AWR, Cairo, December 17, 2013

 Merry Christmas from AWR! 

We would like to wish all our Christian readers a blessed Christmas! Be it either December 25 for Western Christians or January 7 for Coptic Orthodox Christians, also an official holiday in Egypt. For our Muslim friends we would like to wish a blessed new year and, during Christmas, an enjoyable time with their Christian friends.

The period after Christmas is also the period that Christians remember the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt. It was, however, our Muslim friend, Enan Galaly, who sponsored our Holy Family website years ago. We recently updated his introduction on our website. We much appreciate Enan Galaly’s support for our work and have agreed with the Monastery of Dimyana to provide gift icons for all who support our work with more than 300 Euro. We truly do need your support in order to be able to carry out our work!  For others who prefer other gifts we have made an agreement with artist, Mahmoud Farag, for a gift tapestry or gift Muslim calligraphy. Mahmoud Farag, a Muslim based here in Egypt, also makes Christian art.

Photo Credit: Holy Family Egypt website

Pastor Ashraf of Maadi Community Church in Cairo was highlighting in a church meeting that Christians in Egypt have more public space for Christmas celebrations in Egypt than many Christians in Europe. No one in Egypt, he said, would think of sending someone his or her ‘season’s greetings’; a secular replacement for the former Christmas greetings. In various malls in Cairo attention is given to Christmas. Christmas carols are also attended by Muslims. One finds Christmas trees and decoration in the streets of Maadi. I recently was in Shubra, which is two-thirds Christian, where the Christian symbols are well represented.

It is also nice to hear of the Christmas wishes sent through (electronic) cards and phone calls from Muslim friends.

These are positive signs, but at the same time there is also reason for great concern for Christians. Last year, as we have seen, tens of churches and Christian institutions have been set on fire and vandalized. Several Christian homes were attacked. The threat level for Christians depends a great deal on where they live. In areas heavily populated by Christians, such as Shubra, Cairo or Bayadiya, Sarakna and other predominantly Christian villages in Upper Egypt, Christians live in peace. In many other areas, however, tensions are high.

Conflict in areas where Christian populations are weak impels migration, thus resulting in reducing pluralism in those areas. Two years ago we reported extensively about Marīnāb in Idfū, Assuan about which there had been gross misreporting.  Prof. Abdallah Schleifer, Professor Emeritus at the American University in Cairo, commented on October 14, 2011, that he found this “very impressive”.  He later wrote,

The original investigation and report was brilliant -- it is precisely the sort of journalism that should be undertaken and generally is not by Egyptian media when the issue involves communal/sectarian conflict. Its starting premise is simple and one that all journalists should be conscious of -- in this type of situation  --a communal quasi-religious conflict between Muslims and Copts,  journalists must go to the scene in a team as AWR did, to engage to  actors directly involved and bystanders. The team must consist of a  Muslim and a Christian -- both Arabic-speaking -- who divide the reporting, for there is less defensiveness, less possibility of either exaggeration or denial when the reporter-investigator is from the same religious community as those he will be interviewing. 

I have returned to Marīnāb with Egyptian TV producer, Hala Fahmy, to see the status of Christians in Marīnāb now. Sadly, the younger generation is leaving and we fear that in the not-too-distant future Christians in this village may disappear.

We are pleased with the many good responses we have received to our work.  I have highlighted some of our most important activities in a document that you can find here.

Our organization is placed under additional pressure due to our landlord telling us we have to leave our office, occupying two floors from the four floors of our flat. The other stories are inhabited by the family of our landlord. They are planning to sell the building to a project developer who will  then demolish this and will replaced it by another unsightly high-rise building that will also consume the current garden. Our landlord has been accommodating us for fifteen years and we fully understand that they want to sell their property and move to another part of Cairo since our area in Maadi is rapidly changing. Because building laws are not adhered to, villas and other buildings are demolished and in the fastest possible time (since no one knows when the government will regain control) new high-rise buildings appear. Of course facilities such as the telephone, electricity, and water cannot keep up with developments causing power cuts and water shortages. Streets will also become unpleasantly crowded.

Witht hese difficult circumstances and a very small budget it is difficult to complete our work. We have only five paid staff, several freelancers, and volunteers. We have also greatly suffered from a devastating attack on our websites and database as well the backups that we had stored in our office. In a previous newsletter I wrote that our costs to recover all data, to a large extent based on the time spent by different staff, had amounted to around 13,000 Euros. Costs have now surpassed 15,000 Euros. This is a very heavy toll on our small organization. We would thus most appreciate if you could remember our work in your donations.

Contributions can be made to the Stichting Arab-West Foundation in The Netherlands. Please click here for bank information or payment through Paypal.  Dutch donors need to know that the AWF has an ANBI status, meaning it is recognized by the Dutch government as a not-for-profit organization and thus donations for Dutch citizens are tax deductible.

For all who have contributed last year and in previous years we would like to extend a big thank you!

Cornelis Hulsman, Editor-in-Chief

Arab-West Report