coptic protest
I've been dreading making this post because I don't know what to say. I'll start with the facts: Last night, the Coptic protests went seriously awful. (they're the Christians of Egypt, Orthodox and also a racial designation that I don't know enough about to outline clearly, they constitute 10% of the population, are Egypt's 'oldest' ethnic group, and are pretty much oppressed in many ways).
They reestablished a protest outside Maspero, the state television building. They were protesting the fact that three churches have been destroyed recently (and more generically, their subordinate status in Egypt). The army were there. It got rowdy, and the army began firing live rounds.
I was in a taxi on my way home from my swanky beauty salon thinking more about the plucked-chicken state of my lower body than about politics. My taxi driver was doubling up on customers and so I happened to share with a fancy veiled girl who spoke fluent english. 'They need to stop this,' she sighed, about the Copts. 'We need to concentrate on fighting ignorance and corruption, and not distract with all these things. We have elections coming up. They say they are oppressed, I don't believe it. I have Coptic friends who say the same, they're not oppressed. We need to move on.'
I couldn't really speak because it was so contradictory and closed-minded, and I am visibly a foreigner so can hardly play the moral high ground, so I plumped for an obvious line and asked: 'but what about the pig cull* of a few years ago? This was awful.'
'Yes,' she said. 'But this was so obviously divide and rule, getting Egyptians to fight Egyptians. It wasn't about the Copts, it was about corruption.'
Well, that's just fine and dandy, if you're not a Copt. Clearly the answer is to shut up and trust the elections. Some human rights, you see, can be postponed. I couldn't say any more. I have heard this kind of I'm All Right Jack view echoed many times, but I had never really met someone who actually thinks this way. It is sickening, it makes the bile rise in my throat.
I got home, and spent the evening in front of twitter, AJE, my window (which looks onto Kasr El Einy), and facebook. It was a night of worry for friends and acquaintances who I knew were out there, and it just got worse and worse. Live rounds, what the fuck were the army thinking, they haven't used (confirmed) live rounds since 28th Jan, and this was a basically peaceful protest by all accounts. There is footage of armyvehicles driving at civilians like ninepins - it seriously crazy footage - and of army throwing rocks back at unarmed civilians. A crowd of around 1500 Islamists, chanting anti-Coptic slogans, were allowed - encouraged - into Tahrir by the army. The army sponsors this violence, riles up this feeling, maybe they even pay for it (thugs materialise out of nowhere, remarkably on-message each time, and it's an old old tactic of this regime) - and at least 25 Copts are dead.
What is this madness? The army have long played people off each other, subtly, to maintain control - that is what the Israel wall was about, they could have stopped that in seconds - but this time it was obvious, plain as day. They are doing the opposite of maintaining order: they're encouraging disorder, stoking riots.
I considered heading out to the Coptic hospital as there were appeals for blood, but needed to wait an hour as I'd had a glass of wine and didn't want it to be in my bloodstream. (god knows the ethics on that one but I didn't want to donate booze by the offchance that a Muslim needed the blood... or something, anyway, I just don't know the medical rules either). By that time, the Coptic hospital was being attacked: the injured being attacked as they entered.
Some horrific photographs were published online. There is all this rhetoric in Egypt about the cheapness of the human life and now I get it. There was no need for these deaths, even if you can coldly see the attempt at politics, this is state murder.
Everyone is depressed today. It was the worst violence since 28 Jan and unlike 28 Jan, it was 100% unnecessary. A filmmaker, known to many of my friends, died. Friends have his footage and they're editing it fast now in his memory.
Oh god there is so much more to say here but I have barely the heart. OK: key message for The West
YES this played upon and used an existing and deep racism and religious intolerance in Egypt, but the classic 'clash of religions' narrative that the west loves so much, is still inadequate to discuss this situation. There is so much more going on in terms of energy, coercion, political apathy, manipulation, poverty, people are just pawns. Just pawns.
* Mubarak's govt killed all pigs in Egypt after swine flu, on zero scientific basis, basically a means to please the Muslimpopulation and put Copts in the shit, whose herds are an essential part of the rubbish-sorting business that a majority of extremely poor Copts rely on. Since the pigs were culled, it is children who sort the organic waste from inorganic.
They reestablished a protest outside Maspero, the state television building. They were protesting the fact that three churches have been destroyed recently (and more generically, their subordinate status in Egypt). The army were there. It got rowdy, and the army began firing live rounds.
I was in a taxi on my way home from my swanky beauty salon thinking more about the plucked-chicken state of my lower body than about politics. My taxi driver was doubling up on customers and so I happened to share with a fancy veiled girl who spoke fluent english. 'They need to stop this,' she sighed, about the Copts. 'We need to concentrate on fighting ignorance and corruption, and not distract with all these things. We have elections coming up. They say they are oppressed, I don't believe it. I have Coptic friends who say the same, they're not oppressed. We need to move on.'
I couldn't really speak because it was so contradictory and closed-minded, and I am visibly a foreigner so can hardly play the moral high ground, so I plumped for an obvious line and asked: 'but what about the pig cull* of a few years ago? This was awful.'
'Yes,' she said. 'But this was so obviously divide and rule, getting Egyptians to fight Egyptians. It wasn't about the Copts, it was about corruption.'
Well, that's just fine and dandy, if you're not a Copt. Clearly the answer is to shut up and trust the elections. Some human rights, you see, can be postponed. I couldn't say any more. I have heard this kind of I'm All Right Jack view echoed many times, but I had never really met someone who actually thinks this way. It is sickening, it makes the bile rise in my throat.
I got home, and spent the evening in front of twitter, AJE, my window (which looks onto Kasr El Einy), and facebook. It was a night of worry for friends and acquaintances who I knew were out there, and it just got worse and worse. Live rounds, what the fuck were the army thinking, they haven't used (confirmed) live rounds since 28th Jan, and this was a basically peaceful protest by all accounts. There is footage of armyvehicles driving at civilians like ninepins - it seriously crazy footage - and of army throwing rocks back at unarmed civilians. A crowd of around 1500 Islamists, chanting anti-Coptic slogans, were allowed - encouraged - into Tahrir by the army. The army sponsors this violence, riles up this feeling, maybe they even pay for it (thugs materialise out of nowhere, remarkably on-message each time, and it's an old old tactic of this regime) - and at least 25 Copts are dead.
What is this madness? The army have long played people off each other, subtly, to maintain control - that is what the Israel wall was about, they could have stopped that in seconds - but this time it was obvious, plain as day. They are doing the opposite of maintaining order: they're encouraging disorder, stoking riots.
I considered heading out to the Coptic hospital as there were appeals for blood, but needed to wait an hour as I'd had a glass of wine and didn't want it to be in my bloodstream. (god knows the ethics on that one but I didn't want to donate booze by the offchance that a Muslim needed the blood... or something, anyway, I just don't know the medical rules either). By that time, the Coptic hospital was being attacked: the injured being attacked as they entered.
Some horrific photographs were published online. There is all this rhetoric in Egypt about the cheapness of the human life and now I get it. There was no need for these deaths, even if you can coldly see the attempt at politics, this is state murder.
Everyone is depressed today. It was the worst violence since 28 Jan and unlike 28 Jan, it was 100% unnecessary. A filmmaker, known to many of my friends, died. Friends have his footage and they're editing it fast now in his memory.
Oh god there is so much more to say here but I have barely the heart. OK: key message for The West
YES this played upon and used an existing and deep racism and religious intolerance in Egypt, but the classic 'clash of religions' narrative that the west loves so much, is still inadequate to discuss this situation. There is so much more going on in terms of energy, coercion, political apathy, manipulation, poverty, people are just pawns. Just pawns.
* Mubarak's govt killed all pigs in Egypt after swine flu, on zero scientific basis, basically a means to please the Muslimpopulation and put Copts in the shit, whose herds are an essential part of the rubbish-sorting business that a majority of extremely poor Copts rely on. Since the pigs were culled, it is children who sort the organic waste from inorganic.