Before pointing fingers

in «Politics & Human Rights» by moftasa

Warning! This post is very old and may contain information or opinions that are no longer valid or embarrassing.

Two deplorable acts of violence occurred in the past two or three days against a priest who was stabbed to death in Assiut and a house owned by a Bahaai family was set alight in Sohag. The details of both events are still not known, yet people started to point blame.

This time blame is pointed to state security, Mubarak or his remaining actors. Although, this is a legitimate hypothesis and needs to be taken into account, there is still no evidence, not even a story describing what allegedly happened. The reason people think that SS or Mubarak may be responsible is the fear that he may be trying to use the dirty card of sectarianism to divide people. And to make the people worried the most about this revolution, Coptic Christians, react against it.

As far as I understand they are worried that the Muslim majority population will rally around Muslim Brotherhood or other groups that endorses an Islamic ideology and force it upon them. Again, a very legitimate concern that worries me too.

Christian and a Muslim woman in full face veil protesting while a police station near by was shooting live ammunition on protesters by Sarah Carr, on Flickr

A Christian woman and Muslim one in full face veil protesting while a police station near by was shooting live ammunition on protesters on the 28th of January.Photo by Sarah Carr

In the past few weeks Egyptians of different faiths have displayed unbelievable shows of sympathy towards each other. Muslims showing support outside churches during Christmas and Christians protecting praying Muslims in Tahrir square. Both were one against terror and tyranny.

Violent acts like these invoke powerful emotions. And I'm certain that both terrorism and tyranny are powerless in front of a nation standing firm and united. Although, often this unity is blown out of proportions by the media. And is used to gloss over a real and important social divide between Copts and Muslims, that isn't necessarily always violent.

We need to cross this stage and start to move a step forward. We need before accusing anyone in a knee jerk reaction realise that we are past the idea of being fragile. The entire vicious police force was brought to its knees in one day and the paramilitary thugs of Mubarak and his cronies where crushed after a 26 hours battle. We need to eliminate the fear that one day sectarian violence will escalate to the extent of a genocide or civil war. It won't happen.

What we should be doing now is demand a high standard investigation of those two incidents. We need evidence. The forensic doctors who buried the truth with Khaled Said with shoddy reports should be removed.

We should no longer allow the police to round up random suspects and torture them to confess a crime they never did. We shouldn't accept a prosecution that doesn't really care about what it is investigating, lacks independence and transparency.

The bombers of the Alexandrian church are still unknown. There is a complaint that allegedly former minister of interior is behind it. A serious allegation but I haven't seen or heard of convincing evidence. People already are believing this and building on it further theories.

Not defending anyone. Mubarak has blood on his hands for what happened in his gulag over 30 years and the past few weeks since Jan 25.

But we need evidence because if the perpetrator isn't Mubarak or his state security then we are in trouble and who ever did this will get away with his crime while we are busy calling for uniting a country that is already united, specially in time of crises.

Reason should be integral to the spirit of this revolution. Truth and our heads shouldn't be buried again.

Comments

  • Ranwa Yehia

    Posted on - 🔗

    totally agree. the one positive development I see is that every single violation is now being widely known and discussed also in mainstream media - albeit not yet to the standards of freedom and value system and justice achieved and called for by the revolution. this kind of discussion you present above needs to become the standard of discussion all over. everyone all over the country is going through a process of political awakening and craving to read/listen/see/know this kind of discourse. we need an arabic version of this btw to spread widely.

  • Mohamed Khalil

    Posted on - 🔗

    I like this a lot "uniting a country that is already united", that is what people do not understand, they fear protestors going out because they fear a divison between people, fear the MB for fear of a break up between people and they fear SS's methods being divisive to the people. But, the country "is already united". Kalam gameel geddan!

  • Abouzeid

    Posted on - 🔗

    It is surely Mubarak thugs, they are the only beneficiaries of accusing Muslim Brotherhood of such incidents (if are real) ... we should work hard to stick to our values and our common ground before being distracted by side incidents

  • moftasa

    Posted on - 🔗

    نفس التدوينة بالعربي http://moftasa.net/node/2694