Alexandria (Egypt) Religious Riots--A (Sorta) Eyewitness

[onager]

This story probably wasn't covered much in the Western press, and I doubt Fox would give it more than a few nanoseconds.

:sarcasm: Warning

The only victims were those perfidious Muslim god-haters and a few swarthy Off-Brand Xians (the Egyptian Copts...which is redundant, as Egyptians like to point out, since "Copt" literally means "Egyptian.")

Oh, and I'll be your tour guide to this Celebration Of Religious Enthusiasm. I'm a perfectly objective observer, being an American atheist, and I've spent many months in Egypt. Mostly in Alexandria.

For those wanting more details, good luck. Accounts in the tightly-controlled Egyptian press have ranged from ludicrous to completely contradictory.

But the facts as I know them: last Friday, shortly after noon prayer call for the Muslims, 3 Coptic Xian churches were attacked by a man or men carrying knives. One elderly woman was killed and about 15 other people were wounded.

The Copts were preparing for Palm Sunday. (This coming Sunday is the Coptic Easter.)

The Official Story: all the attacks were carried out by a "single, mentally unstable young man." (That's one ludicrous part. EVERY horrendous crime in Egypt seems to be committed by a "single, mentally unstable young man," according to govt. sources/newspapers.)

Well, he sure was a fast-moving mental case. Three churches were attacked in 3 completely different districts of Alexandria: el-Hadra, Fleming and Sidi Bishr...the last being the district where I'm staying, unfortunately. (Fans of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet will note that the old district names of Alexandria are still in use. The citizens are stubborn that way.)

The first riots blew up on Saturday, during a street funeral procession for one of the stabbing victims. Copts and Muslims started attacking each other.

On Sunday (just another work day for most of us here), we tried to take our usual commute-route down Avenue 45, one of the main drags just a couple of blocks from my hotel.

Avenue 45 is also the site of All Saints Church, where one of the knife attacks took place on Friday.

The street was blocked by regiments of Riot Police carrying pump shotguns and their huge green paddy wagons, equipped with steel mesh over all the glass.

Rumor said the govt. ordered in police reinforcements from Cairo, which is probably true. I've seen the Alexandria riot cops respond to dire civil emergencies like riots and elections before. Their equipment is older and not as...numerous. In Alexandria, you know mass arrests are imminent when you see empty city buses mixed with police vehicles. The buses are always full here.

Our enterprising driver, like a few hundred others, just detoured thru some alleys and we eventually came out right back on Avenue 45.

The street looked like a war zone. Overturned and burnt-out cars. Shattered glass all over the streets. The heavy, corrugated steel covering a couple of storefronts had been punched clean thru. Some smoke damage, but no buildings that I could see had been completely burned.

Sunday afternoon the Riot Police blocked EVERY entry/exit onto Avenue 45, even the alleys. A smart move, since the street hosted massive angry demonstrations by the Copts that night.

My Egyptian co-workers are just sick about this. With dazed looks they keep repeating: "This doesn't happen in Alexandria. Everybody gets along here."

(Not quite true. When I got here in October 2005 even bigger fights between the Copts and Muslims were taking place, near the lovely old St. Girgis (George's) Church in downtown Alexandria. That was stirred up by a 2-year-old anti-Muslim play allegedly produced by the Copts.)

The Egyptians I work with include a few Xians, and I was looking closely to see if these guys treated each other any differently. Nope. No awkwardness, no standoffishness. Everybody was just as friendly with each other as always. One Xian was eagerly looking forward to the Easter weekend, and taking vacation time to spend a long weekend with his extended family. All the Muslims seemed happy for him too.

OK, not much of a report, but I'm not much of a journalist. Neither is David Brooks, so sue me...
:-)

[Extend a Hand]

1. Thx for posting

The 'news' is so suspect these days. I appreciate first person accounts from around the US and the world. (a very fine job of reporting!)

[madrchsod]

2. the coptic church

was there long before the islam became the religion of choice and though out the centuries islam and the coptic's got along respectably. the coptic's had to pay a tax to islam but that was pretty much the extent of the problems. fast forward to the last 60 some years with the two major religious faiths in the middle east turning more fundamental and violent and this has left the coptic church in a perilous position in egypt. since the church actually believes that religion and the state should never get involved in any matter the coptic church is at the mercy of the Egyptian government for protection which now days is very little.
no one in the western christian church gives a crap about the coptic's even though they were the first christian church.

[hlthe2b]

3. As one who has also spent time working in Egypt, thanks for report

to the OP.

As for Madrchsod's comment, I'd venture to guess that less than 10% of American "so-called" Christians even know about Coptic Christians. Our ignorance is an eternal embarrassment to me (and to anyone who regularly works/travels overseas and interacts with the truly educated--poor or rich, alike--outside our country).

[Silent3]

4. More Coptics in Alexandria than elsewhere?

Coptics are what, about 4% of the Egyptian population? Not that you can't have a lot of inter-religious tension breaking out with a 4% group, your post just made me wonder if Alexandria might be more heavily Christian than other areas of Egypt.

I took my first trip to Egypt (also my first trip to any Middle Eastern country) a couple of weeks ago -- about a week in Egypt and a week in Libya. One thing I'd wondered about before I went was what it would be like to be there when the calls for prayer went out. I'd even wondered if I'd notice traffic slow down or stop in the streets.

I barely noticed that calls for prayer were happening at all. I did hear some of them go out (more often in Libya), but even when I heard them I saw only a few people here and there stop to pray, if I saw any change in activity at all. At the minimum I was expecting to see more than a few people at least pause and close their eyes or something like that. I suppose some people had quietly found their way to mosques before the calls went out, but the impression that I had was that this particular Pillar of Islam was largely ignored, at least in the areas I was in while touring and the times of day I was out and about.