'Confidence crisis' at the root of sectarian violence

Cairo: "I grew up as a Muslim in a Cairo street mostly inhabited by Coptic Christians, who used to share our traditions.

"Some of them would even abstain from eating and drinking (during the Muslim month of Ramadan) in respect for our feelings," recalls Mohammad Al Sayed.

"It was difficult to tell Muslims from the Christians. So I am baffled by the occasional eruption of sectarian unrest in Egypt," Al Sayed, a 42-year-old resident, told Gulf News.

Last week, Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city, was rocked by sectarian violence, which followed attacks on churches.

The violence was the latest in a series of communal strife in predominantly Muslim Egypt. Christians make up around 10 per cent of the country's 73 million.

"The sectarian problem is not a daily feature of life in Egypt," said Yousuf Sedham, the editor of Watani, the mouthpiece of Egyptian Christians. "However, authorities allow this problem to fester," he told Gulf News.

Sedham blames what he terms as religious intolerance on the emergence of militant Muslim groups in Egypt some 30 years ago.

"Since the late 1970s, education and media have suffered a setback in Egypt, reflecting badly on the relations between Muslims and Christians.

"This was not the case for long centuries during which tolerance prevailed and followers of both faiths co-existed in harmony," he argued.

"Muslims and Coptic Christians are not treated equally as citizens. Low socio-economic standards have also helped in the spread of militancy in society," he said in reference to what many Christians believe, that they are discriminated against, specially in occupying top posts.

Dismissing the Alexandria attacks as a minor incident, Coptic activist George Eshaq of the protest group Kefaya sees it as a result of "the political stagnation, which has been gripping Egypt for many years now".

"Such attacks will always happen as long as curricula in our schools are backward and the culture of accepting the other is absent," he told this paper.

Last October, three died when Muslims protested in Alexandria over a church play they deemed offensive to Islam.

The latest attacks have cast a pall over a Coptic holy week, which culminates on Sunday in the Orthodox Easter. On Monday, Muslim and Christian Egyptians celebrate Sham Al Nessim, a springtime festival going back to the times of the ancient Egyptians.

Muslim writer Makram Mohammad Ahmad sees a "confidence crisis" between the Coptic Christians and the authorities. "This mistrust is at the root of the problem," he told the opposition newspaper Al Wafd.

"I think there is a systematic effort made by some mosque preachers inciting religious hatred. Copts feel that they are targeted by Islamic groups and that the government does not do enough to protect them. These fears must be addressed in a direct and courageous manner," he added.

The writer is a journalist based in Cairo