struggles over political power are mixed with sectarian rhetoric that targets religious minorities.
‘Some people try to stoke the flames of hate,’ said Ghattas of his otherwise idyllic Mediterranean city, ‘to turn them against their Christian neighbour and get them to leave their homes.’
But unlike Syria and Iraq, Egypt has an antidote. It is embryonic in development, but carries promise to resist the regional trends. It is the Egyptian Family House, created by Al-Azhar University and Coptic Orthodox Church to resist the sectarian pull and preserve national unity between Muslims and Christians. Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant churches are also included.
Egypt’s Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyib and then-Coptic Pope Shenouda were distraught after the 2010 attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, and worried when extremists declared they were coming for Egypt next. In 2011 the Family House received official approval, though the 25 January revolution delayed much of the work of setting it up.
‘National unity’ has long been a rally cry of the Government, which paraded imams and priests in official ceremonies, exchanging hugs and kisses at the highest levels. But on the street ordinary Egyptians would grumble. Neighbourly relations were ample and interreligious friendships not uncommon, but a sectarian spirit was latent in many and easily exploited.
By contrast, the Family House was authorised to extend national unity in two directions. First, it was given authority to interact directly with cabinet ministers to address policies that result in division. Committees were created to tackle religious discourse, educational curriculum, media coverage, and youth affairs, among others.
But second, the Family House has authority to replicate itself in branches throughout the country at the grassroots level. One of the most dynamic early initiatives aims to supply the raw materials in this effort.
January 2012 witnessed the launching of a three-year programme to bring together imams and priests in common cause. Paired off, they live together for three days, four times a year, while as a group of 70 they receive training in dialogue and practical partnership. The programme takes them to historic religious sites, churches, and mosques, which for many represents the first time to step foot in a house of worship of a religion not their own.
The project was run through Al Azhar. Hailed as a bastion of moderate Islamic thought, it aimed to counter sectarian trends in Egypt and coordinated the supply of imams. The Orthodox offered the largest percentage of priests, and each other denomination chose their multiple participants.
Midway through the first year the Family House received sizeable psychological encouragement from the highest levels. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military leader who overthrew President Morsi following widespread demonstrations, began publicly speaking of the need to address sectarianism.
‘I pledge to implement mechanisms that will reform religious discourse,’ said Sisi, ‘so that Egyptians don’t witness any more violence.
‘I personally have lived and grown up in a town where problems between Muslims and Christians were nonexistent, but radical extremism has caused division.’
This division was not easily overcome. One Christian participant accused the Muslims of lack of hospitality – a great insult in the Arab world – as he accused them of hoarding welcoming food and drinks intended for the whole group. Some said that a priest would never be welcome in a mosque, nor an imam in a church.
‘It is very hard work,’ said Saleem Wassef, the project director. ‘They can be very hardheaded, as everyone thinks they are right.’
Slowly attitudes began to change. Bishop Yohanna Gulta of the Coptic Catholic church gave an address on the Trinity, demonstrating its essential monotheism. This message was confirmed by a respected Muslim scholar, after which some of the more sceptical imams began to mellow, Wassef said.
Particularly pleased was Fr. Mikhail Thabit, a Coptic Catholic priest in 6 October City outside of Cairo. Before relocating north he served 23 years in Hegaza, 570 kilometres deep in the often sectarian-laden provinces of Upper Egypt.
‘It was a Judas kiss,’ he said of his previous official gatherings with sheikhs, which he described as playacting. But with participants in this exchange he felt a real warmth develop as they joked together.
‘Just because we are different it is not the end of the world,’ he said. ‘Instead, the differences enrich us if we get to know each other.’
Between official meetings, many participants did. For some this involved only the phone calls offered for religious holidays, though the recognition of Christmas and Easter even as social occasions was often a great challenge. But Sheikh Ali Abdel Rahman of Fayoum welcomed Orthodox priest Fr. Mityas to his home to visit his sick wife. For many conservative Muslims female members of the household are strictly off limits to anyone but relatives.
‘God bless all of your work for the sake of our country and our children,’ lectured the Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Ishak, who welcomed the imams and priests to the cathedral for one of the sessions.
‘But it is very important that this reaches the people so that they can see it, be influenced by it, and be changed.’
One of the most revolutionary acts of the group was simply to walk the streets together. Some priests complained when they walk alone some will curse and even spit upon them. But as they strolled the streets of Cairo in a group, onlookers gaped in astonishment, and seeming admiration. At the Coptic Museum a school group ran up to greet the imams and priests together, and demanded a picture.
‘Egyptians love men of religion,’ said Fr. Arsanious Murid, a Coptic Catholic priest in Fayoum, ‘and if they see a priest and an imam together it influences them to work together and overcome fanaticism.
‘These displays of love are like the leaven that spreads through the whole community.’ He hopes a Family House branch will soon be established in his city.
Bishop Mouneer Hanna of the Anglican Church in Egypt urged at the close of the second year of Family House sessions that this would not be the last meeting between participants. Sheikh Muhi al-Din Afifi, head of the Azhar’s Islamic Research Council, asked the same.
And if year one is any indication, it is a developing project. Regional branches of the Family House were created in Alexandria, Ismailia, and Luxor, among others, though many cities have yet to show interest.
One city that did, however, is Port Said. There, Fr. Ghattas was able to directly intervene and prevent a Coptic family from being forced from their home.
A neighborhood scuffle between teenagers led to the hurling of insults and broken arms. The Muslim family’s home was full of knives, while the Christians – after fleeing for a week – called on relatives who brought guns.
But the potentially explosive situation was diffused when Ghattas pressed upon both families in the name of the Family House. The Christian family was primarily at fault, he judged, and led both in the acceptance of a reconciliation sacrifice. Two sheep were slaughtered and peace prevailed.
‘Jesus and Mohamed both call [for us] to be united, to build society and keep it from harm,’ said Sheikh Hassan Abdel Dayim, Ghattas’ close collaborator in Port Said.
In a region torn by strife and religious intolerance, the Family House has accepted this challenge, to keep this harm from Egypt.
This article was originally published in the 13 December, 2014 print edition of The Tablet, but is currently behind an online paywall. It is reproduced here with permission.
Sheikh Abdel Aziz of the Azhar and Bishop Mouneer of the Anglican Church, observing the CARAVAN artwork.
So much is wrong with the Arab world today, it can obscure all that is right. At the heart of both are interfaith relations, and the CARAVAN art exhibition showcases the good while addressing the bad. International in scope, its contributions stretch across continents, touching the famous and simple alike.
“We know much more about the West than the West knows about us,” said award-winning Egyptian actor Khaled el-Nabawi at the Cairo opening on March 4. “But art is sincere and can help us build bridges.”
The event was held at the upscale Westown Hub residential complex, and Nabawi is one of the famous, a group often associated with the arts scene. Prior to Cairo, CARAVAN presented at the acclaimed Eglise Saint-Germain-Des-Pres in Paris, and will travel next to St. Martins-in-the-Field, at the famous Trafalgar Square in London.
But it is the simple who are most affected by strife between the religions. And the arts often bypass them.
CARAVAN began in Cairo in 2009, seeking to promote interreligious peace and build cultural understanding. Nabawi’s words were well-chosen, for this year’s exhibition is entitled The Bridge. 47 premiere and emerging artists, all with connections to the Middle East, designed works specifically to highlight the unity of the peoples of the region – Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Arab, and Persian.
“There is no true conflict between religions in their essence,” said Sheikh Abdel Aziz el-Naggar of the Azhar, also appearing at the opening. “It comes from those who use religion for their domestic or international interests.”
Perhaps this is a message readily received by arts aficionados in Europe and upper-class Egypt. But what about the common man, manipulated by forces touching his faith?
“We as a church believe in dialogue,” said Bishop Mouneer Hanna Anis of the Episcopal Church in Egypt, prior to introducing his Ahzar colleague. “But especially after 9-11, there have been many efforts between men of religion that have not impacted reality as these conflicts continue.”
Something more is needed, and Anis praised CARAVAN specifically.
“We have to be creative so that dialogue reaches the people,” he said. “Paul-Gordon has done this through art, to help build harmony between cultures, and to bring people together.”
Paul-Gordon Chandler is the founder of CARAVAN. An American, he grew up as a minority Christian in mostly Muslim Senegal. He was deeply influenced by the local arts scene, but also disturbed by the tensions between the two faiths.
There has to be a better way, he thought, but it was not until his years as an Episcopal priest in Cairo’s St. John’s Church that a vision began to form. So while he now tours the world highlighting the religious unity represented in Middle East artists, he desires to see something greater take hold.
“In the Middle East the public visibility of things is very important, it gives credibility to endorse at the grassroots,” he said. “It is part of acclimatizing the environment toward positive religious relations.”
High-profile public events make possible the changes at street level. 40 percent of proceeds from art sales will benefit Educate Me, an educational initiative supporting the children of an underprivileged neighborhood in Giza. Last year, $48,000 was given to projects in Egypt and Morocco.
Spin-off projects for CARAVAN are in development in Jordan and Tunisia, and a Maltese-themed initiative will soon tour every nation of the Mediterranean. Middle Eastern art emerges from the region and is taken to the West, but it also returns to spread the message at home.
And lest one think the message of interfaith harmony for the West is only given to like-minded elites, Chandler is also taking The Bridge to rural settings in the United States where misunderstanding of the Arab world is prevalent.
“Art provides a context to address the issues indirectly,” said Chandler. “Art doesn’t stop conflict, but that is not its function. It can’t change events but it can change people.”
And this, for Nabawi, is the hope for CARAVAN and other artistic endeavors in the region. “I am convinced that humanity will prevail,” he said.
“Art is the only thing that can solve what politics breaks.”
This article was originally published at the Anglican diocese website.
Forgive the horrors of this region. Protect Egypt within them.
Some of the troubles are her own. Another attack in the Sinai killed soldiers. Villagers protested violently against the church to be built in honor of the martyrs from Libya. And a pro-Morsi demonstrator was shot in the head in our own local neighborhood, according to reports.
These troubles are familiar and sadly, press less on the psyche. But horrors abound as Yemen explodes and Kenyans are massacred. Sometimes it seems all risks falling apart, utterly.
And even good news does not fully encourage. Iran is welcomed back into the fold, potentially. The US restores Egyptian military support, mostly. Sometimes it seems all is being remade, differently.
God, be with and comfort the people of the region. Many suffer. Many others wonder. What is happening here? What has gone wrong? It is not easy on the soul.
Answers are not forthcoming. It is easy to blame the powers-that-be. It is more difficult to identify one’s own sins. But neither are fully satisfactory, God, though both are surely true.
Is good coming? Is evil resisting? Is change afoot? In whose interest? Do the people matter? Why do so many sacrifice themselves? Why do so many do nothing?
What can be done anyway?
Shall the killers be killed to stop their killing? Who can give license, when so many are guilty?
Is more war coming? Can good resist? What is worse, the change or the status quo ante? This middle, if it is, is surely hellish.
And yet in Egypt, so many still live in peace. Other places also. Let not the horrors overshadow the calm.
And let it not be before the storm. Roll back the chaos and instability. Hold back the hands of meddlers. Restore back humanity and innate hospitality.
But with introspection, God. May the people know you love them, but that you also judge. May leaders fear especially.
Fight for the humble, the simple, the poor. Honor the pure in heart. May their solutions prevail. Give them the courage to speak, and the ability to implement.
And as all others tear themselves apart, spare as many as possible. Spare Egypt, despite her sins. Spare all. Forgive. Have mercy.
Rev. Azar Ajaj is the president of the Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary. An Arab Israeli, he helped shape my recent article for Christianity Today about the identity struggles of Arab Christians during the recent elections.
Asked by many friends about these elections, Ajaj decided to pen a letter in response. The summary and quotes below are shared with his permission.
Nearly 80 percent of Arab Israelis voted for the ‘Joint List’, he remarked, motivated by its focus on a two-state solution and equal rights for their community. The list captured the third most seats in parliament, an achievement made possible primarily through the unlikely unity of its disparate collection of secularists, communists, and Islamists.
Lest this be seen as a testimony to the political system in Israel, Ajaj also remarks upon the other salient feature of the election – the triumph of the right wing. An excerpt here is useful to judge the impact of their campaigning on the Arab, and in this case Christian psyche, striking a “distinctively negative chord.”
“What was different this time was the competition between the right wing parties to bolster one’s credentials as ‘least tolerant’ to the Palestinian Israeli community,” he wrote. “This sadly included, a few times, the use of racist expressions, and certainly involved using words that do not promote respect to Arab citizens, words which present them as strangers and enemies of the country.”
Ajaj’s concern in the letter, however, is not political but pastoral. What should the church do in light of this reality?
They must identify with the sufferings of their people, he said, which does not exclude criticism of certain responses. They must seek a prophetic voice to advocate for justice on behalf of the poor and the oppressed, while praying diligently for those in authority.
But given that Arab Israelis have been designated an enemy, this necessarily activates a peculiar Christian response.
“Are we not asked to be the “light and salt of the earth?” he wrote. “How important, then, in such circumstances to promote and show love to those who have been styled as our ‘enemies’. In fact we are asked to be peacemakers.
“Therefore, it would be important that the church at this dark time seek to build relationships and establish a dialogue with the Jewish community in Israel, as well as the Muslim one.”
Christians must participate in creating the future they desire, Ajaj warns, “Otherwise, those with other values will determine what this future will be.”
The church, he believes, is living in the shadow of these elections, but it still has a mission within it. If successful, future elections might be different.
“God willing,” he hopes, “one day we will speak of an election in the shadow of justice, mercy, love, and respect.”
Osama Mansour (L), from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Consider the horrible ordeal of Coptic Christians in Libya, as the Islamic State stormed their compound. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review tells how one escaped, helped by his Muslim friend:
Hani Mahrouf awakened at 2:30 in the morning when fists pounded on the door of his housing compound in Sirte, Libya.
It was Islamic State gunmen, searching for Egyptian Christians.
“They had a lot of weapons,” said Mahrouf, 33, a Muslim construction worker. “They asked if we were Muslim or Christian.
“We told them we were Muslim. Then they asked for the rooms of the Christians.
“They threatened us with their guns.”
The article describes how fighters scaled the compound walls, but the story centers on one who got away:
Osama Mansour, a Christian, was sleeping in a room of the first compound when ISIS burst in. Warned of what was happening, he slipped outside and “jumped from fence to fence just ahead of the gunmen,” he said.
He escaped but was left on his own in the dangerous city, separated from his friends.
“I stayed (in Sirte) for 30 days, but I didn’t stay in the same room” from night to night, said the 26-year-old tile worker.
A man he called “Sheikh Ali,” a Muslim from his home province of Assuit, helped Mansour hide and constantly change locations. Eventually, he grew a beard in order to leave Sirte.
“ISIS had two checkpoints that they would move around. I heard they were checking for tattoos” — he pointed to the bluish-black cross that he and many Coptic Christians ink on the insides of their wrists — “and we put a plaster cast on my hand and wrist. Sheikh Ali gave me a Quran and a prayer rug for the trip.
“I had to do this — I can’t have my mother wearing black” for mourning, Mansour said.
The article says most of his companions also eventually returned home, but it does not specify Sheikh Ali. Maybe he is still in Libya, able to work. If so, Osama may be using a pseudonym to protect his friend’s identity there.
One would hope it is not to protect his identity in Egypt. Recent news has some in the village protesting the church President Sisi promised to build in the name of the martyrs.
But in Libya, in this instance, the bonds of relationship and homeland proved stronger than the militant call of extremist religion. Amid constant news of chaos and atrocity, stories like this are precious reminders of humanity.
Unfortunately, guns and ideology can change the equation.
It is an insightful retelling of two epochal moments in history, the 1952 Free Officers revolution and the 2011 Arab Spring. In both, he details how the military establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood cooperated, maneuvered, and eventually clashed.
History is contested, so those who either lived through or studied carefully these events are invited to weigh in on the anecdote that follows. But in understanding Brotherhood resistance following the June 30, 2013 protests against Morsi, this detail risks being overlooked. I, at least, had missed it.
According to Ashour, the Muslim Brotherhood was an intimate partner with the Free Officers, but then tried to resist Gamal Abdel Nasser as he consolidated power outside of democratic procedures.
At one crucial moment the Brotherhood helped organize a demonstration against him, calling for (among other things) the army to return to its barracks.
Nasser asked Abdul Qadir Audeh, the Secretary-General of the MB, to dismiss the protesters. Audeh complied, hoping to reach a compromise, but was arrested that same night by Nasser’s loyalists in the military police and was executed a year later.
Sound familiar? In 2013 the Muslim Brotherhood did not accept the ouster of Mohamed Morsi on July 3 despite the massive protests against him. Right or wrong in this decision, this is an important distinction between 2013 and 1954. The sit-in in support of Morsi had formed to counter these protests, and continued into mid-August. During this time there were intense negotiations between the two sides, with active participation of foreign diplomats.
During negotiations the Brotherhood was urging on participants to stand firm, even to the point of martyrdom. This is well known. But in connection with the anecdote above, this detail escaped me.
On July 17, 2013, Audeh’s son Khaled, a university professor, reminded the hundreds of thousands of protesters in Rab‘a Square of that mistake. “Our stance here is our way to success. I swear I will never dismiss you like my father, the martyr Abdel-Qadr Audeh, dismissed the protesters on 28 February 1954…. They tricked him and told him to dismiss the protestors and that the army would go back to its barracks and democracy would be resumed. He believed them. And then he was arrested at night and executed afterwards.”
It helps put in perspective the psychology of the Brotherhood.
Ashour’s paper considers the removal of Morsi to be a coup, for those who take offense at this designation. But it also demonstrates the Brotherhood’s claim to be a martyr of democracy is overly simplistic. For example:
By December 1952, Nasser made it clear to the MB that there would be neither free elections nor a re-installation of civilian leadership. In January 1953, the RCC dissolved and banned all political parties in Egypt. The MB did not oppose this decision because it did not affect them (they were not a political party) and also to avoid a costly clash with Nasser’s powerful faction in the RCC and the army, an opportunistic stance that would prove costly in the future.
There is another important difference between the two episodes, as the Brotherhood did not initiate the protests of 2011, joining later. But they soon demonstrated a spirit of collusion with the military, ranging from cooperation to non-confrontation. Different examples are given, but here is one sometimes forgotten.
In June 2012, a SCAF decision dissolved the lower house following a constitutional court ruling that part of the electoral law was “unconstitutional.” This decision vested all legislative powers in the SCAF only days before Egypt’s first civilian president was scheduled to take office on June 30, 2012. It was, in effect, a bloodless coup, one that passed without any international condemnation and limited domestic criticism. Because the winner in the parliamentary elections, the MB, had also won the presidency, it did not mobilize its supporters and coalition partners [against the decision].
The Brotherhood may argue it was trying to be pragmatic, accepting defeat against a stronger foe in hopes of fighting another day with a stronger hand. Perhaps. But the details Ashour provides help recount a history that is not clean and principled. This is important to remember given the righteous garb the Brotherhood now seeks to don.
In the struggle for power in Egypt, democracy is a tool. But it is only one among many. That it is the preferred tool of the Brotherhood should not lend them greater favor. It is a bare-knuckled fight, and right now they are losing badly. But they chose to step into the ring, and have grappled along with the rest.
Without granting good intentions to either the military or the Brotherhood (which may be there), let there be some sympathy. Every fight has its principles. Every struggle for what is right is met with temptation to embrace some wrong.
The Brotherhood sees the military leadership as a dictatorial junta. The military sees the Brotherhood as a radical transnational force. Both see each other as a rival.
Be careful, oh outsider, about taking sides. For Egyptians of course it is a different matter entirely.
It is good for men and nations to agree. It demonstrates the fruit of relationships overcoming the thorn of interests. But it is only the beginning, and more hard work must follow.
Of course, not all agreed upon is necessarily good. Weigh recent decisions, God, and spare the region from harm.
With Ethiopia and Sudan, Egypt agreed upon a set of principles concerning an upstream dam on the Nile River. The dam is feared to reduce Egyptian water capacity. It is lauded for increased energy production. The principles help guide continuing negotiations, which had been contentious.
With the Arab League, Egypt agreed upon a preliminary commitment to create a joint regional military force. With ISIS in the background and Yemen in the immediacy, supporters hope Arabs can take responsibility for their own stability.
God, some prayers are easy. Let Egypt drink. Let Ethiopia develop. Let the Arab world enjoy peace.
But agreements are not. With a dam, Ethiopian leverage increases dramatically. With a military, Arab discord threatens greater risk. Be in the details, God.
And be with the people negotiating them. Give them good hearts to seek the common good. Give them sound minds to guard the sound interests. And give them keen discernment to sniff out the keen manipulations.
So much in the region is out of order, God. Force can solve only so much, but agreement can multiply effectiveness. Bless these recent efforts, increase trust among the leaders. As they talk, deepen their relationships.
As thorns prick, may fruit nourish. But with hard work help them till the ground for peace.
God,
Jayson Casper 