Egypt Sectarian Clashes: The Root of All Evil Is Not Money, It is Ignorance

Nadia el Awady sent this via Twitter yesterday.  I thought it was an excellence explanation of the casual bigotry that occurs. 


The truth about Muslim-Copt Relations in Egypt

I finally settled in Egypt in 1986 when I started med school at Cairo University. It took only one year for my Muslim friends to teach me about what was proper in Muslim-Coptic relations in the country.

I remember befriending Mariam who had come from New York. She had the dark black hair of an Egyptian but an uncanny New Yorkan accent. It was nice to meet someone who came from a background similar to mine. Quickly my Muslim friends explained I could not befriend her. She’s Christian, I was told. So what, I asked. In Egypt, it’s not all right, was the answer.

By the end of that same year I had heard my Muslim friends say it was yucky to drink out of a cup a Copt had drank from; they explained that the way to identify a Copt was by their odd smell and their oily hair; and I saw them secretly sign to each other if someone speaking to them was a Copt by making a cross on the inside of their wrist or by whispering the word “Kuftis”, a word Egyptians use in place of Copt, stupidly thinking the Copts don’t know that’s what they mean.

Read also Nadia on the Hijab  and Sarrah's World about being a "halfie" or "half blood" in Egypt

My grandmother once told me that the root of all evil was money.  I have since learned that the root of all evil is actually ignorance. 

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Sectarian Clashes in Egypt: Bad Romance, Honor and Religion

Days after the events of May 5, 2011 in the urban enclave of Imbaba, Cairo, Egypt, the truth was hard to come by, but it eventually will come out.  


Sectarian clashes have been occurring in Egypt for a very long time.  However, with the fall of Mubarek and the general extinguishing of his dreaded police state, the security that at least kept a lid on it is now gone and the actors seem more free than ever to push the boundaries.  Which they have been doing since right before the events of January 25.  Some of those events can be read here.


As with most stories, it seems that both sides involved in Friday's events can share the blame.  The basic facts can be found here.  The rest of the story can be best related to Western readers by invoking either "Romeo and Juliet" or, better yet, "West Side Story".  Is it true?  We don't know.  The young woman in question sent a video to an Islamist website that was then sent to Egypt Today, a local newspaper, that printed the "interview" whole.  She later "phoned in" an interview to TahrirTV, the Muslim Brotherhood's new Satellite television station.  Why she has not contacted one of the other "liberal" or less biased papers or stations is unanswered at this time.


It begins with a young woman named Abeer Fahkry(arabic).  

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Small Wars: Religion in Warfare III

Well, we've started of at a rip-roaring pace and some folks are already feeling a twist in their tails. Not sure how a scholarly discussion of religion in warfare suddenly became a discussion of personal prerogatives, but I'll skip that right now and suggest that you read Mr. Smith's last commentary on the subject at the Captain's Journal: Smith Responds.

Sometimes the best counsel is the oldest. Smith’s argument concerning the duration of counterinsurgency and public sentiment is similar to that of the Marine Corps commandant (even if somewhat unrelated to the initial subject of Kilcullen’s commentary). Smith’s views on religion and counterinsurgency - far from being debunked - have not yet even been engaged.

That is for the readers to decide.

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