Editorial Board RNSAW:
Drs. Cornelis Hulsman had been invited to give a lecture on his work for the RNSAW at a conference on "Media and Interreligious Dialogue" in Vienna, Austria on November 8 and 9. The conference had been organized by the International Press Institute in Vienna, the Department of Communication Science of the University of Vienna and the city of Vienna in Austria. The text below, which has been seen by the editorial board before it was delivered in Vienna, describes Hulsman’s personal experiences but his views on the RNSAW and reporting on Muslim-Christian relations are supported by the board.
Text:
The Religious News Service from the Arab World was founded in March 1998. It provides factual, regular and up to date information on the most recent developments within the Islamic and Christian communities, as well as other issues related to religion and freedom of thought in Egypt and the Arab World. It is the only such initiative in Egypt. This became clear when a few months ago a German researcher came to Egypt looking for newspaper articles about Bahai and Jehovah Witnesses. We were the only place in Egypt where she could find such material, even though she tried contacting other publications in Egypt directly.
The British scholar Dr. John Watson, author of the recently published book "Among the Copts," wrote: "The RNSAW is widely used and admired by those concerned with the study of Islamic civilization and especially as this great tradition relates to the future of Christianity. No other similar service is available in the West."
Dr. Nasr Abu Zayd, professor at Leiden University, is equally adamant about the importance of the RNSAW: "I cannot tell you how grateful I am for having [the] RNSAW service informing me regularly about the Arab World. It keeps me in the context and, more than that, it enables me to have discussions with my students about recent religious issues. All in all, I believe that the RNSAW has already become one of the most important avenues of information, and I always suggest to my colleagues and friends to subscribe."
Watson also stresses the international context of the work of the RNSAW: "Many academic commentators - especially Professor Samuel P. Huntington in his major work "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order"- have shown that the greatest threat to peace, the future and international order is seen in the clashes between civilizations. We have seen this recently in the Balkans and other places. RNSAW presents the realities and the illusions of life in a part of the world where the harmonies and clashes of traditions, civilizations and faiths are most clearly present."
Huntington’s thesis, a clash between civilizations, should not be accepted as an already existing fact but could become true if policy makers, scholars, religious leaders and others do not pay attention to the dynamics that could lead to such a clash. The RNSAW shows at an almost microscopic level how those dynamics function in Egypt in particular, but lessons can be drawn that could go far beyond the borders of Egypt.
The RNSAW covers religious issues because of the importance of religion in Egyptian and Arab societies. It gradually began including more material to provide information on the wider social context, helping to place individual issues in this context.
Our coverage is first of all done through translating articles in the Egyptian and Arab press in order to give foreign readers an insight in the different opinions existing in Egypt and the Arab world. In conjunction we also make an overview of the English language press in this same domain.
Until now I have mentioned Egypt and the Arab world. This reflects our ambition. We scan newspapers available in Egypt, including a few Saudi Arabian publications, but because the service is based in Egypt we naturally reflect an Egyptian bias. I will continue referring to Egypt, but please keep in mind that articles from the Arab world are included in this service.
The RNSAW is a news service, not an advocacy group. Its purpose is to inform readers about the wide variety of opinions existing in Egypt, such as issues relating to religion and freedom of thought. Reading Western reports, it is obvious that the background of different opinions in Egypt and the Arab World is often either unknown or not accepted.
The objective of the RNSAW is to make the Egyptian way of thinking accessible to a Western public. Once this way of thinking is known, a basis for understanding (not to be confused with agreement) could be established, leading to a dialogue based on facts and avoiding clashes which result from misunderstanding.
Our board member, Father Dr. Christiaan van Nispen, has formulated this particularly well when he gave the Catholic News Service in February this year the following description of our work: "I think the big merit of having the translation of Arabic articles is the fact that they not only give information, but allow also to see how people are feeling and appreciating things, and that is certainly not less important than the factual information, because this explains many attitudes and actions which could be incomprehensible otherwise."
The RNSAW not only translates articles from the Arabic press, but also prepares its own reports. These are aimed at placing sensitive issues in a wider social context. Most of our special reports have focused on providing the background to reported Muslim-Christian clashes for the West. Well-known are our reports about the tragic developments in the southern Egyptian village of al-Kosheh, alleged kidnapping of Christian girls, Christian and Muslim missionary activities, church building, and other subjects.
Special reports are generally written in consultation with a group of specialists. They can only be presented after consultation with our Editorial Board because we are often dealing with sensitive subjects and we need to make sure that all information is well presented. The Editorial Board therefore formulated its policy as follows:
"The RNSAW is concerned about the reporting and documentation of religious developments in Egypt and the Arab world for the West. It believes that one-sided reports on Muslim-Christian relations tend to contribute to the polarization of Muslims and Christians in the Arab world and Egypt, and that Muslim-Christian relations only can be discussed well if they are well documented and presented in the wider context of society. The RNSAW also believes Christians only have a future in Egypt and the Arab world if peaceful relations with Muslims prevail and concerns are discussed on the basis of real facts and are not inflated or minimized. The RNSAW furthermore believes it is important for foreign readers to have an overview of the wide variation of opinions in Egyptian society and the Arab world and to be aware that one-sided reporting abroad can have negative repercussions in Egypt and the Arab world.
The RNSAW does not advocate certain human rights or political opinions and believes this is only a role for local, indigenous organizations. However, the RNSAW provides detailed background information on Muslim-Christian relations to facilitate others working for harmonious and just relations."
The primary objective of the RNSAW is to provide factual information which would contribute to a greater understanding of the different ways of thinking in Egypt and the Arab world. The polarization that results from lack of information can have a disastrous effect on the weakest communities. For example, people in the West should realize that any campaign for Christians in the Arab world may contribute to polarization between Muslims and Christians. Any such campaign should also seriously consider any possible negative consequences that would accrue.
Let me use the village of al-Kosheh as an example: Before the murder of two Christians in this village in August 1998, no noticeable tensions occurred between Muslims and Christians. But at the turn of the year 2000, a small disagreement between a shopkeeper and his customer developed into a fight killing 21 people; 20 Christians and one Muslim. This was only possible because the social climate had already been so poisoned that any small conflict could set the village aflame. This explosion of violence was predictable. In the two preceding years, Christians felt victimized because of the massive police arrests and interrogations after the murder of 1998. Muslims felt victimized because Christians had asked foreign powers to come to their support and pressured the Egyptian government.
The general tendency has been to describe the mistakes of one party, to put the blame on one party. Accusations were flying around; against a specific Muslim family in al-Kosheh, against the police, against bishop Wissa, father Gibri’al, local Christians, local Muslims and others. In these accusations, unjustified claims were also made. All parties tended to exaggerate stories or play them down as best suited them. Almost no real effort was made to discover how the social climate had deteriorated to such an extent that the killings could take place.
Foreign interest groups played their own role. They often took one side and believed, with some of their Christian sources in Egypt, that they would be able to create a better life for Christians in el-Kosheh by a campaign to put pressure on the Egyptian government. However, this pressure, strongly resented in Egypt by both among government officials and the general public, is reflected in the Egyptian press. This in turn led to a belief among Christians in al-Kosheh that the US would protect them, and among Muslims that these Christians have become a foreign element in their society. The result was a very negative attitude towards Christians on the street.
Bishop Yo’annis, the secretary of H.H. Pope Shenouda, stated in an interview on 22 October 1998 that he was convinced that the issue of el-Kosheh could have been closed in a satisfactory way were it not for the fact that people outside Egypt (he didn’t mention any names or groups) had created a campaign which caused more harm than good. The bishop spoke explicitly about the exaggerations and lack of wisdom in general of those who wanted to defend the Christians of al-Kosheh. "They [people outside Egypt] must hear the truth, but not every word they heard was the truth," the bishop said.
Why couldn’t people just focus on what really happened? People were arrested in large numbers in 1998, but these were not the large numbers claimed outside Egypt, nor the deflated numbers given by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior. Many claims of Christians were highly exaggerated, but people were beaten. A number of Christians probably underwent traditional methods of torture such as electric shocks. So why wasn’t the story just told as it was? That could have helped Egyptians come to terms with the situation. Instead, Muslims and Christians were divided by bitter disputes between the two religious groups, both blaming the other for what the other had done wrong. Was it then surprising that in such a climate a small business conflict could escalate into murder, looting and burning of property?
The killings in el-Kosheh were not the end of the story. Despite the claims of authorities, there are no indications that the social climate has really improved. As elsewhere in conflict situations, Christians gradually move out, thus weakening those who stay behind. El-Kosheh is now said to be 60 or 70% Christian. But in ten years time? Will it be forty percent Christian? Maybe less? Those who advocate "a strong response from Christians to defend their rights" frequently do not take into account the boomerang effect. They tend to look at short term gains and using methods which, over the long term, ultimately results in a weakened Christian community.
My motivation to start the RNSAW goes back to 1984 when I wrote my M.A. thesis in Development Sociology about the causes for the Armenian genocide in 1915. I discovered how, in half-a-century prior to that genocide, the introduction of European nationalism had driven apart Turks and Armenians. I saw how the social climate worsened and how the main European powers of those days were using the Armenians as tools for their own political games, which just added to the tensions between Armenians and Turks. If the Armenians would have had good, neighborly relations with the Turks, such a genocide would not have occurred.
A look at the Christian presence in the Middle East shows how much their numbers have dwindled over the past 100 years. Over and over the same factors return: polarization and poisoned social climates. Often Muslims didn’t behave like saints, but neither did Christians.
There are strong anti-Islamic tendencies in the West, probably because of fear and ignorance. Whatever the cause, those tendencies create polarization.
There are also strong anti-Western tendencies in the Islamic world. There is a strong feeling of being treated unfairly and pushed around by Western powers. That, too, is a fertile soil for tension.
It is not only my study about the Armenian genocide that made me cautious toward foreign pressure and other involvements that might lead to polarization. In 1984, Dutch Interchurch Aid asked me to go to south eastern Turkey and report on the frequent human rights abuses against Syrian Orthodox Christians which had led to an exodus of Syrian Orthodox Christians to the West. Journalists and human rights groups had reported about those abuses and I was to collect more details. However, once in Turkey I discovered that both Emmanuel Bakdash, head of the Turkish Bible Society in Istanbul, and Syrian Orthodox Bishop Samuel Aktash in the Tur Abdin region in south eastern Turkey were not happy at all with western human rights reporting. Statements had been made which were either exaggerated or not true or which just caused more problems from the Turkish side. Their first interest was obviously maintaining a Christian community in Turkey, and they were furious about tensions created by western involvement, such as articles in the western press.
Those two deeply felt experiences made me decide I wanted to support those who want to maintain a Christian community in the Islamic world, work which is only possible when that community does not get involved in inter communal conflicts and tensions. The vicious circle of polarization and intolerance must be broken. [The same paper was also presented to some churches in The Netherlands with a slightly different formulation at this point. I wrote: "I was called to work to support those who want to maintain a Christian community in the Islamic world" and added after the words ’must be broken’ "It is important that the church remains in the midst of the Islamic world as a witness for Jesus Christ. Being a witness is not aggressively attacking Islam, but by demonstrating God’s love to all people, including Muslims.]
In 1994 I was asked to succeed the Dutch correspondent for Dutch Radio and the Reformatorisch Dagblad in Cairo. I gave up my job as director of the Netherlands Emigration Foundation and went with my family to Egypt.
[In the paper for the churches the formulation is: "My second call came in 1994. I was at that time the director of the Netherlands Emigration Foundation. The Dutch correspondent for Dutch Radio and the Reformatorisch Dagblad had left Egypt and I was asked to succeed him. I gave up a good job in Holland because my wife and I believed we had to be in Egypt." In all other parts both papers are word for word identical.]
I have been covering all major clashes between Muslims and Christians in Egypt since 1994. Having investigated numerous individual stories, including stories that were reported abroad or by human rights activists, we have come to some very shocking conclusions:
1) In many instances there is a notorious lack of truth. This doesn’t mean people want to lie, but other values often seem to predominate. Honor and preserving one’s dignity are very frequently more important than truth. In conflict situations, generally both parties contributed, but both -- Muslims and Christians -- prefer to blame the opposing side and hide their own mistakes.
People wanting to be heard outside Egypt often believe they must exaggerate in order to be heard, not realizing the damage they do to their cause if others discover their exaggerations.
Egyptians often do not explain their opinions about a specific problem in a straightforward way to each other. One tends not to speak about problems to those outside the circle of family and close friends. Thus Muslims do not really understand Christian concerns and Christians are not sufficiently aware of Muslim concerns.
Besides the political considerations of government, church and mosque, personal motivations may lead to an ambiguous attitude towards the truth. One notorious example was Christian human rights lawyer Maurice Sadek, director of the Center for Human Rights and National Unity. Sadek had apparently nothing else in mind but creating such a fuss that he himself could qualify as a refugee in the West. Sadek had first tried in 1994 and 1995 to emigrate to Canada. He didn’t qualify. He tried as a refugee. He didn’t qualify. How do I know this? Well, after he had learned I had been the director of the Netherlands Emigration Foundation, he asked for my assistance when I visited him with three other journalists. I went for him to the office of Quebec in Cairo which, at that time, operated its own office for immigration.
Later I checked Sadek’s human rights stories and found one after the other to be untrue. Yes, Sadek received complaints, but he made no apparent efforts to check those claims and made sure they went abroad, giving those stories the authority of his office. His organization had a board but members left him, one after the other. His former assistant, human rights lawyer Mamdouh Nahla, and others claim Sadek has been well paid for rabble-rousing issues. Sadek became more and more defiled in the Egyptian media and this, no doubt, must have helped him to leave for the US about a year ago. The man who advocated so much for the human rights of Christians left behind clients who complained he had done nothing but present their stories abroad.
2) Several claims were presented as examples of Christian persecution but which proved not to be true. I have looked into some 80 cases where people had claimed a daughter or son had been kidnapped -- and found none of them to be true. However, there were plenty of other problems: personal conflicts, social problems, etc. And it is also true that the Egyptian police were often not impartial and at times even violated their own procedures and laws.
A former Sheraton employee, George Adli, claimed that the Sheraton Hotel administration tried to force him to convert to Islam. I investigated this with an American journalist but we found nothing that could convincingly prove his claim. Everything indicated that Adli was involved in a labor conflict. Only after the Sheraton had fired him, and after he had received a compensation as required by Egyptian law for his dismissal, did he start claiming Sheraton had tried to force him to convert to Islam. His lawyer in the labor conflict refused to support him in a human rights claim and thus he went to Maurice Sadek who created a big issue out of this. Adli told us Sadek had told him he had a good chance of getting a large sum in compensation from the Sheraton if he would stand his ground. Adli did his best and made claims that what he had experienced other Christians in the Sheraton also experienced. Poor Adli; this could be checked. Other Christian employees in the Sheraton, in private, off-the-record meetings, did not hide their disgust for his statements. Ultimately the story came down to a claimed meeting between Adli, the personnel manager of the hotel, and an officer of the security, a meeting the Sheraton claims never took place. Adli says they tried to force him to convert to Islam in that meeting. Adli says it happened; the Sheraton denies it. But how trustworthy is the story of someone who had lied and who only brought up the persecution story one-and-a-half years after it supposedly had happened?
Another, terrible story is about the murder of the Shaker family in Wasta. Sadek claimed they were murdered by Islamic extremists and that the Egyptian police were trying to protect those extremists. (How illogical in a country where police and extremists have been fighting each other for years!) But leave the police aside. I had been following the family since the first problems erupted when their daughter Therese wanted to convert to Islam. She was less than 16 years old and thus conversion was clearly in violation with Egyptian law. Yet the police wanted to process the conversion procedure. The bishop interfered and his complaint was referred to the Egyptian presidency. The girl was returned and the responsible police officer(s) was (were) dismissed. But the saga was not over. The family was full of conflicts resulting ultimately in the murder of five family members -- not by Islamic extremists, but by one or more family members themselves who wanted to wipe out the shame brought about by Therese’s intentions to convert to Islam. My sources are not the police or local authorities. The interviews were done with members of the family, including the one surviving girl who witnessed the attack and who was left behind believed dead. I also interviewed two priests, the bishop and two lawyers, one of them Sadek. There is no other conclusion than that this was a tremendous tragedy. But it was certainly not the deliberate attack of Muslim extremists on a Christian family as Sadek claimed and which was reflected in reports of the Freedom House and other well-known Christian rights advocates in the West.
Western organizations often base their information on stories of refugees in the West. While some stories may be true, others are not. I have come across at least one immigration lawyer who encourages Christians who are not able to emigrate under normal immigration criteria to Canada to claim refugee status. And he is willing to help make up stories. Most immigration lawyers would not do this but the fact that some people are apparently able to get away with it is unfortunate. In another case we have seen someone we knew applying for refugee status in Britain and her story was questionable. In again another situation a young Copt went as a tourist to the US and considered obtaining a residence permit through applying for refugee status. He later found another way to stay in the US, but the stories show that some people are willing to make up stories in order to go to a Western country. That is harmful for real genuine refugees. [We are able to investigate and provide full background evaluation of such stories].
3) Muslim and Christian Egyptians are said to be very religious, but people in villages and lower social classes often have a limited knowledge of their own faiths which makes them more focused on outward appearances. Knowledge about another’s faith is particularly limited. Many people do not read, thus their perceptions are based on the stories they hear from people they trust. These are often local leaders: sheikhs, priests, heads of families and those who are known to be a ’good Muslim’ or a ’good Christian’.
Some of these local leaders are moderate; others harbor strong negative feelings towards the opposite side. The difference between local Muslim and Christian leaders is, however, that local Muslim leaders are able to express their feelings in public, while Christians would do this in closed meetings.
Individual local religious leaders are able to arouse the sentiments of their believers. To what extent depends on their personal charisma. HOW is often not by a careful evaluation of facts, or fair representation of their own position and that of others. Emotions are used to achieve specific goals, from guarding the Islamic image of their village, to restoring a church.
4) The extent to which small conflicts develop into larger conflicts can only be explained by an already existing poisoned climate. I have already mentioned al-Kosheh but other examples are:
In the summer of 1995, a small conflict between a Muslim and a Christian trader in the small Delta village of Dimyana developed into a conflict in which seven Christians were killed.
In February 1996, rumors started in the Delta village of Kafr Damyan that Christians wanted to build a synagogue. A mob of many thousands of Muslim youth marched to the village, burned Christian houses and looted all they could find.
Bishop Thomas of Qussia had been able to obtain a permit to repair the church of al-Timsahiya. When they replaced the old wooden cross on top of the church tower on March 3, 1997, by a plastic fluorescent cross which would make the cross, unlike the old one, very visible at night, local Muslims complained and said they didn’t want their village to get a ’Christian appearance’. The priest refused to remove the cross and a local sheikh called during the Friday prayer on March 7 for a ’demonstration’ against the church. This resulted in material damage of Christian shops and property.
5) Physical terrorism, a terrible phenomenon, has largely been brought under control. Most reporting focused on the short term effects of terrorism: the murder of one or more people, mostly Muslims and police officers, but Christians have also been killed. The murders in Ezbet Aqbat (February 1996), Ezbet Daoud (March 1996) and Abu Qurqas (February 1997) are examples. The murders created both fear and hate and played a role in separating local Muslim and Christian communities.
6) Both the foreign and Egyptian press are able to play a negative role. Foreign media often focuses on conflicts but rarely explain the background of an event. Egyptian media often perceive this as an unfair representation or even attack on Egypt and Islam and sometimes develop conspiracy theories as a means to explain the perceived Western bias.
A general problem in the Egyptian media is a lack of resources. Frequently opinions are given with very little investigative work. Egyptian papers do not just inform their public, but also promote a certain sentiment.
The conclusion is, naturally, to be careful. I would like to paraphrase the words of Bishop Yo’annis: People outside Egypt must hear the truth, but not every word you hear is the truth. Be careful!!
7) Reporting facts accurately can be very effective:
In May 1996, the Islamists paper el-Shaab published a very emotional story about Mohammed who become a Christian and adopted the name of Michel. Any conversion is sensitive in Egypt, but when the paper quotes his mother as saying: "I will burn a church; I will kill a priest!" which the author of the article denounced but nevertheless mentioned in a sensational context, it becomes highly questionable. I went to see Magdy Hussein, the editor-in-chief of el-Shaab, and asked how in the world he could accept such an inflammatory statement in his paper. He apologized and I haven’t seen an article with such inflammatory language again.
On December 15,1996, and January 30,1997, an army unit destroyed Bishop Boutros’ project for handicapped children on the road between Cairo and Suez. I was almost immediately informed (in December 1996) but the bishop asked me not to make it public because he was still hoping to be able to negotiate a solution and didn’t want that to be disturbed by media reports. After the second attack the bishop asked me to make his story public. This I did with a carefully worded text in the National Catholic Register of March 16-22, 1997. That text was forwarded by others to the US Congress and even to the UN human rights commissioner. Relevant Egyptian authorities investigated the matter and decided the bishop had not violated any laws and regulations and he could continue his work. That, however, was not reported in the West. For a long time the same story circulated in the West as if nothing had happened, while in fact the authorities had admitted that this army unit had been wrong and the bishop was back to work. The same papers which reported about the incident, showed no interest to do a follow-up story about this project a year later.
The RNSAW started as the private initiative of my wife and me, We received the support of several scholars, most of whom are based in Egypt, as well as Dr. John Watson in England, Prof. Dr. Otto Meinardus in Germany and Prof. Dr. Jacques Waardenburg in Switzerland.
The RNSAW is not financed by any organization in or outside Egypt. Although expenses should ideally be covered by subscriptions, we have put in so much of our own personal resources into this service that we have reached a point of not being able to continue. The RNSAW needs to become financially self-supporting. For this we not only need more subscribers but also want to develop a database and website which would make our material accessible to a much larger public. The first plans for this were developed in September 1999 but have until not been realized.
The strength of the RNSAW is that it is not linked to any specific religious or political organization but yet maintains good relations with all. That must be continued, for only then can we maintain the credibility needed for our work.
We have given examples of how clashes develop in Egypt. But clashes can be avoided if policy makers, religious leaders and others, both inside and outside Egypt, would understand the dynamics behind those clashes and would contribute to alleviating those tensions. Then Huntington’s thesis might not come true.
We are convinced that several Egyptian church and Muslim leaders realize the importance of understanding the dynamics in how tensions develop between religious groups. The Permanent Committee of al-Azhar for Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions and the Coptic Center for Social Studies which functions under the umbrella of the Coptic Orthodox Bishopric for Ecumenical and Social Services are examples and so is the work of several Evangelical and Catholic leaders who all emphasize the concept of citizenship, equal rights and duties for all citizens, no matter what religion or denomination they belong to.
"Some Copts and Muslims promote the concept that Copts are a minority but we strongly oppose that concept" says Dr. Samir Marcos of the Coptic Center for Social Studies. "Copts are a minority in numbers but they do not form one bloc and they do not have one political aspiration as the Armenians had. Not only secularists such as AUC-professor Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim promote the minority concept but also Islamists who call Copts the ahl Dhimma, protected people. We don’t want to be protected but we want to be equal as citizens of one state."
But people like Marcos have a long way to go. It is obvious many people prefer not to discuss the issue and still others look at issues only from their own perspective. If people outside Egypt want to help Egyptians, let them do this in a positive and informed way, taking into account the dynamics of the society. The RNSAW wants to provide information that helps to make that possible.
