The Egyptian and Arab response to the Swiss ban on building minarets is still raging in the media. The majority of media persons have gone into paroxysms on the issue, with only a few pens or voices resorting to reason. The common factor in the response to the ban, however, may be summed up in two words: double standards. All the arguments and rhetoric used to condemn the Swiss ban as a vile curtailment of human and religious rights inevitably come as a strong reminder of the same condemnation used by the world community to condemn the curtailment of these rights in our country. And the Egyptian official and popular response to the international condemnation is invariably to brand it as flagrant interference in our domestic affairs and a foreign conspiracy against our national unity. How come we appear oblivious to that now that the tables are turned? Our house is of glass yet we persist in throwing stones at others.Awqaf (Religious endowments) Minister Dr Hamdi Zaqzouq has written that: “Minarets bearing the crescent are a symbol of Islam just as churches towers bearing the cross are a Christian symbol. Depriving Muslims of their symbol is tantamount to racial discrimination and religious oppression. I do not understand how a constitutional amendment banning minarets conforms with the Swiss Constitution which guarantees equality and religious freedom; in case of Swiss Muslims both would be severely curtailed.”
So Dr Zaqzouq realises full well the significance of religious symbols and confirms that a minaret is equivalent to a church tower. He also stresses that depriving a religious community of its symbol is a form of discrimination, inequality and curtailment of rights. Does not he realise that houses of worship of Christians—I do not say ‘churches’ because churches proper in Egypt have become a far-fetched dream—in Egypt’s towns and villages are deprived of towers or crosses lest they be subject to all kinds of oppression, assault and destruction?
Youssef al-Qaradawi, head of the World Union of Muslim Scholars, lamented the Swiss ban on minarets saying that:“ Minarets are nothing but a mark of a place of worship and bear no political connotation whatsoever. They are aesthetic architectural elements that signify tolerance as well as cultural and religious pluralism in a country.”
It is great for Dr Qaradawi to make such a declaration, but Copts at large can never believe what he says because the daily reality of their lives gives the lie to it. The obstacles regularly placed by officials to hinder the building of churches is for Copts a tangible fact of life. The attacks by Muslim mobs against places where Copts worship is an ever-present threat especially if the Copts dare publicly declare the nature of that place by any aesthetic architectural element to signify the tolerance and cultural and religious pluralism of Egypt.
The board of the Egyptian Bar Syndicate denounced the Swiss ban which came as a result of a public referendum even though the Swiss Constitution guarantees human rights and freedom of belief, especially given that there are some half-a-million Swiss Muslims.
The Bar Syndicate is the first to know that the Egyptian Constitution too guarantees human rights and freedom of belief, especially given that there are some ten million Egyptian Christians. And it is a fact that nothing has so far materialised in the direction of passing a unified law for building places of worship, to cure the huge inequality between Muslims and Copts in this regard.
“Muslims are wronged by the minaret ban since a Muslim recognises a far-away mosque through its minaret which signifies it as a place of worship for Muslims.” Ahmed Omar Hashim, head of the religious affairs committee at parliament said: “Places of worship of other religions posse their specific symbols which signify their identity. So why the ban on Islam’s minarets? Is not this a form of inequality between the members of different religions? Does not this broaden the discrimination against Muslims? Does not it conflict with equality, democracy, and human rights?”
I have no qualms about any of Dr Hashim’s questions, but I cannot refrain from applying the same questions to the case of Copts and their churches in Egypt. And lest anyone cites the churches in Cairo, Alexandria, or Egypt’s bigger towns as proof that churches do exist in Egypt, I ask them to look at the majority of ‘churches’ spread all over the land of Egypt, where no specific symbol dare declare their identity. I imagine that most Egyptian officials do not hail from Cairo, Alexandria, or any of the bigger towns; I invite each of them to pay a visit to his or her home village or town and look for the places of worship of Copts there and come back to us with a photograph of the place. I would welcome printing such photographs just to show what they really look like: indistinguishable from any nearby house.
For his part, Islamic scholar and enlightened writer Gamal al-Banna wrote: “In Switzerland, Islam is constantly attacked in a plethora of books, newspaper articles, and TV programmes. People learn about Islam mainly from books which are biased against the religion and lack objectivity. School curricula delude the Swiss by portraying a false image of Islam. When Muslims attempt to obtain a permit to build a mosque they are constantly denied.”
I would never have imagined that someone as well-informed as Dr Banna is of the facts about the Copt’s predicament in Egypt could have written what he wrote, merely because it directly brings to mind eminently embarrassing parallels between Egypt and Switzerland. But now that he has done it, all I can tell him is: “You could have been talking of Egypt. Just substitute ‘Egypt’ for ‘Switzerland’ and Christianity’ for ‘Islam’ and you’ve got it.” I invite Dr Banna to pay a visit to the Cairo Book Fair, held in January every year, to see for himself the huge collection of anti-Christian books in just one spot; this would save him making a round of the bookshops to find out. As for school curricula, a look at the Arabic and history curricula of our public—compulsory—education system demonstrates the frightening unilateral thought, full of hatred to the other, which dominates it. As for the difficulties Muslims face in Switzerland to build a mosque, I can only advise Dr Banna to send them a copy of our famous bill for a unified law for building places of worship. The bill, which has been lying in the drawers of our law makers for five years now, can definitely put an end to the suffering of Swiss Muslims. Dr Banna will have, of course, to warn Switzerland’s Muslims that their parliament might very well leave the bill to rot for some five years or more instead of passing it. But not to worry, we will be lying here in wait, ready to open fire on the Swiss people and parliament were this allowed to happen.
Did not I say that our house is of glass, so why the stone throwing?
