Egypt – Despite Violence, A People Still United

One of the most striking and moving images from the Egyptian Revolution was a line of Coptic Christians, linking arms and protecting the Muslims from the military police during their call to prayer. On Sunday, many Muslims joined thousands of Christians to march against last week’s violent attack on a Coptic Church in the southern town of Aswan—a telling symbol of the systematic, institutionalized racism against the Coptic minority in Egypt.

Egyptians watched in shock and horror as the peaceful march of 10,000 Egyptians—many united in religious solidarity–became a violent confrontation with the military police, escalating into a massacre brutally killing at least twenty-six and leaving over five hundred injured.

Earlier this week, a similar march was violently dispersed by the military police, and not even acknowledged by the Egyptian State TV station. This march was intended as both a symbol of support for the Egyptian Christian minorities, and to provoke media attention from the Egyptian State TV and radio stations that systematically ignore outbreaks of violence against Coptic Christians.

The march began in the Christian district of Shubra, bound for the Egyptian State TV and radio office buildings, known in Cairo as the Maspero.The protests were designed to be a peaceful march that ended in a sit-in at the Maspero. They were not intended to be a vocal or controversial protest of outrage, much less a violent and deadly confrontation with the military police.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports on the ground from Egypt at The Nation and The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting that,

A line of military police crossed the street and formed a line directly in front of the protestors, holding them back as traffic inched by. The crowd suddenly swelled, pushing the military police back. Several protestors continued moving forward, forcing the soldiers to retreat past the median and across the street to where the APCs were stationed. One protestor threw a rock that hit the side of an army vehicle.

Then, the military attacked.

The military police—formerly Mubarak’s hired “thugs”—came towards the protestors with batons, violently and indiscriminately clubbing the demonstrators. Several soldiers opened fire, wounding and in some instances killing civilians. A military vehicle sped through the crowd, running over and mangling dying bodies. Protestors responded with the only force that they had, burning police vehicles and throwing stones at the military police—though this was hardly enough to defend themselves against the army.

It is the first time that Egyptian Army officers have been directly implicated with killing civilians.

The Egyptian State TV and radio reported that “the Christians”—meaning both the Christian and Muslim protestors in solidarity with the destruction of the church—instigated the violence. The State TV broadcast interviews with soldiers describing the protestors throwing stones and burning cars, but never acknowledged that the army used disproportionate force, including the gunfire that was responsible for all of the civilian casualties.

It was also the State TV reporters—not the protestors—who represented the clashes as sectarian violence, calling upon “honorable citizens” to protect the army from “the Copts.” Despite the beautiful images of symbolic unity of Muslims and Christian Egyptian citizens, the current forces of power in Egypt—whether they are the media, military police, or transitional government leaders—still exhibit shameless racism against the Coptic minority.

As the loved ones of those wounded in the clashes gather at the Coptic Hospital—and morgue—many wonder what this outbreak of authoritarian violence means for the future of democracy in Egypt. Following the initial euphoria in Tahrir Square—immortalized as Egypt became the model for democratic revolutions and uprisings around the world—many Egyptians have become frustrated with the slow progress towards actual democracy. There is fear, and now proof, that the military is eager to maintain and abuse their power, quite possibly imposing their own agenda—one of violence and discrimination—on the world’s idealized vision of post revolutionary Egypt.