Settlement and separation

The Abu Fana Monastery saga is finally resolved. But at what cost, asks Gamal Nkrumah
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A settlement of the Abu Fana Monastery land dispute, based on the ruling of an ad-hoc committee, was reached this week. The Coptic Orthodox Church relinquished 95 feddans (25 of cultivated land within the grounds of the Abu Fana Monastery and 70 of fallow land in the vicinity of the monastery), grudgingly, according to some Coptic clergy and laity. Moreover, a separating wall surrounding the monastery has been erected.

The ad-hoc committee established by the authorities to resolve the dispute was headed by Minya Governor Ahmed Diaaeddin and included leading Muslims and Copts such as Minya MP Alaa Hassanein and Mallawi businessman Eid Labib, as well as representatives of the monastery and of the Bedouin Arabs involved in the land dispute.


"Everything is now settled and everyone is content," Hassanein told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Christians and Muslims live side by side in peace and harmony."

Speaking from the site of the disputed land, Hassanein explained that with the erection of the separation wall the monks would feel more secure as they carried out their activities.

Whether that will satisfy the firebrand politicians, both Coptic and Muslims, at home and abroad, who aimed to make political capital out of the unfortunate incident, remains unclear. Certainly the spat over Abu Fana has left some Copts embittered.

The fracas over the monastery erupted on 31 May when four Copts, including two monks, were injured. Sectarian tension has long been pronounced in Upper Egypt, especially in areas such as Minya governorate, and its Mallawi district, where Abu Fana Monastery is located and where Copts are concentrated geographically.

As the fallout from the Abu Fana dispute settles, the Coptic community is assessing the conditions and challenges facing Egypt's Orthodox Christians. The Coptic Ecclesiastical Council has issued a statement urging President Hosni Mubarak to prevent "armed attacks on monks and Coptic clergy" and to stop "insults to the cross".

Some Copts complain the agreement is another example of the church having to bend over backwards to accommodate the dictates and whims of the Muslim majority.

"I am optimistic. But I must stress that this is not a land dispute. The media downplayed the seriousness and the implications of the conflict. It is partly a complex question of property taxes that concerns the Minya governorate and the municipal authorities in question," says Samia Sidhom, managing editor of the Coptic independent weekly Watani.

"The Abu Fana Monastery was not defended. The monks were at the mercy of the Bedouin Arab tribesmen, some of whom act as police informants and undercover security agents. In the past three years there have been 18 attacks on the monastery and the police have done absolutely nothing."

"Tuesday's settlement was a step in the right direction. We do not want the media and the judiciary to treat this as an issue involving Muslims and Christians. We want it to be viewed as a criminal matter, concerning outlaws and their innocent victims," Youssef Sidhom, editor-in- chief of Watani and a member of the Milli (laymen) Council, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Why, he asked, are no charges being pressed: "How can this be when three monks were kidnapped and tortured in the desert by Bedouins?"

Abu Fana monks point out that while the nearest police station is just 2km from the monastery, it took the police three hours to arrive at the bloody scene in May.

Some members of the Coptic clergy argue that the Abu Fana incident was a clear case of the persecution of Copts and not a land dispute. They claim that the ad-hoc committee has effectively legalised the confiscation of most of the land traditionally and painstakingly cultivated by the monks, reducing the holdings of the monastery from 2,000 feddans to just over 500. Yet the authorities in Minya insist that monks were cultivating land that was not legally Church property.

The area over which the Church had legal title, including the grounds of Abu Fana Monastery, land consecrated as cemeteries and ancient burial grounds and land surrounding the monastery, totalled 600 feddans. After the agreement the church now officially owns 505 feddans.

Émigré Copts in particular have been incensed. Egypt's Coptic laity, however, believe their interests will be compromised if expatriate Copts step up their demonstrations and have urged restraint.

The physical attacks by the Bedouin Arab tribesmen sent shock waves through segments of the Coptic community. According to Coptic clergy in Cairo who claimed to witness the fracas, the attacks included the wanton destruction of altars and the burning of Bibles. Some monks were forced to recite the shahada (the profession of the Muslim faith which entails recounting: There is no God but Allah and Mohamed is His Prophet).

Egypt faces a hard slog if it is to heal the religious rifts of the past. One key personality in this healing process is Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church who earlier this year underwent an operation at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, to repair his left femur, broken after a fall in his Cairo residence. Pope Shenouda is following developments concerning Abu Fana closely. He was instrumental in reaching the agreement and he insisted on compromise.

The 117th successor to Saint Mark, the legendary founder of the Coptic Church, has long been seen as an intermediary between the Coptic community and the Egyptian state. He ascended the Coptic throne in 1971. After being banished to a monastery by the late president Anwar El-Sadat he was released by President Hosni Mubarak in 1982 since when Mubarak and Shenouda have enjoyed a cordial working relationship. Shenouda apparently capitalised on his friendship with Mubarak to clinch the deal over the Abu Fana Monastery. He also acceded to the construction of a separating wall that would enclose the Abu Fana Monastery and its adjacent cultivated and fallow land. Some rights activists see the wall as a tangible symbol of the physical separation of Christians and Muslims in the vicinity while others regard it as a necessary evil, a protection for Copts against the marauding Bedouin tribesmen.

The head of the Ecclesiastical Council Anba Bishoi, a prospective successor to Pope Shenouda, reiterated the church's position that it would abide by the ruling of the ad-hoc committee set up by the government to investigate the Abu Fana incident and seek a lasting solution. Widely thought to be a hardliner eager to appease the more uncompromising Copts, it is a charge Anba Bishoi hotly denies.

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