Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

I am honored to attend this conference in honor of Prof. Johan Galtung, representing the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation in Egypt. I studied development sociology at Leiden University from 1977 to 1984, reading the works of Prof. Galtung, which influenced many of us. We are thus extremely pleased for this opportunity to present our work in Egypt to the conference.

This paper was prepared with help of my Egyptian wife, Sawsan Gabra, who is also the founder of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT) in Egypt. It has also been assisted by Jayson Casper, an Arabic speaking American who is coordinator of our peace building program in Egypt, and Usama al-Ghazouly, an Egyptian and a leading member in our project, which aims to reduce tensions between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.

 

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation was founded in Egypt in 2005 as a civil company, following bureaucratic delays in our efforts to obtain a permit to establish an NGO. CIDT was founded to support the publication of Arab-West Report (AWR), an electronic magazine which has reported about Muslim-Christian and Arab-West relations since 1997. AWR systematically selects from the Egyptian Arabic print media any article published on these subjects. AWR also carries out investigative reporting and checks the accuracy of media reporting. In addition AWR monitors selected foreign media and activist reporting about Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt. In the past 12 years AWR has collected over 30,000 Egyptian Arabic media reports and reviewed each one of them in English. This has required a tremendous amount of work but has resulted in a unique archive that cannot be found anywhere else. Furthermore, AWR has produced hundreds of investigative reports, in particular about reported Muslim-Christian tensions. Since 2006 we have received dozens of student interns who work with the help of our staff on papers of various topics. These interns produce their work through via our database, interviews with prominent Egyptian personalities, and site visits.  Their work helps shed light on Egyptian and Western practices in media reporting.  Thus far seventeen reports have been placed on our website, in addition to many other shorter texts. A German IT expert works alongside Egyptian IT people in an effort to build an electronic library which enables the accessibility to this very unique collection of material.

AWR and CIDT are supported through NGOs in The Netherlands and Germany. It is a yearly struggle to make ends meet but we have been able to survive, developing this work over the past twelve years. Our most recent funding has come from the Institute of Foreign Affairs (IFA) in Germany, to develop a program to support reconciliation work following conflicts in Egypt. 

 

Prior to the recent IFA project we worked on several reports describing the negative influences of media reporting on existing tensions. Media reporting tended to highlight tensions and neglect context, especially if the context did not suit existing prejudices. In December 2007 I presented an overview of the consequences of Coptic activist reporting on Muslim-Christian relations at the UCSIA International Workshop at the University of Antwerp: Christian and Muslim Minorities in Transition in Europe and the Middle East.[1] I concluded that Coptic activists often responded in excessive ways to injustices and perceived injustices. This is not to deny that there are injustices but the manner of expression often shows emotion and biases without taking into the account the boomerang effects such emotional responses and biases can cause. Western media often tends to report along similar lines, depending to a considerable extent upon these activist reports and at times neglecting information that shows more context.

In May 2008 a conflict around the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt resulted in the kidnapping of two monks and the death of one Muslim man. This prompted a deluge of media reporting, in which many presented this as an attack of Muslims upon Christians, while others went on the defense and denied vital aspects of the incident as foreign allegations designed to manipulate. In this way media reporting became part of the conflict; media representatives took sides and the more complicated story of land registration and related difficulties was neglected. I presented this in a lecture at the Evangelische Akademie in Hofgeismar, Germany in November last year.[2] We have had many students who worked on media analysis, and others who explored the crucial developmental aspects behind the reported tensions. Yet these developmental aspects were rarely reported in the mainstream media. These include poor legal land registration practices, but also reflect the tremendous pressures on land acquisition in an overpopulated country where desert land bordering the Nile valley suddenly obtained great commercial value. Unfortunately, the vast majority of media reporting neglected this, as did most debates inside and outside Egypt. Knowledge of these social aspects remained scarce as many local actors were swept away by sensationalist media reporting. This resulted in national discussions in which the agenda was determined by the media, rather than by the facts which produced the conflict.

 

The invitation to this conference stated that papers were welcomed on managing conflict in the following areas: governance and the grassroots and religion, identity in conflict and peace, economic, legal and social perspectives, and values, analysis, and ethics. Our work moves in all these areas.

 

In our research on Abu Fana we found a strong relation between governance, or the lack thereof, and the grassroots. Egyptian land registration laws have been changed repeatedly since the days of King Faruk who was deposed in the Egyptian revolution of 1952. Landownership laws were changed during the socialist government of President Nasser. His successor Sadat (1970-1981), however, favored a more liberal approach. President Mubarak is trying to find a balance between the two but is also faced with unprecedented population growth. There are now roughly 85 million Egyptians living on fertile lands only as large as the Netherlands. The remainder is desert.

Land registration of traditional fertile lands may not be perfect, but legal registration is virtually non-existent in desert areas. Population pressure results in people trying, rather haphazardly, to develop desert lands on the periphery of the fertile land in the Nile Valley. The Egyptian state allowed citizens to develop desert land through the wada i yad system and urfi contracts (a paper between two parties, often with witnesses, but no government registration) that dates to Ottoman times. This made it possible for anyone to move into the desert and develop land. Once a person could show authorities that he had made the desert green he would obtain ownership documents. That system functioned in Ottoman days but today with the multitude of people trying to obtain desert land this system now has become a source of great tension throughout the country. Authorities have thus far not been able to abolish the old wada i yad and urfi systems and replace them with a proper land registration system, with special care given to the regulation of groundwater in desert areas.

 Another notably weak point in Egyptian governance is lack of transparency. Decisions are often made in an autocratic way with little to no effort made to explain to the public the reasons behind the policy. In turn this makes many Egyptians suspect the government of engaging in a policy of favoritism, nepotism, and corruption. While such favoritism and corruption does exist many of these accusations are inaccurate. Lack of transparency, however, certainly contributes to conventional wisdom and frequent rumors.

Religious identity in conflicts is equally important.  There have always been conflicts in Egypt along religious lines but there were always strong sentiments, in particular among Egyptian intellectuals and the higher clergy, to counteract this. In the 1970s this began to change as President Sadat gave more space to Islamist groups. Conflicts between Muslims and Christians rapidly escalated thereafter, were reduced in the 1980s, but increased again in the 1990s and 2000s. We have investigated many of these conflicts, and found that most originate from non-religious reasons. As people seek support for their position within their religious circles a non-religious conflict can quickly spiral out of control and develop into a sectarian conflict. In addition to these there are also religiously sensitive issues such as church building and conversion which create tensions between adherents of the two religions.

The population of Egypt is divided between approximately 6% Christians, who boast strong historical roots in the country, and 94% Muslims, who also view themselves as sons of Egypt. Most Christians live in Upper Egypt and Cairo, and are a non-stratified minority, found among the very rich as well as among the very poor and in all social classes between. Around 80 % of all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, live close to the poverty level or below it. Conflicts along religious lines tend to occur in particular but not exclusively within these lower social classes.

Economic, legal, and social perspectives should be studied more, but unfortunately this is rare in Egypt. The focus of both Egyptian and Western media reporting on Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt has been almost exclusively on the religious arguments in conflicts. As a consequence many academic studies also tend to neglect the economic, legal, and social perspectives behind what is seen as religious conflict.

Values, analysis, and ethics are equally important and generally underestimated in importance, due to the tremendous focus on the role of religion. Important values in our work are respect for pluralism in societies, equal standards in writing about Muslims and Christians in Egypt, and trying to discover the underlying factors behind reported conflicts.

 

In the summer of 2009 conflict erupted between Muslims and Christians in a small village called Ezbet Boushra. Before these incidents occurred practically no Egyptian had ever heard of this village of roughly 2,500 inhabitants, to the south of Beni Suef. Though reports differ, the population is comprised of approximately 75 Muslim families and 65 Christian families. The church had built a house of which one floor was supposed to be used as a small church. Lacking, however, the needed permits they communicated that this building was to be a factory, in order to obtain governmental and local approval. Upon discovery of the truth local Muslims objected. Following a clash the Egyptian security simply closed the disputed building. Local Christians were extremely angry and accused Egyptian authorities of anti-Christian biases. The conflict received much press attention in Egypt as Coptic activists abroad joined the discussion on their Arabic websites and YouTube productions, presenting a picture of Christian persecution.

The impact of Coptic activists has greatly increased since the Internet became a popular tool for information dissemination.  In the last six or seven years there has also been a proliferation of Arabic websites popular among the Coptic youth in Egypt, which greatly radicalizes them. This also impacted Ezbet Boushra. Christians here were hoping that through attracting media attention that they could put pressure on Egyptian authorities to realize their wish to obtain a license for a church building in the village. Conversely, however, Egyptian media often rejects the claims of Coptic activists. Al-Ahrar newspaper even recently reported that Coptic activists had declared war on Egypt.[3] Articles with such headlines do not contribute to a better understanding of either Coptic grievances or Muslim responses.

We visited the area with some of our interns and found a highly polarized atmosphere with a strong focus on presenting the conflict along religious lines. Meanwhile Egyptian intellectuals such as Prof. Baha Bakri of Cairo University, asked us to focus instead on local NGOs which work with both Muslims and Christians in the area of social work. It is through the bypassing of religious discourse, focusing instead on common social and societal needs, that reconciliation can occur and friendly relations restored.

 

Our project will address these twin focuses of media and non-governmental organizations through conducting two workshops in the close of 2009. The first will be conducted December 15-16 in Cairo and will invite prominent journalists from all the major newspapers in Egypt. We have selected experienced journalists and academics to coordinate training sessions, which will discuss the tendency and pressures to sensationalize sectarian conflict. Journalists will be shown the consequences of these practices for national unity and communal understanding, pointing out their own personal responsibilities for these problems. They will then through discussion create a list of principles to ensure fair, balanced, and objective reporting.

The second workshop will seek to learn from and strengthen the work of NGOs in the Beni Suef area, of which Izbet Bushra is a part. The agenda will pursue three goals. First, we would like to give the personnel of these NGOs the opportunity to get to know each other better, to promote mutually beneficial interaction. Second, these hands-on field workers can share with us and with each other their experiences of conflict, and the degree to which they have understood its causes and worked for its solution. Third, we will bring experts in understanding and mediating conflict from Cairo in order to give them theoretical and practical training in how to handle any future conflicts they encounter.

Furthermore, very little is known in Egypt about reconciliation work between adherents of different religions. Our project is working to collect examples of similar efforts around the world, which can be translated into Arabic and disseminated both to the general public and to those involved in conflict resolution and reconciliation. We hope that if properly contextualized these powerful examples can be modified by Egyptian peacemakers and conflict resolution specialists, as well as be appreciated by the common public upon whom good relations depend.

Following the close of 2009 our introductory phase will end. We will hope to repeat the beneficial workshops and expand their scope, but our focus will shift. We will adopt the same methodology of research and investigation of root causes, but we will take this information to the local context, providing our research to local heads of families, businessmen, and religious leaders. It is our hope that if these men of influence can properly understand the original non-religious causes of conflict they can be persuaded to meet with one another to discuss solutions for the common good of the village. Even in areas where the root cause is religious, we hope to encourage reconciliation for the restoration of peace. In this endeavor we will employ prominent Egyptian intellectuals, statesmen, and religious figures, so that we can appropriately approach a region of conflict with the people and mindset which will make peace possible.

 Our work is supported by the Institute for Foreign Affairs in Germany, for whom we will document our studies, workshops, and efforts at peace and reconciliation. We will be pleased to share these findings with the larger academic community, and invite their critique on our work. More details about our project can be found at: http://www.cawu.org/index.php?Activities:Projects. We are looking for contacts with scholars working in peace and reconciliation and would like to see our work connected to other initiatives, giving it more scholarly depth which we believe will help to ensure its impact in Egypt.

Prof. Galtung, we would greatly appreciate your advice on how to continue our work in Egypt.

Thank you very much.

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