IN JULY, thousands of fist-waving Coptic Christians gathered at Cairo’s main cathedral. Screaming that Christian blood is not cheap, they raised a single demand: “Bring us Camelia Shehata!” Earlier this week, thousands of fist-
waving Muslims gathered at Cairo’s oldest mosque. Screaming that Muslim blood is not cheap, they raised the same demand.That such a fuss, with its mirroring anger and ugly sectarian overtones, should be made over a young woman who has never appeared in public, says much about Egypt’s muddled and vexed state of mind. To the despair of milder-mannered Egyptians, Coptic and Muslim radicals have both declared Ms Shehata a symbol and a martyr. Each has their own story. The only point where they meet is that on July 18th, the 24-year old mother of one child, and the wife of a priest in the town of Deir Mawas, 400km south of Cairo, vanished from her home. Five days later, police handed her into church custody. There she has remained ever since, incommunicado.According to the church, which is the biggest in the Middle East with perhaps 7m adherents in Egypt, Ms Shehata had been kidnapped by local Muslims who attempted to convert her to Islam. Only the threat of widespread unrest by Copts, who face petty discrimination and have suffered sporadic but persistent and bloody sectarian attacks, forced the government to intervene. The police eventually found her and returned her to the flock. Church officials claim there have several similar attempts at forced conversion of Christian women. One case they cite occurred in 2004, when Wafa Constantine, the wife of another priest, disappeared briefly before being escorted into a nunnery. She has not been heard from since.Islamist websites, however, claim that Ms Shehata fled her home and took refuge with a local Muslim sheikh with the intent of converting to Islam. Accompanied by fuzzy pictures of Ms Shehata sporting a veil, the breathless coverage suggests that she had not only proclaimed the shahada, or declaration of Muslim faith, but, having been shocked by her priest husband’s homosexuality, had long since been secretly studying the tenets of Islam. According to the websites, she was on her way to register the conversion officially when police snatched her. Accordingly, Islamist commentators demand that Ms Shehata, as a Muslim, should be freed from captivity and allowed to practice her new faith. Calls for a Muslim siege of the Coptic cathedral, to demand her freedom, have prompted police to reinforce their presence.Independent press reports, however, suggest yet another narrative. Neighbours of Ms Shehata have been quoted as saying she was unhappy in her marriage, but could find no escape since the Coptic church bans divorce. Similarly, in the 2004 case, Ms Constantine was described by neighbours as desperate to leave her marriage. The fact that both women were surrendered by the state into church care, and have since vanished, has raised alarms not only among Islamist radicals, who whisper that Ms Constantine may have been murdered, but among secular Egyptians. One group of secular Copts has written an open letter imploring church officials to let Ms Shehata speak to the press and explain her true feelings, for the sake of social peace.The Coptic church’s ban on divorce, and its so-far adamant refusal to reveal either woman in public, reflect the radical conservatism of Pope Shenouda III. Now ailing, the 87-year-old patriarch has run the church in dictatorial style since 1971. During that time his own position has strengthened. The pope has been rewarded by the state for "delivering" Coptic votes and support. At the same time the rise in religious fervour among Egypt’s 90% Muslim majority, accompanied by nasty pogroms, has prompted Copts to cling unquestioningly to the church, whose management of schools, orphanages, youth camps and hospitals helps perpetuate the sense of a community apart.Whatever the facts of Ms Shehata’s case, it remains disturbing to many Egyptians that both their government and the church, as well as the Islamist radicals who bitterly oppose them, appear to regard her as having no rights as a citizen or individual, but only as a locked-in member of a sect. This understanding harks back to the era before modernising reforms in the 19th century, when subjects of the Ottoman Empire, of which Egypt was then a province, became citizens with equal rights. Muslims had previously been privileged over minorities, who were represented solely by their religious leaders. Strange that the Coptic church should want to go there.
تعليقات
إرسال تعليق