Latest Post on Jadaliyya

I just contributed a short reflection on my favorite film, Silences of the Palace, and how educators can use Silences to teach about the Arab uprisings, to Jadaliyya:

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3024/films-for-the-classroom_silences-of-the-palace

Interview with Al-Jazeera English

Manoubia and Her Son

Please check out my latest post on Jadaliyya...

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/2825/manoubia-and-her-son

Three liberal fantasies about Copts

I have just finished reading Amira Nowaira’s latest column on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is free’ website.  As is so often the case with the writings of Egyptian liberals on issues of ‘sectarianism,’ the piece is well intentioned but lazily falls back on mischaracterizations of Copts and their concerns.  I address a few of these below.

1.     “Remaining on the sidelines is no longer a feasible or an advisable option for Egypt's Christians.”

Nowaira echoes here the myth of Coptic apathy or passivity.  But exactly when were Copts passive or apathetic?  Not during the 2011 revolution, when Copts flooded into Tahrir Square alongside Egyptian Muslims to demand an end to the Mubarak regime.  This was, keep in mind, in defiance of the Patriarch’s explicit admonition to Copts at the time, that they should support the regime and stay at home.  Nor were Copts passive or apathetic when a church in the Hilwan governorate was destroyed shortly after the revolution: Again, in defiance of the church hierarchy, they staged a sit-in in front of the Radio and Television Building that lasted a week.  Nor were Copts passive or apathetic during the past thirty years, when they suffered the privations all Egyptians faced under the Mubarak dictatorship, yet built a vibrant communal life within the framework of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

2.     “The Coptic church, like al-Azhar, should remain a source of spiritual inspiration and moral guidance.”

The notion that the Church should not have a role in politics might have had a measure of credence until and shortly after the 1952 Revolution – but for the half century since that time, whether one approves or not, the Church has had an integral role in Egyptian politics that one cannot simply wish away.  Nor would most Copts approve of such a shift.  President Nasser and Patriarch Kirollos VI pioneered a relationship between church and state under which loyalty to the regime was exchanged for recognition of the Church hierarchy as the legitimate voice of the community, as well as the provision of resources.  After a brief interruption of this relationship in the 1970s, the partnership was revived and, indeed, thrived throughout the tenures of Hosni Mubarak and Shenouda.  The Church hierarchy has so skillfully seized upon this partnership with the state that there now exists practically no non-clerical leadership among the Copts.  So to suggest that the Copts relegate their Church hierarchy to a status of moral guardian alone would be to disempower them profoundly and essentially negate the Copts as a political force within Egypt.

3.     “They [Copts] must remember that many great Coptic personalities in the first half of the 20th century helped shape Egypt's outlook and contributed to the political and cultural life of the country by engaging in mainstream politics.”

So contemporary Copts should look back to figures like Boutros Ghali and Makram Ebeid as their heroes?  And yet Boutros Ghali and Makram Ebeid had about as much in common with the majority of Copts of their day as King Farouk had with the majority of Muslims.  There existed no single, monolithic Coptic community then, and there exists no single, monolithic Coptic community now.  Indeed, a critical part of the success of the clergy in wresting power away from lay Copts like Boutros Ghali and Makram Ebeid over the course of the twentieth century was the fact that the clerical forces were much, much closer in social origins to the majority of Copts than were the Coptic lay leaders of the liberal era.  Nowaira’s suggestion that figures like Boutros Ghali and Makram Ebeid should be lionized because they were supposedly ‘mainstream’ only increases contemporary Copts’ sense of marginalization.  They have nothing in common with such people, and why should they?  Perhaps more to the point, why should Egyptian liberals expect them to?

Lesson of the Day: Protest Works!

Elation is the only word to describe my feeling when I read the headline, "Mubarak's sons in 'total disbelief' as they are hauled into jail."  At long last, after two months of waiting, the process of holding the old regime to account for its crimes against Egyptians is properly underway.  That it should have taken quite so long simply to begin the interrogation of those who sat atop the pyramid of graft and corruption that was the Mubarak regime is testament to one of the foremost challenges Egypt faces: Overhauling not simply the personnel, but the entrenched interests and, indeed, the very structure of the old regime.  For make no mistake: The structures of power that kept Mubarak in power for thirty years remain in place to this day.

This is cause for alarm, but certainly not despair.  The most important lesson that, to my mind, we need to take from today's events is a profoundly hopeful one.  Protest works.  The pressure of the people works to effect change.  And it is only by keeping up that pressure that further change will occur.

I've stood accused of 'romanticizing' the revolution, in the face of those who feel that it is too soon even to use the word 'revolution' to describe what is transpiring in Egypt.  Surely it is as clear as day that, for the Egyptians who trek to Tahrir Square every Friday, this is a revolution... or, at the very least, a revolution in progress.  They know all too well how much there is left to accomplish.  They are not about to rest on their laurels.  Why?  Because they saw on February 11th, the day of the resignation, and they saw today, that protest works, that they are the very lynchpin of the revolution.  This is the lesson that the SCAF has sent Egyptians today, that the people of Egypt have power and can exercise that power to effect change.  And for that lesson, I am enormously grateful.

Where Is the Leadership?

"We express extreme grief and sadness over the fall of casualties but we urge the people to stay alert to the attempts to cause a rift between them and the military which supported their legitimate demands since the first day."  So read the statement issued by such luminaries as Essam El Erian, George Ishak, and Amr Hamzawy this past Saturday, after the violent and frankly disgraceful attempt to clear Tahrir Square of protesters that morning.  These men called on the military to "display self control while dealing with the youths whose enthusiasm may motivate them to take actions that cause unrest during this difficult time."

Sound familiar?  The words reek of the paternalism of the old regime, expressed time and time again during the days between the January 25th uprising and the February 11th resignation of 'Papa Mubarak.'  As if on cue, the former president subjected Egyptians to a further instance of this thinking over the weekend, courtesy of Al-Arabiya... but if ever there was a time when Egyptians needed reminding of why they revolted, it is now.  El Erian, Ishak, Hamzawy, and their colleagues behind the statement seem particularly in need of a refresher in the spirit of the revolution.

Was all of this effort expended and sacrifice made for a mere change in personnel?  To my mind, there could exist no greater insult to the martyrs of the revolution than to suggest that this was all about Mubarak.  I say 'no greater insult,' because clearly, as made all too evident by his pathetic claim that he will pursue libel suits against all who defame him, for Mubarak himself, this is all about Mubarak.  In Mubarak's mind, Egyptians proved themselves an undifferentiated mass of ingrates when they tossed him from office.

But who cares what Mubarak thinks?  What counts now are Mubarak's successors and their attitudes to the Egyptian people and their revolution.  The members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces have made their stance plain enough, in trampling so frequently and wantonly on the spirit of peaceful protest inaugurated on January 25th, protest carried forward with such courage and devotion by ordinary Egyptians to this day.  On March 9th, I witnessed one of these insults to the revolutionary spirit myself, from a balcony overlooking Tahrir, when the Square was quite literally overrun by thugs working in collusion with the military.

The attack appeared brutal enough to a visitor to Cairo, but of course, we would soon discover the far worse brutalities, the insults to human dignity, that happened behind the scenes: the transformation of a monument to human civilization, the Egyptian Museum, into a torture chamber; the merciless beating of peaceful protesters, like the singer Ramy Essam; and perhaps worst of all, the imposition of 'virginity tests' on the women protesters.  Disgusting, outrageous, despicable... I lack the vocabulary to describe how the purported 'saviors' of Egypt treated ordinary Egyptians on that day.  The contrast between the protesters, who made their views known in the clear light of day and without malice, and the military, who resorted to the dark halls of the Museum to wreak their vengeance, could not be more stark.

So when looking for leadership, I have looked not to the SCAF, but to the civilians who are now angling for power in the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.  Yet, there too, in the emergent post-revolutionary political class, there seems to exist only cowardice, as demonstrated by the refusal to mount even the most tepid critique of the military.

This charge may seem harsh, and I can imagine my critics alleging that I expect too much from civilian leadership while Egypt is still ruled by the military.  All I can say is that the ordinary Egyptians who return Friday after Friday to Tahrir Square to demand democracy and justice seem unafflicted by the cowardice that prevails in the emergent political class.  They seem able to speak truth to power in a way that ElBaradei, Moussa, El Erian, Ishak, and Hamzawy are not.  In outpacing their civilian 'leaders' in their calls for a 'new Egypt,' these ordinary Egyptians demonstrate that the revolutionary spirit thrives as never before.  They are the ones who give me hope.  They are my leaders.

Update:  Amr Hamzawy appears to have withdrawn his support from the statement and disassociated himself from the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.  Further details here.

Revolution Resources

My new website, 'Revolution Resources,' went live this morning.  You can access the site at...

http://paulsedra.com/Revolution/

The site began life as a page on my personal website for the benefit of my students and those of colleagues in Middle Eastern studies.  But the number of links became so unwieldy that I decided to set up a separate site, dedicated to collecting articles, documents, images, and videos of Egypt's January 25th Revolution.  Please don't hesitate to spread word of the site to all who may be interested, and if you have comments and/or suggestions, let me know!