What Gets Lost in Translation: An Analysis of Political Discourse and the Periphery in Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone Yasmeen Atassi

What Gets Lost in Translation: An Analysis of Political Discourse and the Periphery in Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone By: Yasmeen Atassi

With tragedy abruptly setting the tone of the novel, For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri portrays a jarring personal narrative focused not on creating the perception of idealized nationhood and national struggle, but instead on Choukri’s experience of its shortcomings. Much like other popular works of Arabic literature, For Bread Alone, or Al-Khubz Al-Hafi, was made accessible to the Western literary sphere through an English translation, but unlike other Arabic novels, this novel was published in English translation before publication in Arabic. Through the tragic first-person narrative of Mohamed Choukri, For Bread Alone exposes the horrific realities of poverty and social marginality in Morocco under the Spanish Protectorate and challenges assumptions about political dispositions by representing the narrator’s forced social ignorance. For Bread Alone further demonstrates the problematic nature of these assumptions through the implications of the novel’s English translation, as compared to the authentic narrative of Mohamed Choukri. The expression of personal narrative in the popularized English edition of Choukri’ s For Bread Alone passes through a filter of translation that is, consequently, heavily informed by the Orientalist expectations of its translator, Paul Bowles. The significance of Bowles’s contributions to the novel lies largely in his cultural and scholarly predispositions as an American author and translator who dedicated most of his life and work to Tangiers. His motivations in bringing Choukri’s narrative to English-reading readers, consequently, produces a story meant for an English-reading audience. By exploring the process of translation, the dichotomy between the meaning embedded by the author, and the meaning—or presumption—superimposed by the translation becomes obvious and cannot be ignored in a holistic and intersectional critique of the novel’s translation. Though the overarching sentiment of unglorified struggle is present throughout Choukri’s narrative, the voice through which these sentiments are portrayed and, therefore, the motive that inspires them, are adjusted to reconfigure the dynamics of power. The language of struggle and pain, and frank grotesqueness, carries the potential to elevate the reality of poverty at the fringe of Moroccan society. Through the work he puts forward in For Bread Alone as well as his testimonies in The View from Within, Choukri testifies that this rather fervent narration was not told in vain, but rather in a deliberate effort to create a space for the unwelcome and the indigestible.1 It is through his narrative as a socially detached individual throughout his childhood and early adolescence that he critiques Moroccan society and the political irresponsibility that created his circumstances.

For Bread Alone emerges from both the oral tradition, and Mohamed Choukri’s narration of his personal memoirs to the translator Paul Bowles.2 Given the unique and complex process of its first transcription, For Bread Alone has literary and—most importantly—cultural significance in its process of publication and popularization. Between the difficulty presented by the multiple linguistic passages that the novel initially underwent and the positionality of the translator, For Bread Alone faced many challenges in how the translation was conceptualized and produced. Given these challenges, the narrative of struggle is portrayed differently by Paul Bowles than the original Moroccan text because of Bowles’ conceptualization of the novel was formulated through his preconceived notions about the illiteracy of Moroccan society. In the introduction of For Bread Alone, Bowles highlights the “beautiful illiteracy” which he believes to be instrumental to the raw emotional appeal of the novel.3 He implies that this illiteracy in itself allows for a narrative like this to emerge, as illiterates, “not having learned to classify what goes into [their] mind, remember everything.”4 As Bowles brings his fascination with “illiteracy” to the experiences of an adolescent Choukri, the tone of the novel shifts from being heartwrenching, to critical. As Choukri bares his most vulnerable experiences to the readers for the sake of political commentary, Bowles’s fascination with an Orientalist portrayal of the subaltern creates a narrative that no longer reproduces to Choukri’s central purpose of unglorification.5 At the outset of the novel, Choukri lives

his formative years as a frequently displaced, abused and neglected child who eventually escapes home and essentially lives as an orphan at his own will.6 The series of unfortunate events that Choukri survives—presented to the readers in a precarious sense as one tragedy befalls him after then next—give rise to minute instances of self-reflection that are consequently expanded in the novel. Choukri reflects primarily on the state of affairs that, out of his control, have resulted in his pitiful situation. Choukri shows this keen awareness and misery because of his familial misfortunes when he says to himself, “Why does my father go to prison, and my mother sells vegetables, leaving me alone with nothing to eat, when this man stays at home with his wife? Why can’t we have what other people have?”7 These musings indicate a larger theme of autonomy that Choukri aims to capture and portray in his novel. It is through these brief moments of introspection that Choukri portrays his early awareness of the gravity and dreadfulness of his circumstances compared to others around him in society. In those formative years of his childhood and early adolescence, Choukri delivers his critique of the societal failures that have trapped him and those like him: the narrator’s periodic moments of self-reflection point to a larger political argument, embedded in his critique of his circumstances.. As a former ‘illiterate’ far removed from the sphere of political discourse, his narration of his experience on the socio-economic national periphery speaks heavily to structural failures in the national discourse. The awareness that Choukri personifies in his autobiographical novel shows that the pain and suffering that is so central to the novel’s realism are deliberately used to superimpose these self-reflections. It is the use of these sordid scenes throughout the novel that becomes a point of contention when the intentions of the translation come up. A full understanding of the novel’s significance as a seminal work of Arabic realist literature warrants a critical analysis of the translation itself, as well as the message to which Choukri dedicates his narrative. Bowles’s literary predispositions and ethnographic idealizations of a ‘primitive ’ Morocco obscure Choukri’ s message in the novel and use narratives idealizing the “third world” to push his own agenda onto the novel.8 This idealization fits into Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism as it highlights the chaotic and disorderly aspects of this particular Arab society, and presents it through a romantic lens that places the onus of misfortune onto a people’s own nature rather than on external despotic forces.9 The romanticization of illiteracy, and of the people and nations of the “third world”, as previously mentioned, portrays a major barrier to the protagonist as an endearing trait that adds character to the narrative. Through this lens, Bowles mischaracterizes an individual’s misfortunes in order to fulfill his own vision of Moroccan charm. He does not use his power of translation to portray the reality of the subaltern of Morocco, but rather further idealizes this image of illiteracy and passive oblivion and uses it to inform the privilege of political detachment of the West. Bowles takes away the explanations and regret of the grotesque and instead replaces it with futile and dehumanizing feelings of sexual pleasures and vindication. A comparison between the Arabic and English translation of one of the central scenes of the novel demonstrate this exact detachment from internalized regret or humiliation as a crucial sentence seems to have gotten lost in the English translation. In the Arabic publication of For Bread Alone, Choukri explicitly expresses the overbearing desire to cry after he inadvertently prostitutes himself to the ‘maricone’ in the luxury car. 10 Though a small omission, the choice to overlook this overpowering emotion in Choukri’s narrative represents Bowles’ Orientalist perception of these sexual encounters. In addition to this omission, Bowles seems to have added a small sentiment of affirmation that contradicts the feelings of disgust reflected by the Arabic narration. “Are all the ‘maricones’ as nice as he was?” Choukri seems to ask himself in Bowles’s translation of the incident.11 At the end of the same incident in the Arabic narrative, Choukri instead asks himself, “Do they [maricones] all enjoy sucking as well”?12 Filled with self-loathing and a flurry of emotions that can only be labelled as sexual confusion, Choukri’s perception of the situation through an Arabic narration reflects suffering whereas Bowles’ translation reflects autonomy. Choukri directly addresses this use of explicit imagery in The View from Within by stating that he depicts these, “immoral scenes to search for morality and ideals”; the purpose of such imagery is to show that there is no pleasure in the awareness of immorality and that, “they do not rejoice in their corruption as they are compelled to act corruptly under the strain of disgraceful social oppression.”13 The author’s own words highlight that there is no benefit to the censorship that the novel eventually suffered when published in Arabic: he shows that each detailed moment is essential to grasping the full image of the lives of the Moroccan underclass. Choukri’s testimony in For Bread Alone, when compared to the Bowles’s narrative, serves as a cautionary tale about how damaging relishing immorality for the sake of it can be to a portrait painstakingly painted by grueling personal experience.

The translation of For Bread Alone by Paul Bowles shifts the narrative of the novel from a political critique of the faults of Moroccan society to a socially detached personal narrative that chronicles the personal downfalls of the narrator rather. Bowles’ translation thus also fails to situate the narrator in the broader political sphere that defines the post-colonial Arabic novel. By personifying the struggles of Choukri and posing them as personal shortcoming or products of circumstance, Bowles erases the structural forces that dictate the narrator’s existence, and instead replaces them with a sense of unconcerned melancholy that governs the narrator’s life. Although Choukri articulates the cruciality of political underpinnings, Bowles’ translation renders the political as minor oversights. The critical difference in both authors’ literary obligations is most apparent in their placement of political responsibility. While Bowles’ portrayal holds the narrator himself and the “community” he is part of liable, Choukri’s portrayal of family and community life shows that communal engagement is almost obsolete. Mohamed Choukri distances himself from the political sphere and climate at the time of his childhood, during the French and Spanish Protectorates in Morocco, to highlight the social imbalances that act as barriers to the romanticized political involvement. Choukri’s place in society does not allow him to participate in the fight for nationhood or unity against the oppression of the Protectorate because, according to him, these colonial powers are not the only ones responsible for his victimhood. Ignorance about political upheavals in Morocco at the time of the novel is most evident during Choukri’s narration of the events unfolding on the proposed ending date of the Protectorate – what is described in the Arabic version as the “fateful” day.14 In this chapter, Choukri emphasizes the dialogue that informs him about the presumed importance of that day and contrasts it with the ease with which Choukri dismisses the reality of the Protectorate he exists under This section demonstrates that a lack of awareness about political issues under the colonial Protectorate –rather than the absence of Spanish influence – has produced an apathetic response on the part of the Moroccan body to looming colonial authority. word choice and narrative tone affect the novel’s message, For Bread Alone by Muhammad Choukri, translated by Paul Bowles, demonstrates the significance of nuances in language in constructing a politicized and realist narrative.

Notes

Ferial Jabouri Ghazoul and Barbara Harlow, The View from within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature: a Selection from Alif: Journal of Contemporary Poetics, (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1994), 223. 2 Nirvana Tanoukhi, “Rewriting Political Commitment for an International Canon: Paul Bowles’s For Bread Alone as Translation of Mohamed Choukri’s Al-Khubz Al-Hafi,” Research in African Literatures 34, 2 (2003): 129. 3 Tanoukhi, “Rewriting Political Commitment:” 134. 4 Mohamed Choukri, For Bread Alone 2nd edition, trans. Paul Bowles.(London: Telegram, 2006). 5. 5 Subaltern here refers to the colonial communities that are socially and politically removed from the hierarchies of power. The notion of the subaltern emerges from the postcolonial theories such as those posed by Antonio Gramsci and explored by intellectuals such as Edward Said.

6 Choukri, For Bread Alone, 56 7 Choukri, For Bread Alone, 21.

8 Tanoukhi, “Rewriting Political Commitment:” 130. See Tanoukhi for more details. 9 Edward W. Said, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage Books,1994.). 10 Mohamed Choukri, Al-Khubz Al-Hafi 6th edition, (Beirut: Dar Al-Saki, 2000), 107. 11 Choukri, For Bread Alone, 99. 12 Choukri, Al-Khubz Al-Hafi, 107. 13 Ghazoul and Harlow, The View from within, 222. 14 Choukri, Al-Khubz Al-Hafi, 119.

Choukri’s dedication of his personal narrative to the outcry against social and political structural failures in Morocco unearths the importance of realism in Arabic postcolonial literature. Though the novel For Bread Alone serves as a standing symbol for nuanced Arab political commentary, a close analysis of the translation speaks to the significance of the novel beyond the scope of its literal content. By analyzing how discrepancies in

Choukri, Mohamed. Al-Khubz Al-Hafi 6th edition. Beirut: Dar Al-Saki, 2000. Choukri, Mohamed. For Bread Alone 2nd edition. Translated by Paul Bowles. London: Telegram, 2006. Ghazoul, Ferial J., and Harlow, Barbara. The View from within: Writers and Critics on Contemporary Arabic Literature. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1994. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. 1994. Tanoukhi, Nirvana. “Rewriting Political Commitment for an International Canon: Paul Bowles’s For Bread Alone as Translation of Mohamed Choukri’s Al-Khubz Al-Hafi.” Research in African Literatures 34, 2 (2003): 127–44.

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The Copts and Egyptian National Identity From the 1919 Revolution to the Early Mubarak Period By: Lara Hovagimian

This paper studies how Egypt’s changing national identities affected Copt-state-Church relations. It examines how the evolving character of Egyptian national identity affected the state’s Coptic community and its identification with the Egyptian nation-state. It considers the various ways in which Coptic identity was marginalized and illustrates how various Egyptian regimes isolated the Copts from the Egyptian state from 1919 to the early Mubarak era. The paper also examines how the Egyptian state’s “national unity” narrative hindered Coptic integration in the Egyptian nation. It illustrates how the rhetoric of “national unity” turned any discussion of anti-Coptic discrimination into a taboo, and thus left Coptic concerns largely unaddressed. The paper argues that the emergence and sustainment of a distinct Coptic identity was a response to the state’s marginalization of Coptic identity, exclusion from national narratives about the Egyptian nation, and the creation and sustainment of the neo-millet partnership between the Coptic Church and the state during the Nasser and Mubarak periods.

1919 Revolution and the Birth of National Unity Rhetoric

Both the colonial and nationalist models of social order promised the Copts a higher status in Egypt after centuries of dhimmi status. On one hand, colonial society broke the legacy of Muslim dominance in Egypt. However, it also placed barriers to the advancement of all indigenous Egyptians.1 Coptic advancement was blocked by the predominance of the old Turkish elite and the influx of Syrians – many of whom were Christians – and by Europeans. After 1882, the British “damage[ed] Coptic interests by favouring Muslims in order to buy political credit with the khedive and the Ottomans.”2 Most educated Copts thus supported the Urabi movement and its slogan, “Egypt for the Egyptians.” However, many remained reluctant to fully embrace the nationalist cause: they appear to have been alarmed by the rhetoric of holy war against the British “infidel” that the nationalists adopted after the British bombardment of Alexandria in 1882.3 On a popular level, some Muslims often did not distinguish between anticolonial and anti-Christian sentiment.4 Many Copts thus questioned whether a nationalist state would accept them as equals. This concern was expressed in the two Coptic-held newspapers, al-Watan and Misr, where some (usually urbanized) Copts articulated nuanced support for the British occupation of Egypt until 1919. They argued that the dominance of a Christian foreign power was preferable to Muslim rule.5 These arguments, as well as a popular belief that European colonialists favoured Christians, helped lead many Muslim nationalists of the National Party and the Constitutional Reform Party to conclude that the Copts served British colonial interests. Copts were denounced and portrayed as traitors in many Muslimrun newspapers, such as Mustafa Kamil’s pro-Ottoman Liwa. 6 Some even accused the Copts of trying to build a separate nation and planning to take over the Egyptian government with the help of the British.7 The accusation that the Copts were working with foreign governments to undermine Egyptian sovereignty would continue to haunt the Coptic community in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly during the Sadat era.8

While some Copts were clearly on a collision course with the nationalist movement, others joined it. Prominent Coptic notables such as Wisa Wasif and Wasif Butrus Ghali refused to attend the Coptic Congress, and instead met with Muslim leaders at the Egyptian Congress in May 1911 to demonstrate unity and discuss national issues.9 In the beginning, the antagonism between Egyptian territorial nationalism or Egyptianism, and Ottoman-Islamic nationalism was a hindrance to Coptic integration in the nationalist movement. However, the September 1911 Italian invasion of Tripoli helped ignite an inclusive struggle for independence that overlooked the differences between Copts and Muslims.10 By 1919, the growing unpopularity of British imperialism, the pronounced Turkish nationalist character of the Ottoman government, and the demise of the Ottoman Empire helped Egyptianism gain leverage over the Ottomanist or pan-Islamist alternatives. The 1919 Revolution, a pan-Egyptian popular revolt against British colonial authority, was deemed a triumph for Egyptianism and became a symbol of national unity. Its slogan, “Religion belongs to God and the Nation belongs to everyone”, and its famous logo of a crescent embracing a cross continue to shape the public representation of Muslims and Copts in conte-

-mporary Egypt.11 The idea of Egyptians as a “single and unique race” gained popular support during the 1919 Revolution.12 The revolution has remained a significant marker for the articulation of a uniquely “Egyptian” national identity, marked by MuslimChristian cooperation. This show of national unity remained a pillar in the definition of “Egyptianness” in the Egyptian national imagination.13 The national unity discourse of the 1919 Revolution sought to create a “nation” where one had previously not existed. However, in many ways, Egyptian national unity was a tree without roots. While the 1919 Revolution and the Wafd Party seemed to provide a formula for bridging differences due to religious affiliation through promises of brotherly cooperation and anticolonial solidarity, the place of religion and religious communities within this formula remained undefined. The new nation-state had no program for the social and legal implementation of equality between Muslims and Copts. In fact, the Wafd denied that inequality between Muslims and Copts even existed: it preached the unity of the nation in an effort to counter British attacks that it was not representative of the Egyptian people.14 This “emphatic denial of the significance of religious differences, even if they continued to exist in legal, institutional, and social terms… [thus became] a matter of dogma.”15 Dogma was then used to make the discussion of Coptic grievances seem taboo and “un-Egyptian.” “National unity” was portrayed as a necessary pillar of Egyptian identity. The Coptic members of the Wafd thus largely embraced a homogenizing nationalist outlook.16 They rejected the notion of the Copts as a “minority” as defined by international law in order to prevent the British government from claiming jurisdiction over the Copts and other Christian minorities, as it had done in other Middle Eastern states.17 Claiming “minority” status for the Copts would be seen as an invitation for the British to act on behalf of the Copts, British involvement would threaten Coptic Wafdist leaders’ power as it would place their nationalist credentials into question and make them seem like British stooges.18 As a result, most members of the Coptic elite ignored the sectarian issues that emerged after 1923 – after all, they enjoyed substantial freedom and equality following the 1919 Revolution. Traditional boundaries between Muslims and Copts thus remained resilient for the vast majority of Copts, leading many of them to feel betrayed by the nationalist movement.19 The apprehension of exacerbating Muslim-Copt relations by publicly discussing them clearly made it impossible for the “Coptic Question” to be fully addressed.20 The liberal democrat-ic experiment in Egypt was almost stillborn, and the territorial conception of Egyptian national identity was immediately contested in the interwar period. King Fouad expressed hatred towards the leaders of the Wafd Party as he suspected them of harbouring republican sentiments. He violated Egypt’s constitutional life and kept the Wafd out of power, despite its popular mandate, by cooperating with the British.21 As a result of his actions, “Liberalism as an ideology and political system was discredited by the deficiencies and contradictions of the constitutional monarchy under the shadow of colonialism and its failure to address growing social unrest.”22 The inability of the Wafd to grapple with increasing unemployment and poverty exacerbated Egyptians’ disenchantment with the party. Large numbers of Egyptians became disillusioned with democracy and turned away from the Wafd Party, gravitating towards new religious and semi-religious groupings like the Muslim Brotherhood, Shabab Muhamed, and Young Egypt. These groups’ ideologies included a strong anti-Christian element: they were opposed to the emancipation of Copts from their former status as dhimmis. The Liberal Constitutionalist Party exploited this climate of fanaticism for its own political gain. Liberal Constitutionalist leaders accused the Wafdist Copts of trying to sabotage the second treaty of independence that was being negotiating, and insinuated that there was a Coptic conspiracy to rule Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood further exacerbated Muslim-Christian hostilities by criticizing the Wafd – whose leaders consisted of both Muslims and Copts – as anti-Islamic. Their rhetoric increased sectarian violence in Egypt, resulting in the stoning of churches, the destruction of schools, the beating of priests, and the disruption of Christian religious processions.23 Nevertheless, Coptic Wafd members did not question Egyptian national unity or the existence of a single Egyptian nation, as they would have been seen to be collaborating with foreign powers.24

Growing Islamization and the Rise of “Coptism”

Relations between the Coptic and Muslim elites slowly began to deteriorate with the rise of Islamic revivalism in the interwar period. Coptic Wafdist politicians initially refused to accept the term “minority” to describe the Coptic community for details previously outlined. Until after the signing of the 1936 Treaty of Independence, all the Coptic Wafdist politicians maintained their 1922 stance of objecting to the minority protection clause in the constitution. However, the growth of Muslim belligerence in the interwar period and the 1940s led some Coptic elites to reconsider their

previous stance.25 In 1946, the Coptic newspaper Misr, which had always been Wafdist, demanded that the new Anglo-Egyptian treaty then under negotiation include a clause clearly guaranteeing equality to Egypt’s minorities.26 This directly contrasted from what the editor of Misr, Salama Musa, had written in the newspaper al-Akbar in 1922 when a similar clause was under discussion: “Let Tewfik Dos know that the Copts prefer to sustain all the sufferings he fears… rather than to record in Egypt’s constitution… that which makes them look like foreigners… and impute to their compatriots the charge of fanaticism.”27

Islamic revivalism thus clearly weakened the “national unity” discourse propagated during the 1919 Revolution. It redefined Egyptian national identity in Islamic terms, excluding the Copts and other non-Muslims from the Egyptian nation. This led to the rise of “Coptism” and Coptic revivalist parties in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. For example, the Coptic Nation, which was founded in 1952, was created as a mirror image of the Muslim Brotherhood. The party modeled its slogans on those of the Muslim Brotherhood, trained paramilitary units, and propagated Coptic Egyptianism as a counteridentity to revivalist Islam. The Coptic Nation and similar parties were banned by Nasser when he banned all Egyptian political parties in 1954. From the 1950s on, the Coptic revival movement became part of the Coptic Church establishment.28 Through the “Sunday School Movement”, Coptic youth became increasingly aware of their unique heritage: they “rediscovered” a glorious past and sought to revive it. 29 By 1963, the Coptic Sunday School Movement had reached one million students between the ages of five and sixteen through 4000 branches and 5000 teachers.30 Such programs reinforced the notion of a distinctive Coptic identity. For example, many young Copts became exposed to ideas articulated in Yaqub Nakhla Rufila’s Tarikh al-Umma al-Qibtiyya, which established the pattern for nearly all subsequent works on modern Coptic history. In his pioneering work in Coptic historiography, Rufila described the Copts as a “race.” and traced Coptic history from the Tower of Babel and the “Pharaonic state” to the Persian, Greek, Roman and Muslim invasions and “occupations” of Egypt, until the nineteenth-century “return to existence of the “Coptic nation.”31 This did not mean that Copts no longer identified as “Egyptian”: on the contrary, the Coptic identity was perceived to be the “authentic” Egyptian identity, as it was “untainted” by Arab or Muslim blood. The Coptic religious revivalist movement of the interwar period formed the basis of modern Coptic identity.32

Nasser, the Politicization of the Coptic Church, and the Arabization of Egyptian Identity

President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s repression of civil society groups further suppressed public debates about Coptic concerns: “the crushing dominance of a rather sterile and dogmatic discourse of national unity, [deepened] the tendencies already present in the liberal era.”33 By abolishing liberal institutions like the Parliament in which the Coptic lay elite held significant power, Nasser weakened the Christian secular aristocracy, and instead politicized the Coptic Church. Nasser also greatly weakened the Communal Council. His land reform decree authorized the Agrarian Reform Authority to confiscate all church holdings beyond 200 feddans; he placed the remaining land in the hands of a new body, the Coptic Orthodox Waqf Organization, whose members were to be chosen by the Coptic Pope. This deprived the Communal Council of its financial control and expanded the Church’s power by default.34 Pope Kirollos VI further politicized the Church by modeling the Church’s interactions with the state on that of his predecessors during the millet era. He developed a “millet partnership” with Nasser, setting a precedent for Copt-state relations that has lasted – albeit with greater strains – until the present day. Pope Kirollos presented the concerns of the Coptic community directly to President Nasser and promoted loyalty to the regime among the Copts.35 He instrumentalized the teachings of Christianity to promote Nasser’s Arab Socialism:

The church has a right to guide its sons towards what is beneficial for them in religious and social matters. And it has a right to exhort them and inform them about their spiritual and moral duties. To serve the fatherland is first and foremost a spiritual duty. The person who lives for himself is an egotistical human being. And our religion denies us selfishness, individualism, isolationism, and passivity. Our religion enjoins us to participate in building society in an active and effective way…The Bible says: “Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being” (1 Corinthians 10:24) and “Be of the same mind toward one another.” (Romans 12:16).36

In exchange for Pope Kirollos’s loyalty, Nasser pledged to guarantee the security of the Coptic community and acknowledge the status of the Pope as the Copts’ legitimate representative and spokesperson.37 The Church thus became the sole representative of Copts in Egypt

– and “religious affiliation became the Copts’ main marker, not their citizenship.”38 The state has since tried to control the Copts primarily as a separate sectarian group rather than as Egyptian citizens. Political sectarianism in Egypt and the confessionalization of Coptic identity can therefore be understood as a by-product of authoritarian corporatism.39

Nasser’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, introduction of top-down single-party politics, creation of an elaborate security apparatus, strict control of the media, and establishment of a secular official ideology facilitated the temporary disappearance of sectarian tensions which had begun to resurface during the last years of the monarchy.40 However, Nasser’s efforts to unite the nation using pan-Arabist rhetoric were not always embraced by the Coptic intelligentsia or the population at large.41 Most Copts saw a tension between their Coptic Egyptian identity and Arab identity.42 They perceived Nasser’s immersion of Egypt in the Arab world as an effort to shape Egyptian national identity in “uncompromising Arabic colours, [entailing] a thorough redirection of society towards Islamic culture.”43 Many of them felt excluded from pan-Arabism because they saw themselves as members of the Coptic “race.” They saw this race as inherently Egyptian, not Arab. Nevertheless, Nasser’s relatively secular policies and crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations were generally welcomed by the Coptic community.

Coptic Conspiracies and the Islamization of Egyptian Identity

President Anwar Sadat excluded Copts from the “we-group” of the Egyptian nation by Islamizing Egyptian nationalism and recreating myths of Coptic conspiracies. 44 Sadat’s conciliatory attitude towards militant Islamist groups and support for the Islamization of Egyptian society contributed to an increase in sectarian violence. In July 1972, the Assembly of Christian Churches in Egypt called for the elimination of restrictions on church construction. Four months later, an unauthorized church in al-Khankah was set ablaze.45 Sadat denied the sectarian nature of this incident and similar acts of violence against churches. In a famous speech on the anniversary of the May “Corrective Revolution”, Sadat claimed that the “issue of al-Khankah Church” was raised by telegrams from Canada, the United States, and Australia.46 He delegitimized the Copts’ protests against the al-Khankah incident – and other instances of sectarian violence – as a Coptic effort to undermine Egyptian national unity and sovereignty and incite sectarian strife to make Egypt a Christian state.47 Sadat later went as far as to falsely accuse the Copts of scheming with the Lebanese Phalange to partition the Arab countries into religious entities. As detailed by Sana Hasan, he claimed that the Copts, ““were being trained for military operations by the Phalange to realize the Coptic goal of creating a Christian state in Upper Egypt, aided by donations from the CIA, West German intelligence, and the Christian Democratic Party of Germany.”48 These conspiracy theories further alienated the Copts from an already Islamized Egyptian state and society. Whereas Pope Kirollos had been an advocate of the national unity discourse, Pope Shenouda threatened to lead the Church in the opposite direction.49 He refused to support Sadat’s policies, thereby temporarily rupturing the neo-millet partnership between the Church and state. He attacked the idea that Sharia Law should be the principal source for legislation and claimed that “Islam was being made the new form of nationalism.”50 Pope Shenouda demanded government protection of Christians and their property, an end to government seizures of church property, freedom from harassment to convert to Islam, and that the Sadat regime abandon all efforts to apply Sharia Law to nonMuslims.51 In 1980, he canceled Christian Orthodox Easter celebrations in protest of what he perceived to be President Sadat’s government’s passivity and inaction toward acts of violence waged by militant Islamist groups against Christians. This attracted global attention to sectarian violence in Egypt.52 As a result, in 1981, Sadat deposed Pope Shenouda as the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, sent him into rural exile and kept him under house arrest until 1985.53

The Increasing Relevance of Coptism/Coptic Cultural Nationalism

Sadat’s Islamization of Egyptian identity in the 1970s excluded many Copts from Egyptian public life, more so than during the Nasser era. This led more of them to become involved in distinctly Coptic cultural events. The Church “capitalized on the great value placed on religious identity in fin de siècle Egypt to outbid the state for the loyalty of its beleaguered Christian citizens.”54 The Church now began to sponsor various social and religious groups, including Bible, hagiography, and Coptic archaeology groups. Videotaped legends of Coptic saints and martyrs became ubiquitous as the only music many children were allowed to listen to were Church hymns. These efforts at nurturing a potent Coptic religious culture marked an increased dedication to the Coptic revivalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. The Church’s aim was to

“imbue the faithful with the conviction that the church is the social space where one receives one’s true identity.”55 It is clear that the exclusion of the Copts from the Egyptian state on a religious basis in the interwar period and in the 1970s allowed the Church to play a significant role in shaping the Coptic community’s identity.56

The Return to the Neo-Millet Partnership

Pope Shenouda had to make a choice: he could either assert Coptic rights and thus criticize the state, or he could avoid the political marginalization of the Coptic Church. There is substantial evidence to suggest that President Hosni Mubarak terminated Pope Shenouda’s house arrest in 1985 in exchange for Pope Shenouda’s commitment to abandon his confrontational style of politics. As Paul Sedra describes, “The Patriarch came to the difficult realization that, in the end, he is on the lap of the government.” 57 Pope Shenouda cooperated with the Mubarak regime and embraced its rhetoric of national unity throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. He also adopted a non-confrontation policy toward sectarian incidents, although they continued unabated throughout Mubarak’s presidency. In exchange, Mubarak acknowledged Pope Shenouda’s role as the only legitimate voice of the Coptic community in political affairs. It is clear that this acknowledgment remained the sine qua non for the Pope’s support of the state; he only withdrew unconditional support for Mubarak’s NDP Party in 2006, when Mubarak indirectly challenged his leadership over the Copts by tolerating the expansion of a parallel church, whose leader claimed to be the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox people. Nevertheless, Pope Shenouda and many Copts generally remained loyal to the regime because “Pope Shenouda [was] dependent upon Mubarak, the church hierarchy [was] dependent upon Shenouda, and the Coptic community [was] dependent upon the hierarchy for social services and political leadership. ”58 The renewed neo-millet partnership sustained the confessionalization of Coptic identity that had begun during the Nasser era. This policy helped maintain the Coptic community’s sectarian identity by it reinforcing their “otherness” from the Egyptian state and society.59

The Coptic Citizenry and the Dawn of “Persecution Discourse”

From the 1919 Revolution to the early Mubarak era, the search for collective rights for the Copts was seen as “a sectarian aberration from the national consensus.”60 Protests against sectarian violence, rather than the violence itself, were criticized by the state as threats to national unity and therefore labelled “un-Egyptian.” Most of the Coptic laity remained loyal to Pope Shenouda, who had largely abandoned the struggle against sectarian violence and anti-Copt discrimination. However, the relatively liberal atmosphere of the 1990s and 2000s allowed for a gradual decrease in the taboo surrounding the discussion of sectarian violence and Coptic grievances.61 Groups like the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) developed into vigorous advocates of “persecution discourse”, a narrative which, contrary to the national unity discourse, referred to the Copts as a “minority” and criticized government support for Islamist attacks against Copts.62 “Persecution discourse” soon also came to be advocated by Coptic media. Increasing press freedom in the 1990s allowed the only major Coptic newspaper in Egypt, Watani, to adopt a direct approach to Coptic grievances during the late 1990s and early 2000s.63 While there had been a clear shift in Coptic historiography and public opinion from the national unity discourse to one of persecution in the 1970s in response to Sadat’s rhetoric and polices, the liberal period of the 1990s and 2000s allowed the Coptic middle class to more openly articulate these grievances. It emphasized its identity as distinct from the notion of Egyptian identity constructed by the Egyptian state.64 The public expression of persecution discourse radically challenged common assumptions that Muslims and Copts always lived in harmony in Egypt, and the Egyptian nation-state’s founding The public expression of persecution discourse radically challenged common assumptions that Muslims and Copts always lived in harmony in Egypt, and the Egyptian nation-state’s founding myth which emphasized Muslim-Coptic cooperation dating back to the 1919 Revolution. Coptic counter-discourses, both in the press and social media, made it clear that a considerable part of Coptic public opinion demanded a greater recognition of Coptic perspectives in the history and identity of the Egyptian nation.65 Egyptian national narratives failed to consider the experiences of a vast majority of Copts, often alienating them from Egyptian society and leading them to adopt their own, separate Coptic identity. While Coptic identity has often been framed as the “authentic” Egyptian national identity, it has vastly differed from the state’s conception of Egyptian identity and history.66

Conclusion

This paper argued that the emergence and sustainment of a distinct Coptic identity was clearly a response to the Wafd Party’s and the Egyptian state’s marginalization of Coptic identity, its exclusion from

national narratives about the Egyptian nation, and the creation of the neo-millet partnership between the Coptic Church and the state during the Nasser and Mubarak periods. It examined the evolution of Coptic identity from the 1919 Revolution to the early Mubarak era, illustrating how Egyptianist, Arabist, and Islamist conceptions of Egyptian identity affected the state’s Coptic community and Coptic identification with the Egyptian nation-state. The paper examined how the Egyptian state’s “national unity” narrative hindered Coptic integration in the Egyptian nation, as it turned the discussion of anti-Coptic discrimination into a taboo. The relative liberalization of the Egyptian media in the early Mubarak era allowed for middle class Copts to discuss these taboos more openly.

Notes

1 Sebastian Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 27. 2 Christopher A. Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation, and Community in Egypt and India, 18801914,” in Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, ed. Leila Tarazi Fawaz and Christopher A. Bayly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 171. 3Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans,” 177. 4 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 31. 5 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 27. 6 Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans,” 178. 7 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 30. 8 Sana S. Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle For Coptic Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 116. 9 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 30. 10 Bayly, “Representing Copts and Muhammadans,”180. 11 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 32-33. 12 Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search For Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 43. 13 Vivian Ibrahim, “Tracing the Coptic Question in Contemporary Egypt,” in Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East, ed. Paul S. Rowe (New York: Routledge, 2019), 80. 14 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 33-39. 15 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 36. 16 Mariz Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads: The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2013), 35. 17 Nicola Pratt, “Identity, Culture, and Democratization: The Case of Egypt,” New Political Science 27, 1 (2005): 78-79. 18 Saba Mahmood, “Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, 2 (2012): 435. 19 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 3339.

20 Anthony Gorman, Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 152. 21 Sana S. Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle For Coptic Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 47-48. 22 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 41. 23 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 43-53. 24 Gorman, Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt, 152. 25 It is important to note that given the political climate of the time, this reconsideration was likely to have called the nationalist credentials of many Coptic leaders into question. 26 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 47-53. 27 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 53. 28 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 53-54. 29 Paul Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict: Coptic Christian Communities in Modern Egyptian Politics,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 2 (1999): 224-225. 30 Paul Sedra, “Writing the History of the Modern Copts: From Victims and Symbols to Actors,” History Compass 7, 3 (2009): 1058.

31

32

33

34

35

36

37 38

39 40

41 Sedra, “Writing the History of the Modern Copts:” 1054. Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 219. Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 73. Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 103. Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 225.

Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era,123. Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 225. Mahmood, “Religious Freedom:” 436. Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 80. Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 73.

42 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 40.

Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 40. 43 Tarek Osman, Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 166. 44 David Zeidan, “The Copts: Equal, Protected or Persecuted? The Impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Egypt,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 1 (1999): 57. 45 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 226. 46 “Al-Sadat Speech On May Corrective Revolution Anniversary,” Cairo Domestic Service (May 15, 1980), Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS Daily Report, Middle East and Africa, FBIS-MEA-80-096, May 15, 1980, page 15, 23, heading: Al-Sadat Speech on May Corrective Revolution Anniversary, Arab Republic of Egypt, NewsBank, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports. 47 “Al-Sadat Speech On May Corrective Revolution Anniversary,” 20-25. 48 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 116. 49 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 226. 50 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 68. 51 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 226. 52 Tadros, Copts at the Crossroads, 67. 53 Mahmood, “Religious Freedom:” 437. 54 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 201. 55 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 201. 56 Hasan, Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt, 201-208. 57 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 227.

58

59 60

61 Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 228. Mahmood, “Religious Freedom:” 436. Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 158.

62

63 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 212.

Sedra, “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict:” 232.

Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 162. 64 Ibrahim, “Tracing the Coptic Question in Contemporary Egypt,” 81. 65 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 211-220. 66 Elsasser, The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era, 211-220.

“Al-Sadat Speech On May Corrective Revolution Anniversary.” Cairo Domestic Service (May 15, 1980). Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. FBIS Daily Report, Middle East and Africa, FBISMEA-80-096, May 15, 1980, page 15, 23, heading: Al-Sadat Speech on May Corrective Revolution Anniversary, Arab Republic of Egypt. NewsBank, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports. Bayly, Christopher A. “Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation, and Community in Egypt and India, 1880-1914.” In Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, edited by Leila Tarazi Fawaz and Christopher A. Bayly, 158-203. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Elsasser, Sebastian. The Coptic Question in the Mubarak Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Gershoni, Israel and Jankowski, James P. Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search For Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Gorman, Anthony. Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Hasan, Sana S. Christians Versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle For Coptic Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Ibrahim, Vivian. “Tracing the Coptic Question in Contemporary Egypt.” In Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East, edited by Paul S. Rowe, 79-88. New York: Routledge, 2019. Mahmood, Saba. “Religious Freedom, the Minority Question, and Geopolitics in the Middle East.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, 2 (2012): 418-446. Nicola Pratt, “Identity, Culture, and Democratization: The Case of Egypt,” New Political Science 27, 1 (2005): 69-86. Osman, Tarek. Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010.

Sedra, Paul. “Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict: Coptic Christian Communities in Modern Egyptian Politics.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 2 (1999): 219-235. Sedra, Paul. “Writing the History of the Modern Copts: From Victims and Symbols to Actors.” History Compass 7, 3 (2009): 1049-1063. Tadros, Mariz. Copts at the Crossroads: The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2013. Zeidan, David. “The Copts: Equal, Protected or Persecuted? The Impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Egypt.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10, 1 (1999): 53-67.