Christian Exploitation, sexy headline no? Now the meat.
Without commentary, a quick and dirty translation from _al-Hyaat, p5 18 March:
Delegation of American “Committee of/for Religion Freedom” faces problems meeting with Coptic and Islamic religious authorities.
Cairo:
The delegation of the American “Committee for/of Religious Freedom” [I don’t know what the actual English is] which announced it will arrive in Cairo next Wednesday is facing severe difficulties in setting appointments with Egyptian religious authorities or human rights organizations after a campaign launched by Muslim and Coptic intellectuals against the Committee.
It was announced that arrangements for the delegations visit, which will last four days under the leadership of Elliot Abrams, (should) include defined appointments the Sheikh of al-Azhar [the leading Islamic theological university] Sayyed Tantaawiy, Baba Shanouda the Third [Coptic Pope] and the Mufti [of Egypt, leading religious authority] Nasr Fareed Wasil but the three authorities have not yet responded to the Committee’s request.
(article continues)
Additional Reporting, from me, your source.
I was just talking about this a few weeks ago with a certain leading opposition figure with close ties to Baba Shanouda(*).
He reported the Baba is pissed off about this, finding the timing and approach of the Committee to be all wrong.
The Committee, to my understanding, is a US congressional committee, or sponsored thereby. I’m not sure of its precise composition. In any case, it’s an official delegation. I’ll translate a follow up today as soon as I can. The Cmtee is supposed to be holding investigatory meetings in the American Embassy. The Embassy is reported to be “pressuring” authorities to meet with the Cmtee.
In re Allesan’s question, as you should know, the Arab position is to see Israel and the US working hand in hand. Whatever the factual nature of this is, that’s their feeling. The position is, “before you come investigating the Copts position in Egypt uninvited, go investigate Arab religious freedom under Israeli rule.” I am reporting, as previously, their position w/o commentary.
To the best of my understanding, derived from local sources, the question at hand is re suitability of an official American investigation of religious freedom in Egypt in re the Copts – Egyptian Christians .
I would verify more but unfortunately I only have the Arabic translations of its name, etc. which apparently are inexact. This makes searching a bit problematic.
Just to clarify, the news story is refering to the U.S. Commission on International Religous Freedom. Elliot Abrams, appointed by Clinton, is the current chairman. It is part of the Department in the Office of International Religious Freedom, which is, I believe, part of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. For those interested, here is the Executive Summary of the 2000 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom.
The Commission regularly travels to various countries and meets with various religious and political figures. Here’s the Commission’s latest reports on Egypt and Israel.
That was supposed to be: “It is part of the Department of State…” And the Commission name should say “Religious” instead of “Religous”, which for some reason I keep typing.
What’s interesting is that the main issue the Commission is probably looking at is discrimination and persecution of the Coptic Christians. Reason A, if true, could be a valid reason for Baba not wanting to meet with the Commission. I don’t know enough about how the Commission works to address it, but the Commission doesn’t strike me as being particularly “inflamatory”.
Reason B doesn’t make sense since the Commission hasn’t singled out Egypt or ignored Israel.
I can understand the thinking behind Reason C, at least the second part. If anti-Israel (and anti-American) feelings transfer to anti-non-Muslim (how’s that for a word?) feelings, the Coptic Church could be concerned about the impact of American activity on its members. These sentiments can get tied together is ways that don’t always make sense.
I don’t think there is any unusual about the Commission’s visit to Egypt at this time. It’s just part of its on-going efforts. As to the appropriateness of the Commission’s existence, well, that’s another GD altogether.
C- I may be flying in the dark here, but if as you say this American committee is trying to pressure meetings/negotiations for a more peaceful co-existence between Copts (the religious minority in Egypt?) & Muslims, well yes there is a problem.
1.) I can see how annoyed Copts & Muslims would be to have the US come in and say, Ok. since we’re trying to get Israel to settle its differences with the Palestinians, and we’re trying to get the Middle East to clean up its messy relations, Egypt should jump on the bandwagon and get it together too, and we’re just the people to make that happen. That’s arrogant, smacks of terrible diplomacy, and really makes me think that said Copts & Muslims in Egypt probably wonder how much the US knows or cares about their differences. Copts & Muslims are not going to decide the time is right to start negotiations just because the US says so. It’s insulting because Copts & Muslims have been at differences for quite awhile now. They probably feel that they should be able to work out their differences, and if not THEN AND ONLY THEN call for outside mediation. It sounds like the problem is that they have NOT called for outside mediation.
2.) Of course, if you’re getting your reports from primarily Egyptian news sources, then they may well be biased against the US. Do you have the American perspective on this committee?
3.) Not that I’m an expert in Egyptian culture–my only link to it is a brief one. I once knew a young Egyptian woman whose family was forced to flee Egypt and come to America due to religious persecution. She and her family are Coptic Orthodox. I know that this messed with her mind, poor thing, for she found the culture shock difficult to deal with, in particular good old American prejudice & ignorance in people labelling her either as one of those fanatic Arabs or as black because she comes from Egypt and has kinky hair . . . But that’s another matter. The point is that there is a serious problem of religious persecution of Copts by Muslims in Egypt. I’m just not sure what negotiations or attempts thereof the Copts & Muslims have made on their own.
4.) Would US interests be best served by our intervention in Egypt, or would we just be making matters worse? If the US is going to get involved, it should BE VERY CAREFUL how it does so. Do you have any particulars about this American committee’s planned role in the negotiations beyond trying to get them to meet?
Foist thank you to JeffB for the further information in re the Committee. I was suspicious of the claims of my Egyptian “source”, and so reported them w/o comment, although they are useful as indicative of the high feelings this produced. I am going to enjoy telling him the Committee does in fact ‘investigate’ Israel.
In re the visit, the timing does strike me as quite poor, but comments to Celestina clarify this.
Now my Egyptian “source” — quite sophisticated although prone in typical Egyptian political fashion to making overblown claims — made some intriguing statements linking the visit to American religious right pressure to find persecution of Xtians, i.e. he connected this with FoG politics. As normally reliable al-Hyaat mentioned obliquely something of the same, I wonder if there is a grain of truth in this and if some folks are not exploiting the situation. However, I’ve not seen any English lang sources so I invite comments and treat this with all due caution.
No, following al-Hyaat reports (international arabic paper infinitely more reliable than the Egptian press) the Committee is seeking — and the Embassy is exerting “pressure” in support— to undertake an investigation on Coptic Xtian-Muslim relations / Coptic religious freedoms.
In re Copts-Muslim relations
Your analysis is largely like me own given what I know to date. However, one clarifications, it’s not really a matter of “negotiations” between C & M as domestic politics – there are many sides here: Government & ruling party, the Muslim Brothers(*), the opposition parties – which include Copts, the Coptic Church.
(*: who per today’s report on the issue are weirdly enough the only folks not to reject the whole thing out of hand. Very peculiar as normally the Brothers want nothing to do with the Embassy.)
Actually I have been following mostly the international arab press on this, I have a low regard for the Egyptian press. However, my work also leads me to have contact with political figures, such as the one I “quoted.” Unfortunately until just now I didn’t have the real name and affiliation of the Committee so I was unable to get “the other side of the story.”
Well, here is something I question. Given what I have seen and heard, on the street, in the countryside and in the halls of power, I don’t think there is a “serious problem of religious persecution of Copts by Muslims” in Egypt. There is real discrimination — I don’t think one can call it persecution. I’m not sure that it’s any more serious than discrimination against blacks in America.
Unfortunately, for many reasons, good stats are unavailable, but given my personal observation Copts seem well represented in the private sector, well integrated — no such thing as segregated neighborhoods — in society. Copts and Muslims work together (not just in my firm, in public functions, in political parties etc.) They appear to get along.
However, there is clear discrimination in certain government functions, above all in education. Muslims tend to be quite blind to Copt culture and you never see it on TV. Benign neglect. Most, but not all, public religious references are specifically Muslim (although there is a large overlap in religious language so lots of things are equal opp by accident).
There is an idiotic old Ottoman law from the 1850s still on the book which requires Xtians to get the “ruler’s” permission to build churches, which nowadays means good old fat boy himself, Mubarek. To my understanding there has never been a refusal, although there are accusations of the Interior Ministry sitting on applications for a while in order to be obnoxious. Hard to say the truth there, as the Egyptian bureaucracy is not known for its speediness. Of course, greasing the wheels always helps.
Precisely, I feel quite uncomfortable with this insofar as my personal experience suggests the context makes this visit highly unproductive. If Baba Shenouda, an ornery old bastard, is refusing the meeting this suggests to me the approach is not well-timed nor welcome.
I don’t think that this Commission is specifically under pressure from religious right, nor does it attempt to promote a certain strain of politics. The Commission was set up under the Clinton administration and seems to have a fairly diverse membership. Here is the entry from the Commission’s FAQ about membership:
This hardly seems like a group that is promoting the (Christian) religious right agenda. And to be completely honest, I don’t think that the extreme religious right would be terribly concerned about the Copts.
You certainly have a better perspective than I do on the actual situation in Egypt. I don’t think that the Commission is suggesting that there is wide-spread, active persecution by the government. Here are a few excerpts from the Commission’s report in 2000:
Sorry for the length, but I wanted to show a couple of things. First, the Commission does not view Egypt as a religiously intolerant state but as a country that has had some issues in past that it has been dealing with. Second, the issue of religious freedom is part of the on-going dialogue between the U.S. and Egypt (and many other countries). As far as I can tell, the trip and the meeting the Commission was trying to set up are part of its regular activities and not a response to any particular incident or situation. The Commission is not trying to “intervene” (which it has no power to do any way).
The Commission has met with Coptic Bishop Thomas in the past, so I don’t think the problem is the idea of meeting but more with the timing.
I’m also sure that there are people who find the whole idea of the U.S. monitoring the religious freedoms of other countries to be offensive. And I can see their point. It’s not like the U.S. has a perfect record when it comes to ensuring non-persecution and non-discrimination of religions. This, combined with the perceived influence of the religious right on government policy, can raise suspicions as to the motives of this Commission. Imagine how Americans would feel if another country was reporting on religious freedom in the U.S. (Maybe someone does.) I think it would actually be interesting to have the Commission do a report on the U.S. (I checked; they haven’t.)
Agreed, now that I’ve had an opp. to see the real thing, rather than 2nd hand, they do seem to be working well. However in re pressure, I have some doubts. Let me be clear and state that I don’t think, from what I have seen from their matierials now, that the Com. is biased, but I do wonder about political pressures, which is relevant in re the apparent origins of the issue. But a moment…
I would have thought so myself, but then there is the whole “persecution of Xtians” thingy which Friend of God folks seem to be pushing. A domestic agenda, and let me be clear, I am not poopooing religious repression, but I am wary of exploitation of the issue for domestic political purposes:
I also located the following article: http://www.phrmg.org/english/feb98/persecution.html
Although on Palestine re Palestinian issues by the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, the critique of misrepresentation of evidence rings from what I see from the sites below:
This site seems to have an agenda. In re the Koshha indcidents, some claims are false insofar as I know: http://www.persecution.org/humanrights/egypt.html
The overall aim of the site seems to be to push the idea of specifically Xtian persecution.
(Oddly one item mentioned, that Churches do not recieve state funding is not a complaint that I know of from Copts – their religious hierarchy is infinately more independant)
I have on overall impression that there is such a campaign apparently rather driven by domestic US concerns as much of what appears in these sites strike me as half-truths and the like. the Commission’s report in 2000
Good representative selection of what I have now read also, absolutely agree, and I think this is a supportable view, in fact close to my own.
Should clarify this, “intervene” in Arab political vocabulary includes this sort of “fact-finding” missions. Given the current political atmosphere, it still strikes me as poorly timed. Given the usually quite reliable al-Hyaat raised the issue of “outside” pressures in re the visit, I’m reserving judgement in re domestic issue for USA.
Thomas? Is that Shenouda in English? Huh. But yes, the timing is horrible.
I think this gets to the meat of the problem.
Given the apparent context, I feel deeply uncomfortable with the issue, although the Commission in fact seems to be doing good work and helping perhaps debunk the extreme claims of some of those sites cited above.
