Traveling to Izbet Boushra
In the early morning of January 5, 2010 I was waiting for Cornelis Hulsman who would go with me by car to Izbet Bushra in Beni Sweif, 120 kilometers to the south of Cairo, when a young black man, probably a migrant from southern Sudan, passed by. I heard him singing softly, with eyes half closed, halleluiah, halleluiah. The only person I ever heard singing like this, in real life and not in a film or on the radio, was my late friend, the short story writer Hussein Aly Hussein, in the early seventies of the last century. At that time, leading poets like Salah Abdel Saboor, Salah Jaheen and Amal Dongol would make references in their poems to the Bible. This had been a continuation of a tradition established by men of letters who belonged to the Apollo Society and the Diwan School in the 1930s and 1940s. All this changed by the end of the October war in 1974 and the beginning of the second, and by far the more far reaching, wave of Saudi hegemony over Egyptian culture. The first was in the thirties through men like the politician and author Mohammed Hussein Haykal, first general secretary of the Arab League Abdurrahman Azzam
Pasha (the uncle of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Zawahry), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Hassan El-Banna, founder of the Muslim Youth Society Saleh Harb
Pasha, and others.
A few minutes later Cornelis Hulsman arrived with his hackneyed thirteen year old Suzuki Swift. I asked him whether that car could make it to Beni Sweif and he assured me that it could. When the car broke down less than ten kilometers north of Beni Sweif, on the Korayamat desert road, I gave Cornelis an American red apple hoping that the sweetness of its taste would raise his morale. Meanwhile I decided to fly down one of the vehicles buzzing by and ask the driver for help. The first driver I signaled stopped a few meters away from us. He examined the motor and told us it was dangerous for us to even try and start it. A few minutes later his car was pulling ours down the road to Beni Sweif. He left us at the outskirts of the city after reluctantly accepting my tip. The governorate of Beni Sweif has a large Christian community. Nevertheless, we never knew whether he was Muslim or Christian. He certainly realized that my companion, being a khawaga (Ed.—a local Egyptian word for ‘foreigner’) should be a Christian but he did not bother to ask me about my religion. It is not common practice to ask others about their religion in Egypt, but I am reporting this to make clear to the non-Egyptian reader of this report that Egyptians often do not take religion into consideration when dealing with others. The man helped us simply because we were stranded on the desert road, with no other thoughts about it.
On the outskirts of Beni Sweif we stopped at a simple cafeteria run by a middle aged man who migrated to this region four months ago from al-Darb al-Ahmar, a poor region in Cairo. We waited there, drinking cups of black tea, chatting while Muslim religious sermons were being played on the radio. This is an often used background noise in public places; the man was not paying attention to it.
When Fady William, a contact of Cornelis in Beni Suef, arrived with another car to take us to Beni Sweif, he told me that the city has developed thanks to the efforts of the local government to build a modern road network and to attract French investors who set up four cement factories in the region. I told him that this polluted the environment, but he would not listen to that. All he cared was that the four factories created thousands of jobs for young people and encouraged many small businessmen like the owner of the cafeteria to migrate to Beni Sweif and do business there.
We left our broken-down car next to the cafeteria as Fady promised to return later and take the car to an efficient Coptic mechanic in Beni Sweif.
This was my first visit to Beni Sweif since August 1972 when I was moved to the military air base in Aswan. I was amazed at the new city which was bustling with life. Market places with dirty and barefooted vendors were everywhere around the city. Fady told me that not all market places are as chaotic as the ones that we passed by. I could see for myself all kinds of shops full of merchandise. Cornelis was surprised to see a big store with huge windows displaying fashionable women's wear like the ones in Cairo.
Arriving in Izbet Bushra
We arrived in Izbet Bushra around 12:00 noon. At the entrance to the little village was the house of Masry Abdel Mawla Abdullah, a university graduate and a civil servant who was born in 1954. As a member of the Arabs (Muslims descending from Bedouin tribes generations ago) he was considered one of the notables of Izbet Bushra. We stayed in his house for a few hours where we met leading figures from Izbet Bushra, including Watany Youssif, a Copt who was born in 1947. Notice the names of Masry, meaning ‘my Egypt’, who was born the year Nasser became the undisputed national leader of Egypt, and Watany, meaning ‘my homeland’, who was born when al-Wafd was the leading political power in the country with Muslims and Copts at its helm. Egyptian first names often reflect the events and climate in a certain period.
We also met there with Mohamed Abdul Rahman, sheikh al-balad (mayor) of Izbet Bushra, Ahmed Salem, a retired imam, Hanna Shaker, the Coptic manager of the government telephone services of Tilt, a village close to Izbet Bushra, and Nageh Thabet, another Copt and a civil servant.
When we asked Masry about the clashes between Muslims and Christians he refused to say anything before presenting us with what he considered an important exhibit: Cakes from the "glorious Christmas", figured according to Egyptian calendar, sent to him by his business partner Fawzy Tawfeek, a Copt from Izbet Bushra. These jointly manage an agricultural and fertilizer project in addition to their employment as civil servants, an arrangement typical in the Egyptian countryside.
Masry told us that the troubles between Muslims and Christians in Izbet Bushra started with the advent of Fr. Ishaak Kastour, the previous priest who was, according to Masry, a fanatic. Before that, Christians used to perform their prayers in a number of houses in Izbet Bushra, in the houses of Adly Sadek Moawad, Mikhail Tawdros, and Ayyad Abdul Malik. Although there is a church in West Izbet Bushra, between 500 and 1000 meters away, Copts of Izbet Bushra used to perform the wedding rituals of their daughters outdoors, in the center of Izbet Bushra, with Muslim inhabitants of the village surrounding them and taking part in the celebration.
When Kastour arrived, they were not sure about the date, he stayed in a building that was authorized to be constructed as a factory but was later changed into the residence of the pastor. He led prayers in that house and this annoyed Muslims because of the proximity of the building to a mosque. Masry thinks that this was not the main problem. What bothered Muslims of Izbet Bushra more was that Fr. Kastour was not friendly—he would not answer when a Muslim saluted him. He gathered young Copts around him and started educating them in the hate of Muslims. Those young people became rude to their Muslim neighbors. They would spit when a Muslim passed by, which was considered a sign of contempt by the Muslim villagers. Though Fr. Kastour would probably deny this it is how leading Muslims in the village speak about him.
One day mothers from both communities exchanged harsh words because of a petty fight amongst their children. They were joined later by male relatives from both sides. This is in itself very customary in Egypt where parents would support their children in a fight whether right or wrong. The situation deteriorated when Fr. Kastour and other young Copts started throwing stones at Muslims and at security men who arrived at the scene to stop the riot. Again, Fr. Kastour might also deny this but it is reported to show how Muslims in the village now speak of him. Whoever is right or wrong, it shows poisoned relations between Fr. Kastour and local Muslims.
According to those present, the average size of land property in Izbet Bushra is approximately 36 kirats (around 6300 square meters) per family, used mainly to grow feed for livestock, which is the main source of income for the farmers of Izbet Bushra. As these holdings are poor sources of income, Muslim and Coptic young people usually migrate to bigger cities, especially Cairo, to look for jobs. Fr. Kastour is alleged by these men to have called many of these young people back to Izbet Bushra, in what looked like a mobilization against the Muslim community, especially since it is strange that young migrants from Cairo would return collectively to their village of origin without a feast to celebrate. On the day when the clashes took place many of those arrested by the security forces were these young migrant Copts, making many Muslims believe that the clashes have been the result of Christian provocative behavior and were perhaps even planned.
When we asked Ahmed Salem about what happened and why the clashes took place, he said, "This is something of the past. Why are you still talking about it?" We asked him if was the imam of the mosque, and he answered that he used to be. Sometimes he would step in as imam if there was no one else to do the job. He would read his sermons from a textbook endorsed by the Ministry of Endowments. When young Muslim zealots responded to Fr. Kastour's provocations with unacceptable fiery sermons, Ahmed Salem would ask the Ministry of Endowments to replace them. I told him that he was accused of having instigated Muslims after the performance of Friday prayers to go and clash with the Christians. He was taken aback and said that the clash happened on a Sunday (the day of Christian prayers, on which Muslims do not have a large collective prayer).
Ahmed Salem went on to say Muslims and Christians lived in peace since Izbet Bushra was established by Bushra Hanna Bey in 1906. The sheikh al-balad (mayor) of the Izbah had been a Copt until 1974, when the religious climate a demographics of Izbet Bushra began to change. After the clash, Muslims and Copts alike would wake up in the morning to find out that their crops had been uprooted by unknown culprits. Among those who suffered from the mysterious subversive actions were Abdul Rahman Saber, his son Abdul Salam, and their Coptic partner Mikhail Towdros. These acts went on for months until the situation became perfectly calm with the replacement of Fr. Kastour by the present priest Fr. Yakoub.
Sheikh al-Balad (mayor) Mohamed interrupted and reiterated village confidence in and respect for Fr. Yakoub. He said, "Nothing would separate Abouna Yakoub from us until death comes.” He also blamed Fr. Kastour for all the troubles. Neither Mohamed nor the others were aware of the arrival of young Copts from Cairo on the day when the clashes happened, but he affirmed that some of the young people arrested in the troubles were young Copts who used to work in Cairo. He said that troubles came to an end following the reconciliation sessions, when the Christians accepted to use another building for their prayers which was away from the mosque, and when Fr. Kastour left the village. When the government gives them permission to have a full-fledged church, no one from the Muslim community in Izbet Bushra would object, he said. This is the business of the authorities and not ours. We cannot object to anything as long as it is done legally.
Watany Youssif said that all the troubles are gone and we are back to normal as close friends and good neighbors. He said that almost every Copt is a partner to some Muslim in cultivating the land or in doing business. No one here wants trouble, he mentioned, we all want to live together in peace. He added that this village had always been a closely knit community with a wall surrounding it (the wall was destroyed a few decades ago). Sheikh al-Balad (mayor) Mohamed added that the gate of the wall used to be closed every day at sunset. The land belonged to wealthy land owners until 1952 when it was distributed among the villagers according to the laws of the Agrarian Reform.
Hanna Shaker and Nageh Thabet arrived as we were about to leave. They greeted us and repeated what was said by almost all others in that meeting, affirming that relations between the two communities are now normal. Hanna responded to a question of Cornelis stating that he believes around 250 Christians live in Ezbet Bushra. Hanna was not aware that earlier Masry had estimated the number of Christians to be around 500. Estimates are always a problem in Egypt. There is the additional problem that different counts are possible, as they can include the number of Christian migrants now living in Cairo, as they are seen as still belonging to the village. The estimate of 250 current residents appeared reasonable, establishing about fifty families with an average of five people per family.
A Final Glance at the Village
As we stepped out of the house of Masry Abdul Mawla, one of the villagers pointed at the three-storied residence of the priest towering over the other buildings of the village which stood huddled together in the middle of the fields. Two houses away from this residence is the two-storied mosque. All the roads of Izbet Bushra are narrow dirt roads with many docile stray dogs wandering around the ugly and poor dwellings of both Muslims and Copts of Izbet Bushra.
We understood that low incomes and unemployment more than any other problems are the main concerns of villagers in Izbet Bushra, be they Muslim or Coptic. We left Izbet Bushra around 5:00pm for Beni Sweif , where the mechanic told us that the car would need another three hours of work. We instead left for Cairo by train, leaving the car in Beni Sweif for Cornelis' driver to come later and drive it home.
العربية