We must acknowledge that we have a serious sectarian problem that turns many common problems between two citizens of different religions into a religious holy war! Those who do not recognize this are either ignorant or evil people seeking some political interests.
Political sectarian problems were invented by former President Sadat and adopted by every single governor of Egypt till now. Moreover, those governors have used and incited conflict between the Islamists and the civil powers in order to stay the most powerful. In fact, they never wanted to eliminate fanaticism or sectarian problems, as they were found very useful to stay in power.
We think that eliminating the sectarian problems in Egypt requires state recognition of the problem and a decision to immediately deal with it. The government has to stop announcements like “It's but an individual accident”. It has to enforce the law without accusing the intellectuals of not educating the people well.
In order to solve the problem of sectarianism in Egypt, there should be real cooperation between the government and intellectuals. The government has to punish those who incite hatred, practice discrimination, and disdains other religions. State has to develop decent curricula to teach children about citizenship and how to respect other people of different religions. In short, state has to enforce the law and fix education systems and curricula. This is from one hand.
From the other, the intellectuals has to educate the people using simple language, and concentrate on the problems of the simple people to find some good solutions for them and get their trust.
I hope the state recognizes the problem of sectarianism, and cooperate with the intellectuals to solve it with the enforcement of the law as well as educating the Egyptian people about developing their country.
