Mideast Christians struggle to hope in Arab Spring, some see no spring at all
Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks. Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo’s Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.
Since then, violent attacks on churches by Salafists — a radical Islamist movement once held in check by the region’s now weakened or toppled authoritarian regimes — have convinced Christians their lot has not really improved and could get worse.
“If things don’t change for the better, we’ll return to what was before, maybe even worse,” Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria Antonios Naguib said at a conference this week in Venice on the Arab Spring and Christian-Muslim relations. “But we hope that will not come about,” he told Reuters.
The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, feared the three-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spelled a bleak future for the 850,000 Christians there. “If there is a change of regime,” he said, “it’s the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq.”
In Egypt, where the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic minorities are under heavy pressure from Salafist Muslims, methods the state used to keep Christians in line before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled haven’t changed. When there is a conflict between a Muslim and a Christian, the police still have them hold a “reconciliation session” that usually ends in the Muslim’s favour, said participiants at the conference organised by the Oasis Foundation led by Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola.
Fr. Milad Sidky Zakhary, head of the Catholic Institute of Religious Sciences in Alexandria, said that laws proclaiming legal equality for all Egyptians are not enforced. “As a Christian, I must hope. But I must recognise that there has been no real progress,” he said. Referring to one of Venice’s best-known musicians, he added: “The great Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote the beautiful symphony The Four Seasons. For us Christians in Egypt, there are only three seasons. There is no spring.”
Losers all around in French Muslim council election
Even the winner risks ending up among the losers in France’s Muslim council election on Sunday as the organisation meant to represent Islam here is torn apart by rivalries, boycotts and bitter attacks. Incumbent Mohammed Moussaoui will be returned as head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), but a boycott by the two rival Muslim federations competing with his Rally of French Muslims (RMF) group makes the victory a hollow one.
The campaign has also fuelled the ethnic tensions crippling French Islam, which is split among factions backed by Algeria, Morocco and Turkey and others who oppose any meddling from the Muslim countries that they or their forefathers left behind.
“This CFCM will start off an empty shell and continue to run on empty,” Kamel Kabtane, rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon, told Lyon Capitale magazine after announcing he was boycotting the election. “It risks dying a quiet death.”
The curious voting method used, which allocates electoral college delegates to each federation according to the total floor space of its mosques around the country, was the reason Moussaoui’s rivals gave for the boycott.
“Faith has never been measured by the square metre,” declared Dalil Boubakeur, leader of the Algerian-backed Grand Mosque of Paris (GMP) federation and head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) from its start in 2003 until 2008. The third major federation, the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF) which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, urged a delay in the vote until the system could be reformed. But the government insisted it go ahead, so they also pulled out.
The broader reason for the boycott is that French Muslims of Moroccan origin, although fewer than those with an Algerian background, are generally more devout and — with encouragement from Rabat and Moussaoui’s RMF — are building more mosques.
Top Algerian Salafist’s fatwa says unrest is un-Islamic
The spiritual leader of Algeria’s influential Salafist movement has issued a 48-page fatwa, or religious decree, urging Muslims to ignore calls for change because he says that democracy is against Islam. The fatwa by Sheikh Abdelmalek Ramdani, who lives in Saudi Arabia, comes at an opportune time for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as Algerians watching protests in other Arab states have begun pushing their own political and economic demands.
“As long as the commander of the nation is a Muslim, you must obey and listen to him. Those who are against him are just seeking to replace him, and this is not licit,” Ramdani wrote in the fatwa obtained by Reuters. “During unrest, men and women are mixed, and this is illicit in our religion,” said Ramdani, who claims several hundred thousand followers here.
Algeria has been shaken since January by a wave of protest sparked by a spike in food prices. The opposition has made several attempts to march in Algiers for democracy, transparency and a change of leadership. Anxious to keep a wave of popular revolts in the Arab world from spreading to Algeria, the government has lifted a 19-year state of emergency and opened up state media to the opposition. It has also been paying out huge sums in subsidies, wage increases and interest-free loans to placate discontent.
Ramdani, who moved to Saudi Arabia after threats from radical Islamists, wrote in his “Fatwa on Unrest” that an observant Muslim can only “pray and be patient” when faced with an unwanted ruler.
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Algerian imams use regional unrest to press pay demands
When thousands of young Algerians rioted earlier this year over price rises and living conditions, the government asked state-employed Muslim clerics to preach sermons in the mosques appealing for calm. Now, two months later, the clerics themselves are protesting. “We are very angry, and our daily living conditions are bad,” said Hajaj El Hadj, an imam at a mosque near the capital for over 20 years. “We demand a significant pay rise.”
Algeria’s 100,000 imams have joined municipal police, students, doctors, legal clerks, chauffeurs and oil workers who are demanding better pay and conditions and are threatening strikes or protests if they do not get what they want. This phenomenon has come about, in part, because many Algerians realise there has never been a better time to have their grievances resolved.
The government, anxious to stop a wave of popular revolts in the Arab world spreading to Algeria, has been paying out huge sums in subsidies, wage increases and interest-free loans to placate discontent. But it is not without risks. The protests and strikes — which have so far been small, orderly and localised — could develop into something more unpredictable.
“There is a risk different sectors demanding a pay rise may unify their position and behave as one sector. If that happens it will add more pressure on the government,” said Mohamed Lagab, teacher of political sciences at Algiers university.
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Algeria hails its religious freedom, critics not so sure
A Catholic church that has been a landmark in Algeria’s capital for over a century has officially re-opened after restoration work, providing a symbol of religious tolerance in the mainly Muslim country. Algeria is emerging from a nearly two-decade-long Islamist insurgency, but the Catholic community has maintained a presence, even though several Christian clergymen have been among hundreds of thousands killed in the violence.
The Notre Dame d’Afrique basilica was built by French settlers in the late nineteenth century. An inscription running around the inside of the dome reads: “Our Lady of Africa, pray for us, and for the Muslims.”
“Religious freedom in Algeria is a reality,” Religious Affairs Minister Bouabdellah Ghlamallah told reporters after a ceremony to mark the completion of repair work on Monday. “Everybody has the right to practice their religion provided that the law is fully respected,” he said.
Some human rights groups have questioned the commitment of the government in Algeria, a French colony until independence in 1962, to religious tolerance. Local media reported on Monday that a court gave suspended prison sentences to four Algerian Protestants for opening a non-Muslim place of worship without government permission.
Beard guide and song ban among Salafist books barred in Algeria
(Photo: Customs officers inspect books purchased at an Islamic book fair in Algiers, searching for Salafist books, October 29, 2010/Zohra Bensemra)
Concerned by the growing influence of the ultra-conservative Salafist branch of Islam, Algeria has this year been cracking down on the import and distribution of Salafist literature. Salafist publications, most printed in Saudi Arabia, are still available in some specialist bookstores. See our feature on this crackdown here.
Following is a selection of titles on sale in a bookshop in Rouiba, an eastern suburb of the Algerian capital.
* “Islamic Songs, a bid’a“ by Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibn Nada El Otaibi.
This book explains that singing is illicit even when the song is religious. The book aims also to counter the Sufi school of Islam, which does not object to most forms of music.
* “How to answer El Albani’s opponents” by Sheikh Mekbel Ibn Hadi El Wadi’i.
Algeria targets Salafist books in battle with hardline Islam
Algeria is cracking down on imports of books preaching the ultra-conservative Salafist branch of Islam, officials and industry insiders say, in a step aimed at reining in the ideology’s growing influence.
Salafism is a school of Islam that has its roots in Saudi Arabia and emphasises religious purity. Its followers reject the trappings of modern life, including music, Western styles of dress and taking part in politics.
Algeria has for years turned a blind eye to Salafism, but recent shows of strength by its followers — including some Salafist clerics refusing to stand for the national anthem — have focussed official attention on the group.
Customs officers and officials from the ministries of religious affairs and culture have been given instructions to enforce more tightly an existing list of banned literature, and have been policing industry events where books are on sale.
“This year, instructions to pay attention to Salafist literature were tough,” Mohamed Mouloudi, a publisher and importer of religious books who opposes the Salafist school of Islam, told Reuters.
Algeria War wounds still bleed in French politics
Nearly 50 years after Algeria won independence from France, the unhealed wounds of the war of decolonisation keep wrenching at French society and could play a key role in the 2012 presidential election.
The unending Algerian trauma explains why France finds it so hard to integrate its large Muslim minority, why second and third generation Muslims of Maghreb origin born in France often feel alienated from their country of birth, and why politicians continue to find fertile ground in their quest for votes.
“There is an endless battle of memory, both within France and between the French and the Algerians,” said Benjamin Stora, the leading French historian of the Maghreb.
In the last few weeks, a law has come into force banning the wearing of the face-covering Islamic niqab veil in public, and parliament is debating a bill to strip recent immigrants of their French citizenship if they commit certain serious crimes.
Both measures were part of an offensive by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy to woo voters hostile to immigration, many of whom believe France has too many Arabs and Muslims.
Algerian court clears Christians of charge of flouting Ramadan by eating during day
Two Christian men on trial in Algeria for eating during daylight in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan were acquitted on Tuesday, a verdict their supporters said was a triumph for religious freedom.
The two men, members of Algeria’s small Protestant community, were charged with offending public morals for eating at the building site where they were working before the Ramadan fast had been broken for the day.
After the judge in the small town of Ain El-Hammam, about 150 km (93.21 miles) east of the Algerian capital, ruled they were innocent, a group of about seven Protestants standing on the steps of the courthouse shouted “Hallelujah!”
This article on Slate.fr says Algeria is clamping down on Muslims who do not fast during Ramadan. A local newspaper, Le Quotidien d’Oran, has an op-ed piece (from a writer in Paris) calling for the freedom to fast or not. A group called Mali in neighbouring Morocco has a Facebook page in French where it argues that human rights include the right to eat during Ramadan in a Muslim country.
In another Ramadan case, two women in Indonesia’s Aceh province were caned for selling food during daylight hours in the month.
Hardline Islam steps out of the shadows in Algeria
In a bookshop in an eastern suburb of the Algerian capital, visitors can stroll in off the street and pick up titles such as “Our fight against the West,” and “Jihad according to Salafist principles.”
After years of keeping a low public profile, Algerian Salafists — followers of an ultra-conservative brand of Islam — are becoming bolder, laying down a challenge to a state that is firmly secular and fighting a lingering Islamist insurgency.
Most Salafists in Algeria have never been involved in the violent conflict that convulsed the country from the early 1990s, and in fact many cooperated with the government to persuade the insurgents to lay down their arms.
They do not seek overt political influence, partly because their beliefs forbid it. But they are starting to exert a growing influence over society and how people dress, deal with the state and do business.
“They are mobilizing and influencing the whole of society in a very negative way … the movement acts in parallel to the state and the society,” political analyst Mahmoud Belhimer told Reuters.
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