Problematic media reporting about the expulsion of Christians from Kafr Darwish

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on July 8 published a dispatch based on three Egyptian media articles reporting about the expulsion of Christians from the village of Kafr Darwish. For the full text of the MEMRI dispatch please click here.

The MEMRI report is deeply problematic since it provided translations of selected Egyptian media reports with the claim “that the forced expulsion of the families was a reflection of the widespread persecution of and discrimination against Egypt's Coptic community.” Researcher Matthew Anderson (US, Georgetown University), Khaled Hassan (Egypt, Center for Arab-West Understanding) and myself visited the area and found the local situation considerably more complicated. Muslim villagers tend to find accepting the foundation of a church hard to accept. Muslim-Christian Christian relations in the neighboring el-Fant and Qufada, both with long established church, are good. There are also other reasons that help to explain the tensions experienced in Kafr Darwish which have been explained in this report.

The expulsion of the Christian family was in no way to be justified but neither is making generalized statements that do not help us understand what happened and that only contribute to deepening tensions. There are major issues that need to be addressed. Egypt’s legal system is hardly accessible for most villagers and thus, they resort to orfi, customary, law. Different Egyptian authors have noted that the use of this law is deeply problematic but it only can be replaced if a viable alternative is in place.

On Friday July 10, I was asked to preach in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Maadi, Cairo, about the parable of the Good Samaritan. The message is that Muslims and Christians are each other’s neighbors. It was a sermon I had earlier written for Missio’s “Dare to meet the other” campaign in Germany in 2004. This time, however, I brought in the experience of our visit to Kafr Darwish. Yes, we are neighbors but the experience in Kafr Darwish shows that Jesus’ words are not always easy to realize. The text of this sermon can be found here.

Cornelis Hulsman,