History
As with many problems in the Middle East, tension between Egyptian Copts and
Muslims has long historical roots. Indeed, it goes back to the Arab invasion
in A.D. 641 which first brought Islam to Egypt. Copts lived with dhimmi
status, members of a protected minority but without full rights. Despite
idealization of the dhimmi system by some modern writers, the dhimmi system
was, in fact, a system of political exclusion, economic exploitation,
religious persecution, and social degradation.
In the nineteenth century, the Copts' position began to improve under the
stability and tolerance of the Muhammad 'Ali dynasty. The Western powers
also began to pressure the Ottoman Empire and Egypt to improve the plight of
their Christian subjects. As a result of the Crimean War (1853-56), the Copts
saw the dawn of their emancipation. Their main mark of inferiority, the jizya
tax, was lifted in 1855, and in the same year they were allowed to join the
army. In 1856, Sultan 'Abd al-Majid (r. 1839-1861) issued the Hatt-i Humayun
decree, conceding in principle of equality before the law of all the subjects
of the Ottoman Empire regardless of religion. In 1866, the Copts served in
the inaugural session of the Consultative Council, establishing a process of
Coptic integration into the Egyptian political system. Ensured of their
political rights, and freed from all social restraints, the Copts flourished.
This Coptic civil revival was accompanied by religious awakening, triggered
by their enlightened Patriarch, Cyril IV (1854-1861), and it had the effect
of raising their moral and educational standards, and a re-discovery of their
distinct identity.

Twentieth-Century Plight
Despite this reawakening of Coptic identity, the twentieth century has seen
distinct periods of extreme hostility between the Copts and the Muslim
majority. The British high commissioner, Sir Eldon Gorst (1907-11), in an
effort to placate the Muslim majority, introduced a system that effectively
barred Copts from senior government positions. Muslims hardened their
position against the Copts, adopting the idea that Egypt is a Muslim country
and that it is scandalous for Copts to discuss their problems outside Egypt.
In protest, the Copts convened in an historic Congress in Asyut in 1911,
demanding better representation; equal access to civil service positions;
equal access to state education; provision of Christian religious instruction
in state schools; and designation of Sunday as a holiday. The British
occupation and the Muslim majority described the Coptic demands as
"fabricated grievances" and rejected them all.
Things then improved with the 1919 Revolution, when Copts and Muslims, united
against the British occupation, worked together to build a new political
order and mutual relationship. Neither before or since has Egypt witnessed
such an upsurge in fraternization between Copts and Muslims, the credit for
which goes largely to two Muslims: Ahmad Lutfi as-Sayyid (1872-1963) was the
enlightened father of Egyptian patriotism who emphasized that "Egypt is for
the Egyptians," and that religion should have no role in Egyptian politics;
he was, perhaps, the first Egyptian Muslim to suggest that the Egyptian
character was built around a Pharoanic core, rather than an Arabic one. Sa'd
Zaghlul (1856-1927), was the leader of the revolution; "His tolerance and
lack of any connection with pre-war communal tensions inspired the Copts to
trust him and Muslims to welcome Coptic participation." When Copts joined
the Revolution with enthusiasm, they reaped the harvest of their good work in
the 1920s and figured prominently in the post-revolutionary era. This proved
to be the last peak of Coptic-Muslim relations.
By the 1930s, Islamist influence was on the increase, with the inevitable
costs for Copts. "A natural accompaniment to the use of Islam was sectarian
propaganda, which was aimed at the new role the Copts were attempting to play
in the society and polity. This auxiliary weapon was potentially extremely
damaging to both opponents and the political system." What appeared in Egypt
in the 1930s was, however, more than the usual ethnic propaganda
(unflattering statements, sporadic violence); "it was a more concerted and
organized attempt to gain and keep power, in part by relying on prejudices.
This new outlook threatened to upset the new and fragile political system."
This dark period of the Coptic-Muslim relationship continued for more than
two decades, ending only with the 1952 Revolution. But the autocratic rule
of Gamal Abdel Nasser merely suppressed the Islamic elements of discord in
the Egyptian society, without addressing the roots of the Coptic question -
namely the exclusion of the Copts from Egyptian polity. In retrospect, Abdel
Nasser only complicated matters by adding a new political factor-Arab
nationalism-into the Egyptian polity which further alienated the non-Arab
Copts. Furthermore, his misguided nationalization policy, introduced in 1961,
hit the Copts hard and led to the loss of 75 percent of their work and
property. As a result, by the time of Abdel Nasser's death in 1970, the
Copts found themselves in a much worse situation than just a decade earlier.
Things then got even worse when Anwar as-Sadat then followed and implemented
policies friendly toward Islamism, as enshrined in the 1971 constitution that
proclaimed "Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic its official language,
and the principles of the Islamic Shari'a a principal source of legislation."
(Article 2). The 1980 constitution went a step further and made the Shari'a
the principal source of legislation. This introduction of the Shari'a as a
principal source of legislation was entirely novel-and it alarmed Copts, who
saw in it the transformation of Egypt from a secular-style state into an
Islamic theocracy with a return to the dhimmi status, so deeply at odds with
the modern concepts of equality, freedom and fraternity.
Sectarian strife quickly re-ignited. On November 6, 1972, an Orthodox church
in the Nile delta town of Khanka near Cairo was burned. When Christians held
a special mass at the site of the badly damaged church on November 12,
anti-Coptic riots erupted. The rioters destroyed homes and shops of local
Christians.
This incident marked the beginning of a series of anti-Coptic attacks, fueled
primarily by the agitation of the militant Jama'a Islamiya. Growing out of
the Muslim Brethren organization, created in 1929, the attitude of the young
militants, in the words of the journalist Mohamed Heikal, was quite simple:
If, as continually being told, religion was the basis of the state, they
understood better than anyone else what this meant and how to implement it.
But if, as seemed in fact to be the case, the basis of the government's
policy was not Islam but an alliance with the Americans, peace with the Jews,
and fraternization on equal terms with other religions, then they knew who
was the real enemy.
Their attitude towards the Copts did nothing to foster religious
peace. In their eyes they should be treated in the same way that certain
privileged categories of non-Muslims used to be treated in the early days of
the Arab empire-as dhimmi.
In many cases the Egyptian police and security forces showed either
incompetence in preventing the attacks, or even worse, collusion with the
attackers. According to Baha' ad-Din Hasan of the Egyptian Organization for
Human Rights, "There is only one priority for the security services, to
defend the regime, but not to defend civil society against anti-democratic
groups." Since 1981 more than thirty massacres of Copts have taken place,
leading to the deaths of more than two hundred persons, as documented by
human rights organizations. The attacks continue and are getting worse
because they are no longer confined to terrorists. For example, on January
1-3, 2000, Muslim villagers of Al-Kosheh in upper Egypt killed twenty-one
Coptic men, women, and children, and wounded scores of others. According to
media reports, that violence resulted from a financial dispute between a
Muslim and a Christian shopkeeper in the village. Three days of religiously
motivated killing, rioting, and looting tore through the predominately
Christian village and spread, without challenge from the Egyptian security
forces, to nearby hamlets of Dar as-Salam and Awlad Tog Gareb. This police
laxity and failure of responsibility drew criticism from Bishop Marcos, whom
Pope Shenouda had sent to the area to investigate. "The local security forces
could have prevented the sectarian violence from spinning out of control if
police had acted quickly and decisively when the problem began on Friday
(first day of rioting)," he said. The head of the Egyptian Organization for
Human Rights, Hafiz Abu Sa'da, concurred: "The police ought to have secured
the village; instead they left it."
Many Copts see the al-Kosheh massacre as the most pernicious and serious
development in the relationship between ordinary Muslims and Christians in
Egypt. More than any other incident, it epitomized the criminal negligence of
the Egyptian administration, represented in its police force, when it comes
to protecting Coptic lives and properties.

American Pressure
While the Copts do have recourse under international law, namely the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and subsequent agreements on
minority rights, given the current weakness of the United Nations, these are
unlikely to be activated and implemented in the Egyptian case by the
international organization in the foreseeable future.
The real international force is not the United Nations but the United States,
where a significant change in policy has recently occurred. In 1997,
President Clinton proclaimed that the United States would "support the
aspirations of ethnic and religious minorities in other nations as they
strive for their own right to worship freely."
In 1998, the United States government enacted the Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act, sponsored by Representative Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and
Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pa.), proclaiming: "Governments have a primary
responsibility to promote, encourage, and protect respect for the fundamental
and internationally recognized right to freedom of religion." To aid the
new U.S. policy, the act established a U.S. Commission on International
Religious Persecution, which submits an annual report, starting in September
1999, with policy recommendations; it also created a new office in the White
House, the Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring to recommend sanctions
against countries engaged in a pattern of religious persecution. The Freedom
from Religious Persecution Act also empowered the president to prohibit all
exports used to carry out acts of religious persecution or to prohibit
financial assistance to the sanctioned country from the United States. The
president can waive the sanctions for reasons of national security.
If it remains to be seen to what extent the Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act will assist religious minorities worldwide, in the Egyptian
case, it has already had an impact. Egypt has been defined as a "Category 2
Persecuting Country," meaning that persecution occurs there as a result of
lack of protection. Partly because of U.S. pressure, the Egyptian government
has embarked on reforming its policies towards its Coptic citizens.
The subject of Coptic religious freedom has been raised at all levels,
including by the U.S. secretary of state, assistant secretary for Near
Eastern affairs, the U.S. ambassador, and other embassy officials. President
Clinton raised the issue with President Mubarak during Mubarak's visit to the
United States in mid-1999. In February 1999, the secretary of state's special
representative for international religious freedom visited and met with
official interlocutors and community activists. Other senior U.S. government
officials, including the secretary of defense and the undersecretary of
economics, business, and agricultural affairs, had also raised the issue.
As a result of this pressure, three effects are noticeable. First,
dilapidated Coptic churches are more often permitted by the Egyptian
government to be repaired. President Hosni Mubarak in 1998 delegated to
governors the authority to approve permits for repair of church facilities.
And a year later he issued a decree effectively placing churches and mosques
on equal footing before the law, greatly facilitating church repairs.
Secondly, a government crackdown on Islamist militants has benefited the
Copts. In sharp contrast to the previous decade, 1999 witnessed no major
terrorist activity directed against the Copts. Thirdly, since 1996, more
than 800 acres of the approximately 1,500 acres of land seized in 1952 by the
government from the Coptic Orthodox Church and granted to the Ministry of
Awqaf (a government bureau that handles property belonging to Islamic
institutions), has been returned to the church and the ministry is looking at
ways to return the remaining property.
While credit must be given to Mubarak for pushing through these reforms, it
is difficult to imagine that he would have acted in this way had he not been
put under considerable international pressure. And many more areas of dispute
remain. Attacks and massacres against the Copts recommenced in 2000 in
al-Kosheh. Copts are still underrepresented politically and administratively
at all levels. They are practically excluded from the judiciary.
Discrimination in education and employment is still rife. The media and press
in Egypt continue their anti-Coptic propaganda. And the state refuses to
acknowledge the existence of a unique Coptic identity, and consequently
hinders the conditions required for the promotion of that identity.
Events of the past few years do show that Egypt responds to international
pressure in matters of religious rights. It is important to realize that
Egypt needs the support of the international community, or it will nosedive
economically. With more international pressure and the lingering threats that
political and financial cooperation will end, Egyptians are likely to abandon
the dhimmi system.
In addition to welcoming U.S. pressure, Copts should welcome sensible
alliances with Jewish organizations. If the Egyptian government and the
Palestinians have recognized Israel, surely Copts need not stay aloof from
Jews. There is much sympathy between the two peoples, whose suffering,
sacrifices, and needs through the centuries have been similar. Dealing with
Jews can be done in such a way that neither threatens Egyptian national
interests nor entangles Copts in the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a minority in
need of international support, Copts can hardly ignore the Jewish voice. And
yet, this cooperation should not lead the Copts to forget the non-violent
nature of their struggle; neither should it emulate the Maronite model.