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Think of this as your Unicorn Chaser for the collective human soul.
On New Year's Eve, a Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt was attacked by suicide bombers. For those Coptic Christians, the bombing came with a lot of added tension. Their Christmas, like that of several other Christian sects outside the Western Catholic/Protestant divide, falls after the New Year. Many expected further bombings on that holiday. Here's what happened, instead ...
Egypt's majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as "human shields" for last night's mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
"We either live together, or we die together," was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the "human shield" idea.
"This is not about us and them," said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. "We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together."
How's that for "wonderful things"?
Ahram Online: Egypt's Muslims Attend Coptic Christmas Mass, Serving as "Human Shields"
I thought BB had ceased using the ‘directory of wonderful things’ line after all the comments in any story that was vaguely negative.
Bring back the tagline, I declare! BB is one of the most consistently wonderful places on the net (but I do appreciate not having to read so many meaningless snarky comments).
I am grateful to have come upon the story of this event, this morning.
It was uplifting to my soul as I begin my day.
I found the comments of interest and am also appreciative of the dialogue and links put forth here.
@51 (anonymous):
great to see the photograph.
for those interested, it was taken inside kasr el dobara evangelical church, which is as far as i know a member of the evangelical church of the nile.
.~.
I don’t mean to start trouble, but does the Boing Boing staff try to check the Submitterator for stuff like this before posting?
Just wondering.
Sincerely,
Attention Whore
Personally, I just keep a towel draped over the monitor when I’m online.
Cowicide, my apologies if you’d posted this to Submitterator. I picked it up from a friend on Facebook. I’ll try to take a peek on stuff like this from now on, just to make sure that I’m not cheating somebody out of their attention whore moment. ;)
THIS is how people of opposing beliefs, religions, ways of life should live-
Protecting each other.
This was wonderful news, and gives a cynic here hope for all of humanity.
Only when we realize to put aside our petty differences and join together like this will everyone respect those around them, and terrorism will end. It CAN be stopped, I’m certain of it- it just takes someone to recognize when one group of people is targeted, whether we like them or not, it opens the possibility that another group of people can be targeted, and another, and so on.
Only by showing intolerance toward intolerance itself can we ever hope to live in peace with each other. This event shows we can do it, and it will work.
Mankind was good this day.
BEHOLD, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in UNITY!
My eyes misted up a little bit. That’s truly something.
I know I’m being a trolly McTrollenstein here, but should it really be so amazing that Jews, Christians, and Muslims can agree on a way to worship the SAME GOD once and awhile? As much as I’d love to chime in and celebrate what many see as a beautiful moment in humanity, I can’t help but revert to the position that non-faith eliminates the circus of both religious vigils and religious extremists.
To the post: Amen.
Egypt should never have abandoned their gods. Those warring Christians and Muslims there ought to renounce their angry, jealous Canaanite god and embrace their ancestral gods of old. Amun-Ra, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Bast, Hathor, Nephthys, Ma’at, Anubis, etc.
The old gods are what made Egypt great. Not all that Judeo-Christian-Muslim hogwash. Why do people visit Egypt? To see the churches and mosques? No, they go to see the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Temple of Horus, the remnants of the real Egypt, from back when Egypt had a culture of its own.
“How’s that for “wonderful things”?”
It’s pretty good, yeah. :-)
Beautiful.
This is the best response to fundamentalism of any stripe that I’ve ever heard. From what I saw from the many Muslims with whom I had the pleasure of studying, I’d say that this is a better expression of the spirit of Islam than anything done by fundies.
There have been some great pics posted online of Muslims at the Christmas Eve services. Here are some in Cairo’s largest Evangelical Church.
http://yfrog.com/h4pmvmnj
Gives a person hope that maybe the world isn’t completely screwed up.
A few years ago, something similar happened in Montana when there was an outbreak of anti-semitism. Yellow stars appeared in shop windows all over.
From 1930 to 1947, the Servants of God, what some call the world’s first non-violent army, was active in the Northwest Frontier Provinces of what is now Pakistan. They were made up of Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus and would d the same thing, place their bodies between rioters and the minorities who were being targeted. They also were actively following Gandhi’s Constructive Programme, providing sanitation for villages.
I’ve written more about this Islamic Satyagraha Army at
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/27/23370/2751
I didn’t know about the Montana thing, but your post made me look it up: http://www.pbs.org/niot/about/niot1.html
Hooray for Egypt and hooray for Montana!
was on egypt 2 years ago, they are really nice ppl
a brief moment of humanity. it’s becoming increasingly rare to find, regardless of religious or political ideology. I’m not surprised I can’t find this story elsewhere. who wants to hear a positive story, especially about muslims, anyway? It’s been hours since I’ve read about innocent blood being shed…what’s the hold up? i’m jonesing for my violent tragedy fix.
I’m no fan of Christianity or Islam, but this action was just, honorable, and clearly transcended any sectarian value system. We all aught to learn from the bold example of solidarity on the part of the Egyptian Muslims.
a brief moment of humanity.
it’s becoming increasingly rare to find, regardless of religious or political ideology. I’m not surprised I can’t find this story elsewhere. who wants to hear a positive story, especially about muslims, anyway?
It’s been hours since I’ve read about innocent blood being shed…what’s the hold up? i’m jonesing for my violent tragedy fix.
I work with an Egyptian Coptic Christian who came to this country to escape the persecution. He tells me that, sadly, the more moderate muslims that have done this are the minority.
When the bomb went off in Alexandria outside the church the people in the mosque next door were shouting “Allahu Akbar”, an Islamic victory cry.
Still, he tells me it is good to see the moderates (who are normally silenced and scared by the extremist majority) standing up and opposing the violence.
The voice of “allahu akbar” was calling for prayer at that time, please don’t spread wrong ideas alright? Muslims pray 5 times a day, and the term “Allahu Akbar” is not for victory only, it depends on the context, and the time the egyptian bomb blasted, it was the time for prayers for Muslims as well. So please do not add the fuel to the fire! Cheers.
When the bomb went off in Alexandria outside the church the people in the mosque next door were shouting “Allahu Akbar”, an Islamic victory cry.
Similar things have happened in Stockholm.
It’s amazing what the human mind can be bent to do when you have to choose sides or die.
Because you’re in danger of dying if you don’t go along with the Muslim majority in Stockholm?
Beg pardon, that should have been “extremist Muslim majority”.
Your second paragraph, Panhandle, is pure propaganda bullshit. Outside of Hollywood movies, bombers do not set up a tumult when a bomb goes off. Neither do they hang around “next door” to a bomb, not a very sensible thing to do as a non-suicide bomber. Plus, who the hell tells a congregation of random people about planting a bomb in advance? Especially situated “next door” to the explosion?
The first reaction of normal people to a bomb going off next door is not “Praise the Lord” (loose translation), but “WTF!?” (whatever the Arabic is for that), followed by going to look see what indeed it was, followed by helping the injured without questioning who they are. This is such a universal reaction that only complete arseholes would do anything else, or ask anyone to believe anything else would happen.
How is anyone to believe in a community that has two holy buildings with such antipathy situated next door to each other, without mass attacks being a feature of everyday life, such that a wall of moderates shielding the Copts would be impossible?
And lastly, “extremist majority” is an oxymoron.
Perhaps he phrased it badly. He may have meant “while the building burned” rather than “when the bomb went off”.
I don’t want to start a thread listing the ways in which Christians are persecuted in that part of the world – the information is out there if you want to look. Suffice to say, it is hard to comprehend, while we sit safely in our Western culture, what it is like to live in an extremist Muslim culture.
The phrase “extremist majority” is not at all an oxymoron. The “extremist” part is in relation to the full gamut of expressions of Muslim faith. That particular part of the world is populated mostly with what we would call extremist Muslims. That’s what makes this gesture by the moderates so wonderful.
“I don’t want to start a thread listing the ways in which Christians are persecuted in that part of the world – the information is out there if you want to look. Suffice to say, it is hard to comprehend, while we sit safely in our Western culture, what it is like to live in an extremist Muslim culture.”
I wonder what it’s like to be a Muslim in a place like Alabama or Texas. You know in a country where there’s purported to be ‘freedom of religion’ and civil rights protecting against hate crimes. I’m sure the information is out there if you want to look. or just sit safely in your western culture.
Here’s a mirror. Take a good long look.
No it’s not. Just convert to Islam, and you’ll know exactly what it’s like. Go down to your local mosque and ask them how many times they were vandalized after 9/11, and how effective the police were in following up.
Let these Egyptians, Copt and Muslim alike, be a model for us.
I think you are ignoring the part where most the Muslims in “that part of the world” live in dictatorships, some rather harsh, many of whom we actively support (including Mubarak in Egypt, who tortures his own people and actively crushes various kinds of dissent, pushing those those who dissent towards more radical elements who promise change via violent means). Might help explain why many do not speak out against violence against their neighbours, whether they be Christians or other Muslims. It doesn’t help that “people in that part of the world” are fed a rather steady diet of misinformation from their government run news organizations. The situation in “that part of the world” is far more complex than “they just hate us for our freedoms” and “they are just religious radicals”. A far wider array of beliefs and opinions exist than are actually expressed.
So now the Muslims are cheering as the church next door to their mosque is burning instead of putting it out? If the mosque next door is filled with happy idiots, then where did the moderate Muslims come from? Did they spring from the ground?
I don’t believe that a country that officially tolerates a significant Christian minority can reliably be called extremist when there are far less tolerant governments around, like say, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. The constitution of Egypt, after all, bans political parties with any religious agenda.
Your friend may have had bad experiences with extremists in Egypt — things are far from hunky-dory there, I know — but that’s a far cry from the whole country being extremist. Again, where would the moderate Egyptians have come from if this description had any bearing on reality?
“where would the moderate Egyptians have come from if this description had any bearing on reality”
Not sure where you’re coming from here. They are a minority – not non-existent.
“officially tolerates a significant Christian minority”.
Sure – that official position is through a humiliating tax (with other requirements) that amounts to persecution. And the “official position” does not always match the reality.
Look – I don’t want to detract from the excellence of the events described in the article. I just wanted to add to the background of the story; provide some wider context for it.
@ #36
Sure – that official position is through a humiliating tax (with other requirements) that amounts to persecution. ????
Where the hell do you get your information from? Apparently you have no clue about the situation in Egypt and your devious Coptic friend is deliberately misleading you with tons of bullshit. What humiliating tax? you think that there is a different taxation system for Christians other than the one applied on Muslims? Do you know that the Egyptian minister of finance, with all its divisions including the tax department, who has been in that position since 2004, IS CHRISTIAN ???..and what other requirements are you refering to?
Where did u get the info that Christians pay a special tax (Jizyah) in Egypt? This is a historical thing that’s no longer used.
And checking that wikiIslam website, I really dont think you should trust it that much.
If you use a website that has many similar entries like:
“What do you think Muslims should do about the Ramadan Paradox?”
They should stop believing in a religion so devoid of knowledge and common sense.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Ramadan_Pole_Paradox
to help you understand “the other”, then dear friend, I’m sorry to disappoint you.. you will be failing, miserably.
Racism starts with dehumanizing people.. their believes, motivations or actions.
The thing is, your Coptic friend is no closer to the situation than you are, so you’re in the position of passing along an unsubstantiated rumour. He wasn’t there, so how does he know what went down? Presumably someone told him. How do you know that third person is reliable? How do I know? As I said, it smells like bullshit, like the Kaiser’s men bayonetting Belgian babies, or mysterious Muslims at gas stations warning random strangers not to go to the WTC on 9/11.
Particularly when the bald factoid makes no sense by itself. The thinly scattered moderate Muslim minority somehow organise themselves into shielding the 10% of the country that’s Coptic Christian? Are there secret moderate Muslim organisations in Egypt? Or is the narrative meant to be a miracle along the lines of the loaves and the fishes, one ‘good muslim’ at each service just causing others to spontaneously condense out of the air?
If the majority of Egyptians are extremists, then why did the shield thing work? Why didn’t the majority rise up en masse to attack these unrighteous moderates? No, this whole thing sounds more like what happened in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles: the moderate majority deciding they’ve had enough of these extremist jerks trying to impose policy on them, and standing up for their belief in peace.
If pigs fly out of my ass, will you stop being so slippery? Make a damn point of your own, don’t just disparage others for earnest comments. Or if you’re just going to disparage, please be either better at it or funnier.
My point is the same one I’ve been making all along: that claiming the majority of Egyptians are extremists is rubbish. And that stories of the neighbouring mosque praising god at the destruction is devisive propaganda. I don’t know how I can make it plainer.
As others have said, the shielding of the Copts is a beautiful thing. I have no disagreement with that. I just don’t trust the narrative that Panhandle’s friend wants to tell of the Coptic minority being protected by a minority of moderate Muslims. It just seems a bit biblical, and contrary to the actual situation.
“When the bomb went off in Alexandria outside the church the people in the mosque next door were shouting “Allahu Akbar”, an Islamic victory cry.”
Is there good evidence for that or is it just a rumor? I don’t know your friend of course but a lot of Egyptian Copts in the US buy into really nasty islamophobia–which of course is not deny that they suffer badly from discrimination and violence in Egypt. I’d be equally skeptical of your Coptic friend’s claim that the majority of Egyptian Muslims don’t object to violence against Copts. There is widespread prejudice against Christians in Egypt, but that’s not the same as condoning violence.
“Is there good evidence for that or is it just a rumor?”
This is based on eyewitness accounts posted on Facebook. You can also hear it towards the end of this YouTube video.
That is a genuinely positive act and my respect goes to all involved, especially the moderate Muslims for (finally?) acting upon their proclamations that they absolutely do not condone the ideology and practices of the extremists.
More similar responses to assaults on Danish embassies, murders of film makers and fatwas against novelists would be very welcome and appreciated. (Although I have a strong feeling that those would fall under very different principles then those at work here.)
I saw this the other day and smiled.
respect for christianity is actually a pretty mainstream concept with reasonable practice of islam. great to hear that it’s alive and well in egypt, too.
@9 (panhandle):
to explain allahu akhbar as a “victory cry” (only) is a very common but unfortunate misconception. it means “god is greater” and fits many situations where a muslim assures him- or herself that the powers of the situation are inferior to god.
some people think that it means “god is great”. it’s wrong.
.~.
it means “god is greater” and fits many situations where a muslim assures him- or herself that the powers of the situation are inferior to god.
some people think that it means “god is great”. it’s wrong.
@#12: I knew that it was quite a common-use phrase, but I’ve never heard such a good explanation of how/why it fits so many situations. Thanks.
Thanks for the clarity on that. Many people also misconstrue the meanings of “jihad” and “fatwa”. I’m gonna guess that such things are at times intentionally muddied and miscommunicated. Not always, but enough.
“it means “god is greater” and fits many situations where a muslim assures him- or herself that the powers of the situation are inferior to god”
I put this to my Egyptian workmate and he replied that it is simply not true – he lived in Egypt for 15 years and repeated that the “Allahu Akhbar” cry is called out in a happy (victory) situation. They call this out when their soccer team scores a goal, for example.
the correct expression to use in this event would have been “la 7awl wala kuwait ela bellah” which means “we have no power but that of god”. This is what they say when its a sad occasion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takbir
“I put this to my Egyptian workmate and he replied that it is simply not true – he lived in Egypt for 15 years and repeated that the “Allahu Akhbar” cry is called out in a happy (victory) situation. They call this out when their soccer team scores a goal, for example.”
As the wikipedia article pointed out, “Allahu akbar” CAN be triumphant, but it could also be an expression of shock. Phrases like that are used for a range of different things–just like “Inshallah”, sometimes it means “yes, I’ll definitely be there/do that thing I’m saying I’ll do/etc.” and sometimes it means “yeah sure whatever”. The youtube video has one, maybe two voices shouting “Allahu akbar”, and we don’t know what they’re saying it about, what they mean, whatever. You made it sound like half the congregation was cheering the thing on, the video doesn’t show that at all.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be that surprised if the human shielders are representative of less than a plurality of Egyptian Muslims, but I doubt the rest have any strong anti-Christian convictions either. And this kind of public action is exactly how attitudes are changed.
American’s in Arizona: the Westboro Baptist Church is planing to picket the funerals of the shooting victims. It is now your turn to be a human shield and stop the hate in its tracks.
This. If I lived in the US, I’d be right fucking on that. A mass of supporters, silently shielding the funeral from view of the idiots and shielding the idiots from view of the funeral. This.
This is beautiful.
Egypt is also home to St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai.
How could a Christian monastery survive over 1000 years of Muslim rule? Because Muhammad said so.
Achtiname of Muhammad
Translation at iviews.com
These things can be worked out. The founders of these faiths knew it, too.
This is an inspiring and hopeful event. Thank you for posting it.
God bless the human shields of the world.
Yamara, thank you very much for posting the quote from Mohammed. It seems to me to be a very significant quote, a declaration, and is much appreciated.
My solution for world peace is that everyone should become atheist. It might not stop the violence but at least people would be forced to be honest about the reasons.
Anyway, it’s cool that they did this, at least it’s a bit of feel-good after following that Arizona shooting all day yesterday.
Cool. Just… cool.
Truly inspiring!
It’s these little tidbits of joy that keep me from losing all hope in humankind!
As a Canadian Christian who has Copt and Protestant friends in Cairo, this is a wonderful and beautiful act of solidarity. I hope and pray this will be a bridge building experience…
I wonder if any protesters in egypt are studying the 1986 people power revolution in the Philippines and the leader Cory Aquino. Would be nice for a few posters with Cory Aquino’s picture on it to be seen on the news
Dear panhandle (#20)
Not only is “extremist majority” an oxymoron, you are blatantly uninformed about Egypt and “muslim culture” too. There is no such thing as a “muslim culture”. If there would be one, the cultures of Indonesia, Somalia, Iran, Jordan and Egypt would all be the same. And clearly they’re not (but something tells me you have never visited any of the above mentioned countries).
There’s Egyptian culture, Indonesian culture and Iranian culture. The fact that the majority of the population adheres the islamic faith has some influence on that, but it’s in no way leading. Neither are the Dutch, US and Italian culture the same (where the majority of the population belongs to the christian faith).
Besides all of this, the fact that muslims and christians stand together against terrorism is awesome (the same happened in the Netherlands, where local muslims kept watch over kopt churches). You try to deviate from that by claiming the term “allahu akbar” was yelled, but again, this is total misconception on your part. It’s more of a common “wtf” phrase in such countries, than a “victory cry”. I’m fairly sure the “extremist majority” of the US would shout “oh my god!” when a mosque would be bombed. This has nothing to do with the victory cries, but all the more with simply: WTF?!
Well – as I pointed out – I’m just passing on what my Egyptian co-worker said to me about it. I don’t think you could call him blatantly uninformed. He has first hand experience of the daily persecution that goes on there.
I agree that it is awesome that they are standing together in this instance. Wasn’t trying to deviate.
I once said to a German friend of mine that I always seem to like Germans. He pointed out that I always seem to like Germans who left Germany and moved to San Francisco. Emigrés are not necessarily an unbiased source of information on their native countries.
Agreed Рin fact no-one is truly unbiased. Emigr̩s do bring a valuable perspective though.
Nonetheless, your co-worker isn’t misrepresenting the truth when he talks about the persecution of Copts. Although Copts have legal protection and certain political guarantees, they are definitely a social underclass in Egypt, and often the victims of violence and the targets of sectarian riots. Frequently, Muslim assailants are never tried, or else acquitted by criminal courts (despite the best efforts of state prosecutors). Meanwhile, the Coptic community is highly insular, extremely conservative, and mistrustful of the larger society — all elements that tend to exacerbate tension.
At the same time, the party line in Egypt is that there is no such thing as a Coptic problem, despite decades of growing persecution. (Copts, relatively wealthier at the time of the Free Officers’ revolution, found themselves targeted by Nasser’s economic reforms, but retained, and in some senses acquired, citizenship rights under the new government. The popularization of Islamist thought by anti-Nasser radicals and the use of Islam by Sadat and Mubarak have eroded much of the civil foundation that protected minorities in Egypt. The end result: a poorer and more vulnerable Coptic minority.) The sight of Copts protesting the government is quite a shock to many secular, sophisticated Egyptians, and is kicking off discussion about the problem.
And, yes, you *can* make a profitable comparison to being Muslim in America, especially if you’re Muslim in, say, Tennessee. No matter where you find it, bias and hate differs only in accent, not in result.
Pretty good is an understatement. This actually made me tear up. And I’m not a believer.
Even in the US today, it takes real courage to do something like this.
What Mindysan describes seems to be waiting in the wings here. It’ll probably be a while before we get to very many official executions, but disappearances aren’t too unlikely; all the feds have to do is declare the person a terrorist or “enemy combatant,” and they can put him or her away, no trial or PR required. If they want to take someone out anyway, well, the far right seems to be massing the armed vigilantes.
We even have a pretty good start on the controlled media, thanks to Faux News.
This human shield move is a beautiful, inspiring demonstration of heroic goodwill that deserves to shame the crap out of extremist fuckwits everywhere.
I don’t have huge hopes on that score though; it wasn’t even enough to prevent a rancorous pissing contest in this discussion about it.
People who attack People of the Book have no right to call themselves Muslims.
@26 (antinous):
thank you for pointing out the wikipedia article about takbir.
what a pity that wikipedia is not very elaborate on the concept of “elative”, as articles like this one can suggest to the curious reader.
i have discussed this matter with ordinary muslims and theologians alike, and it’s not simple.
let’s remind ourselves of what started our discussion about grammar and semantics: there were demonstrations of unity across religious borders in egypt. most of us agree that this is good news.
.~.
To everyone who doesn’t know shit. Saying Allah Wakbar just means god is great and Muslims say this throughout the day. Even during bad times. If my mother was to drop dead in front of me I’d say Allah Wakbar. By the way I am an Arab American Muslim.
Wonderful thing, indeed.
Maybe they learned about the Patriot Guards from the internet.
Now there’s an export to be proud of.