Motherland Lost - Book Review

Samuel Tadros did a superb job researching and presenting Egypt’s history from a Coptic perspective. The scope of Tadros’s coverage of the developments inside the Coptic Church was particularly enlightening. Some of the most impressive parts of this work are Tadros’s challenges to conventional wisdom: Tadros views of the inherent problems with Egyptian liberalism being fundamentally anti democratic, Egyptian liberalism that arose out of infatuation with Europe and West but turned mostly anti western. “Foreign intervention in the internal affairs of the country coincided with the birth of the constitutional movement in Egypt which would have profound effects on its future development. It would ultimately lead to love-hate relationship with the West as a source of inspiration and a model of modernity and, at the same time, the hated occupier. Egyptian liberalism would never escape this dichotomy” Tadros challenges the notion that the so-called Egypt’s “Liberal Age” was truly liberal or that it was “good” for the Copts. 

The following paragraph summarized an important thesis offered by Tadros: “The specifically Egyptian crisis of modernity, understood as a question of the compatibility of Islam with modernity, has resulted in the development of various state and intellectual approaches that have shaped the way Copts were viewed and led to their banishment from the public sphere as a community, though not as individuals. The failure of liberalism in Egypt did not result in the Copts’ current predicament. Rather, it was the very approach that liberalism took that brought about this predicament.” While I personally would have substituted the word “Islam” with “religions”, I think Tadros was clearly on to an important concept. 

Tadros cleverly captures an important trend from the Mohamed Aly era: “Egyptian liberals’ ultimate dream would be a repetition of the story of Mohamed Aly, an autocrat imposing reforms from above on a reluctant population”. 

While I highly recommend this work and rate it very highly, I have a number of criticisms for it which I will now address. 

Devotional v. historical critical study: Tadros presented much of the Coptic tradition as historical facts, starting from the story of St. Mark and his alleged role in establishing Christianity in Egypt. Modern Western studies generally challenge this view. Tadros’s admiration of St. Athanasius clearly arises out of deeply held beliefs or acceptance of the Coptic traditions, yet the vast majority of historical critical studies show Athanasius to be have been a manipulative political operator. While these aspects don’t affect the core thesis of this great work, they do detract from it. 

Apologia?: With so much discrimination against Copts over centuries of subjugation, it is refreshing to read a passionately pro Coptic work, however Tadros has a times fallen into what I’d term the genre of apologia of all things Coptic. The impassioned defense and glorification of General Yacoub who sided with French invaders along with the harsh attack against the Egyptian Conference of 1911 are examples. Labeling the Egyptian Conference of 1911 as Islamist was particularly grating and misleading. While Tadros lister the point by point demands of the preceding Coptic Conference, he failed to do the same for the Egyptian Conference, yet a simple review of these would show that Egyptian Conference adopted views that even by 21st century standards would be seen as progressive and egalitarian. 

Opinions v. Facts: Tadros presented several important ideas in the book as established facts, while in fact these often appear at best opinions or unproven theories. Lord Cromer, who was a founding member of the Society Against Women Suffrage in England was being portrayed by Tadros as a progressive liberal, with “compassion” for poor Egyptian peasants. Ahmed Lutfy El Sayed was presented by Tadros as an anti Copt agitator. Tadros failed to present sufficient facts to prove this, nor did he offer a balanced discussion that supports his conclusions. The demonization of Lutfi El Sayed was relentless, and frankly shocking. Tadros attempt at nuance when analyzing Lutfi El Sayed was limited to admitting that he and his colleagues were not “fanatics”! 

Similar but less obvious was Tadros’s dismissal of Ahmed Maher as the King’s lackey, yet at some point Tadros admitted that the King was actively trying to appeal to the Copts to counter the popularity of the Wafed Party. In the post 1952 era, Tadros suggested that Nasser came into power with an Arabist and anti Israel agenda, this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny as Nasser hardly addressed either topic in his first few years. It was also ironic that Tadros blamed Nasser for the Coptic Church’s rejection of Vatican II. Tadros seemed to want to whitewash the deeply ingrained antisemitism in the Coptic traditions and history and shift the blame on to Nasser. 

Dhimmitude and 21st Century sensibilities: It was unclear which era Tadros considered was the best for Copts in Egypt other than perhaps the brief 3 year period of the French occupation at the end of the 18th & beginning of the 19th century.  Mohamed Aly and his dynasty according to Tadros were focused on their own struggles against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire and / or against the British. The British according to Tadros had no interest advancing the rights of Copts, the Liberal Egyptian movement of the first half of the 20th century didn’t either. At times it appeared that Tadros thought Copts faired best under the more traditional so called dhimi times, when according to Tadros Copts played an important role in the civil service. Tadros quoted some blatantly discriminatory and aggressive anti Copt language from a newspaper in 1908 responding to an attack from a Coptic paper on Islamic history, yet Tadros did not provide context for such language, nor did he offer any details on what the Coptic newspaper actually printed to start the episode. Contrasting some of this language with the language used by Cairo’s Rabbinical Jewish religious authorities describing Karaite Jews in 1903 "impure bastards" would show the very different sensibilities of the time. It would have been more helpful for the reader if Tadros offered more context or comparisons of the how the various minorities and sects dealt with one another at the various eras of history. 

As referenced earlier, the weaknesses and shortcomings of this work should not take away from its importance. The passion of Samuel Tadros for his church and his fellow Copts made him an outstanding advocate, but readers would definitely benefit from a more scientific approach in assessing and addressing both history and present. The challenges Egyptian Copts face are huge: discrimination, acts of violence, governments that are often complicit in discrimination or at best tolerant of it, brain drain, conflicts within the Church between reformers and traditionalists … these and more are very serious challenges and need to be addressed in an even handed fashion. 

The Plight of Copts Goes on and on!

From Tumblr

The silence is deafening on what’s happening to the Copts in Egypt …even many of my Coptic friends have grown so discouraged and dispirited, they just remain silent, no one hears them and no one cares and no one can do a damn thing to stop the atrocities from El Arish beheadings and kidnappings of young Copts to the on-going brutality in Delga and elsewhere.

The Egyptian Muslims who would normally care are tired and weary and have so many battles to fight, the west is looking at the violence in Egypt against Copts as, low grade tolerable, in an otherwise messed up region. The Egyptian Government sees the violence against Copts as helpful for enhancing the terrorist image of Islamists so it generally tolerates a level of violence before it becomes embarrassing.

The average Egyptian, sadly, maybe looking on with a level of glee and hatred at the suffering of the Copts. Sectarian hate in Egypt is a fact, regardless of Islamists and it is a two way street, but obviously the minority suffers a lot more than the majority.

I wrote an essay ten years ago about massacre of Copts and the two way sectarian hate. and frankly I can add nothing more except that the current failure of  the #Jan25 Revolution, in my view, stems from a critical missing objective: equality ..of men and women, of Muslim and Copt .. true equality ..this is what enabled Islamists to hijack a revolution that failed to demand true equality. I contrast Jan25 slogans of Bread, Freedom and Social Justice with the French Revolution’s cry of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and see what’s missing and what went wrong: equality!

http://idindeed.blogspot.com/2003/11/reciprocal-silence-egypts-christians.html

The "I'm not alone"s of Egypt

One day, perhaps ten or twenty years from now, sociologists, psychologists and other experts will look at the amazing developments unleashed in the Egyptian society following the January 25, 2011 Revolution. I will attempt to address a couple of observations, one perhaps over discussed right now and another less so.

First, the revolt against authority across society, in the home, at schools and universities, in work places; from factories to ports to hospitals, to courts and within security establishment itself, even within established political movements and religious institutions. Egypt has seen doctors and judges strike, central security conscripts strike and the established Muslim Brotherhood has seen several of its youth split out into new parties more closely aligned with other revolutionary youth movements. Egyptian families have seen their sons and daughters defy them to camp out for days at Tharir Square protests. 

For decades, and perhaps for centuries, Egyptian society has been patriarchal and hierarchical. Under the series of military rulers since the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952 the added element of corruption grew reaching nauseating levels under Mubarak. The excesses of authoritarian behavior and corruption permeated every aspect of the society from former president Mubarak and his family down to the tiniest organizational unit, be it a small school, factory, or government clinic.

The success of the revolution in gathering the support of millions and eventually the overthrow of Mubarak has opened the lid on explosive levels of frustrations and sense of deep injustice against unreasonableness and authoritarianism everywhere. Egyptians have become hard to contain anywhere, there have been problems and protests against Saudi authorities and airlines dealing with Egyptian pilgrims; Egyptians no longer put up with much in their usual silence and patience.

Second and perhaps less noticed phenomena is what I call "I'm not alone" syndrome! Before January 25, 2011 a swath of Egyptian society felt isolated and angry, against the society at large, not just the regime itself. I recall the words of an explosive 2008 rap, railing against the Government, “ded el hekomah” or ”ضد الحكومه” where Ramy Donjewan cries out against the Government and those who accept to be insulted, those who accept their dignity be trampled upon. The sense of anger was so pervasive, that the amazing outpouring of happiness and pride, in my view, was not just from the success of overthrow of Mubarak, but also from seeing how many like minded people were out there.

Unlike the revolt against authority " I'm not alone" is far from universality within Egypt. Many are fully occupied with daily struggles of life, feeding a family, making ends meet and rarely have time, energy or inclination to pay attention to other issues and there are those who are focused achieving own personal goals or being entertained without much interest in societal or intellectual pursuits. A clear majority of Egyptians clearly belong to those two categories. The first category struggles for survival is clearly the poor, the later is often described nowadays in Egypt as the The Couch Party or Hezb El Kanabah حزب الكنبه those happily sitting on their sofas watching the events.

I will carve out a further category of Egyptians , those active supporters of religious movements or associations be them Muslim Brothers, Salafis or Copts. These groups already knew they were not alone, even before January 25, 2011. Generally their primary identifications are with their groups as “brothers” true Muslims or “Copts” and less so with the society or Egypt as a whole.

With the above exclusions, I have indeed reduced those I wish to label by "I'm not alone" to fewer than 10% of the population. So a few million Egyptians who thought they were alone, or almost alone, have discovered like-minded thousands within their immediate districts, millions across the country. It was amazing to see, in Tahrir Square, few months after the revolution, over fifty thousand people cheering Ramy Essam, yell out ( madanniya madanniya ) or civil civil calling out for a secular democratic state. Ramy Essam, the young man from Mansoura, brought his guitar as his weapon against the brutality of Mubarak police and thugs during the days of revolution last winter and became known as the Singer of the Revolution.

It is this group of leftists, liberals and unaffiliated who care, really care that found its voice and knew it was not alone after the revolution. Many are pious Muslim or Copts, few are atheist, some are very political and have been for years. The “I’m not alone”s are far from uniform combining people with very differing views and some would even find more in common with Islamists than with each other. The liberals within the group are often more perfectly aligned with Muslim Brotherhood on economic matters, whereas the Egyptian Left would make common cause with the Brotherhood on hatred for Israel.

Yet it is this group, the "I'm not alone"s that are now the most reluctant to give up the joy they found in the revolution and have become the biggest critics of the Egyptian Army Generals who control the country. And it is indeed this group that has been suffering the brunt of the excessive suppression at the hands of the army. Revolution Singer Ramy Essam was tortured at the hands of the army several months ago and despite of promises of investigation and justice this remains to happen.

As I write these words, a couple of prominent “I’m not alone”s come to mind. From the pro west liberal camp Maikel Nabil remains on hunger strike for staggering 85 days, in army prison since March, currently awaiting retrial after an initial sentence of three year prison has been annulled by the military itself. Amazingly, he has not been released, even on bail, pending his retrial for his anti military blogpost. Maikel Nabil has been classified as Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International and so has Alaa Abdelfatteh who is more aligned with the Egyptian left wing. Alaa too is currently languishing in prison awaiting military trial. Maikel and Alaa have refused to cooperate with the military tribunal system and are being severely punished for their daring to challenge the military courts jurisdiction over them as civilians. It is amazing that the Army rulers have shown significant leniency towards Islamists and indeed some who were serving sentences for the murder of late President Sadat were freed or allowed to return from exile.

The "I'm not alone"s took their celebrations from cyberspace into the streets. So rather than just tweeting 140 characters in cyberspace, the very same Alaa Abdelfatteh pioneered the concept of Tweetnadwa where people stood up and expressed their views on selected topics in 140 seconds. So not only did Egyptians perfect the use of social networks for revolution, they did not stop and moved beyond converging the cyber and physical worlds.

The "I'm not alone"s have produced amazing creativity in street arts, songs, poetry and most recently nude photography. A young Egyptian girl published totally nude artistic photos of herself in defiance of conservative customs to the utter bewilderment and anger at some Salafi ultra orthodox Islamists who advocate covering not only women’s hair but also face and hands. I heard of the daring Allia el Mahdi and her blog on the very same day I heard of a Salafi leader refusing to be interviewed by TV journalist unless she covered herself; what a contrast between the two acts. Allia speaks openly of her atheism and of her boy friend Kareem Amer, who was jailed and tortured for his atheism and her rejection of forced religiosity. Alia and Kareem are certainly in a very tiny minority in conservative Egypt but they are not alone and they know it.

The amazing courage and perhaps naiveté of the young Egyptian "I'm not alone"s of various strips create conflicted feelings in me, I am so proud of them, of all of them, even the ones I disagree with, I am so hopeful for Egypt, because a country with such great human wealth, with so much youth talent and courage, truly, has amazing potential; but I am also so scared for them and desperately want them to be free, safe and happy!

AA
November 18, 2011

Azazel by Yousef Ziedan (Arabic) - Book Review عَزَازِيلَ

A product of Government schools in Egypt, I grew up reading Tawfik el Hakim, Taha Hussein and Arabic translations of Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe. While my Arabic language remains reasonably good, I mostly read in English now. I found the quality of Arabic literature from the 1970's on tedious and banal with over emphasis on flowery language, series of nonstop metaphors and excessive symbolism lacking in coherence, creativity and feelings.

In the last few years I started again to read more in Arabic after being encouraged to do so from reading several books by Alifa Refa'at, Hannan Al Sheikh, Saher Khalifa and others that were translated to English. Books like Alaa el Aswani's Yakobian Building and Chicago actually returned to me the joy of reading in Arabic. El Aswani had something to say, his creativity and sensitivity only needed to be communicated and people who read the English translation got as much out of it as I did reading it in Arabic. The language did not add to the work, nor did it detract from it, in other words el Aswani's creativity was language neutral, could be enjoyed fully or almost fully as long as the translation is reasonably good.

Literature that I need to work on, that consumes me to appreciate fully is far more fulfilling for me than straight forward creative story telling of El Aswani for example. The power of language and the imagery that a certain use of the language can create helps me reach levels of intellectual and emotional joy that is hard to reduce to words. Ahdaf Souief writing in English about migration, alienation and cross cultural experiences from an Egyptian soul is particularly appealing to me. It has been decades since I read in the Arabic Language a novel that combined beautiful impactful prose with true creativity.

Gilead, the novel by Marilynn Robinson about a pastor in Kansas writing, in his dying days a letter to his young son, a book-long meandering letter about the pastor childhood, family and life and the struggle over slave emancipation within the church.

Yousef Ziedan's book Azazil is the most remarkable Arabic book I have read since the age of the greats Hakim, Mahfouz, Hussin and A’akad and arguably far more evolved than much of the work of these masters of Arabic literature. The Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead is the book I always thought of as I read Azazel. Ziedan use of the Arabic language was masterful; this will be a book that will need highly skilled translation in order for the readers in English or other languages to appreciate the beauty of its prose.

The portrayal of the Monk Hipa as a multi dimensional human with strong beliefs and doubts, with desires coupled with immense discipline was, in short, terrific. Most of the surrounding characters were less fully developed and to a certain extent played the roles of “goodies and badies”. The depth of the development of Hipa multi faceted personality did not make me focus too much on the cardboard nature of the supporting actors as I read this beautiful novel; only on reflection afterwards did I feel this shortcoming.

The choice of the mystical Azazel as the satanic companion turned into a semi-confidant of Monk Hipa was very interesting. Azazel is a confusing biblical mystical character that the monk recognized as his evil shadow. More symbolism maybe behind this choice of this not so well known “junior” devil …was he prevalent in the writings and beliefs of those distant Christians? Was it something to do with Azazel reputation for sexual temptation which seemed to have always conquered our monk? I was not sure.

With the level of sensitivity to protection of religion and fear of accusations of irreverence or worse in Egypt I was puzzled by Ziedan choice to put an Islamic hadieth at the beginning of the book ..was it a declaration of his faith to avoid scrutiny by would be Muslim critics? While the hadieth at the beginning of this wonderful novel is a beautiful spiritual one, it detracted from quality of the book and opened it to very fair criticism of the being an attack on the Coptic Church. On the one hand, this book does a great deal to explain so much more about Christianity to Egyptian Muslim readers as Egyptian Schools only teach Christianity to non Christians from a purely Islamic view point, in other words they don’t teach that Boutres or Gerges believes this and that, they teach that we as Muslims believe that the message of Christianity is so and so and Boutres and Gerges have it wrong. So it is nice to see a book exploring how a Christian monk viewed his own faith in a mostly sympathetic fashion. Yet, I wondered if a book written about a Sufi Imam written by a Christian with a quote from the New Testament would ever be published in Egypt let alone be nominated to and receive a regional prize … I highly doubt it!

Yousif Ziedan is a gifted and wonderful creative story teller. The needless presence of the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion on his web site makes me very uncertain of his scholarship despite his tremendous credentials, his relative insensitivity to the improbability of a mirror image book from a Coptic Christian in Egypt hold me back from whole hearted enthusiasm for this work that I enjoyed immensely while actually reading it.

AA
May 2009