President Carter meets Pope Shenouda III at the White House, 20 April 1977
THE EGYPTIAN STATE DOES NOT WANT THE TRUE STATISTICS OF THE COPTS KNOWN – IT IS A WAY OF CONTROLLING THE COPTS
The Arab, Muslim-dominated state of Egypt has always presented the Coptic population lower than what it actually has been. By that it wanted to marginalise the Coptic numerical presence in Egypt, and make it look a tiny fraction of the total Egyptian population so that the Copts don’t call for representation and rights in accordance with their numerical strength. It is a devious attempt to cancel the Copts out. Egypt must be seen as Arab and Muslim, with only very tiny religious and ethnic minority of the Copts.
The Copts knew all that – they knew from their own census obtained from the birth and death records kept by the Coptic Church that their numbers exceeded what had been presented in official Coptic censuses. And in 1971, when Pope Shenouda III (1971 – 2012) was ordained the 117th Patriarch of the Coptic Church, a new dawn of Coptic self-assertiveness of the Copts was born. The Pan-Arabism Egyptian writer, Muhammad Hasanain Heikal (1923 – 2016) – that common combination of a fox and a wolf of the Arab nationalists – called Pope Shenouda in his book Autumn of Fury, the “Militant Monk”. Like many Arab nationalists, he believed that the Copts should be ruled and made to acquiesce, submitting to their rule.
Pope Shenouda was not the kind of Coptic leader who would comply, however. He was determined to fight for the rights of the Copts, and to resist the Islamisation of Egypt by President Sadat (1970 – 1981). His resistance of Sadat’s attempts to Islamise Egypt is known in the Egyptian and Coptic annals. During his patriarchy, the Coptic Church spread throughout the Western world, and many Coptic churches were built in the United States catering for nearly half-million Copts. In 1977, he visited the US – the first Coptic patriarch to do so – and was invited by President Carter (January 20, 1977 – 1981) to the White House on the 20th of April 1977. Knowing the suspicion mind of Sadat, Pope Shenouda insisted on taking with him Egypt’s Ambassador in the US, Ashraf Ghorbal,[1] with him. After the meeting, Carter introduced Pope Shenouda to the journalists working in the press and television as “the leader of the seven million Copts in Egypt.” Carter was aware of the attempts by the Egyptian government to minimise the size of Coptic population. In the 1976 Egyptian census, the total population of Egypt was presented as 41,213,000 with the Copts amounting to only 2 million souls in all.[2] This makes the percentage of the Copts in Egypt only 4.9% of the total. But Carter had a different number of the Copts – 7 million, which makes them amount to 17.1% of the total Egyptian population. Carter must have got his figure from the US intelligence analysts, and also by listening to the Coptic grievances, of which their complaint about the intentional downsizing of their population was one.
This did not please the Egyptian government, with Sadat at its helm, and Arab nationalists, such as Heikal. Haikal writes about this incident in his Autumn of Fury:
After this exchange of courtesies representatives of the press and television were admitted, and Carter told them, ‘I am glad to introduce to you the leader of the seven million Copts in Egypt.’ This was something of a bombshell because the latest quinquennial[3] census in Egypt had given the number of the Copts as two million out of total population of forty-one million, and while this estimate was certainly too low the figure produced by Carter was no less certainly too high. However, for many Copts a figure which had received the imprimatur[4] of an American President must be correct – he had probably got it be satellite.[5]
The sarcasm in Heikal’s writing is against him. No doubt Carter’s talk about the Coptic population size has touched a nerve. Carter has exposed the lies of the Egyptian state about the Coptic population, and announced that the Copts, rather than being less than 5% of the overall Egyptian population, they were over 17% of it. This means that Carter, the leader of the West, now recognised the numerical weight of the Copts – they must be reckoned with in international politics (such as between the Egyptian state and the US) and not ignored; they must take their legitimate place in Egypt’s politics and their rights must not be neglected. This is the bombshell which Heikal speaks of. A bombshell is an unexpected and surprising event, especially an unpleasant one, akin to an artillery shell – and the Arab oppressors of the Copts, of which Keikal was but one, didn’t like it a bit. Of course, they wouldn’t; just like any other oppressors wouldn’t like themselves, and their lies, being exposed.
The reader must have noticed that Heikal admits that the 1976’s census, the latest at the time of Pope Shenouda’s visit to the US, giving the number of the Copts as two million, was not actually statistics but an “estimate”, in other words a manipulated figure. He also admits that it is “too low” a figure. He, however, does not explain to us why that was so: why has the Arab-dominated state in Egypt constantly underestimated the numerical strength of the Copts? He, also, does not give us the right Coptic population statistics, even as he admits that the official figures were manipulated. He must have known the accurate statistics, but he refuses to cite them, for I suppose the actual figure, which may not be exactly like Carter’s figure, was close to it. Heikal was one of the architects of the Arab-nationalist, dictatorial regime of President Nasser (1952 – 1970) and then President Sadat for a lengthy period of the latter’s rule; and he cannot be but judged guilty and accomplice in the intentional fabrication in the statistics of the Copts, all in order to marginalise them.
But the fabrication continues – Nasser, Sadat and Heikal have gone, but the Egyptian state is still there; and it is still in the hands of the Arab majority. Further, the oppression of the Copts, that many, including some Copts, would prefer not to see, still continues. The incumbent President Sisi (r. 2013) is not different – he comes from the same dictatorial, military, Arab ilk; and he is not likely to reveal the Coptic population statistics he himself. It must stay top state security secret, for to the Arabs of Egypt the Copts are a threat – a threat since if their actual numbers are made known they will start calling for a share in power. An ethnic-religious minority that is 12% or 15% or 17% is not a tiny minority, and the international community would want it represented and its collective and individual rights respected. So far, the Egyptian state has continued its underestimation of the Coptic numerical strength even if they are seen by all eyes, their percentage in the country in the official censuses must stay in single digits, preferably below 5%; and then, officially at least, they don’t exist, or exist in numbers that don’t cause headache to the Arab majority. They must not be remembered except when their support is needed, as al-Sisi did when his power struggle with the Muslim Brotherhood started. The Copts are tools – did I say fools? – to be exploited and used; and they could be easily satisfied by a yearly visit to the Coptic church at Christmas. Showing them respect by revealing their real numerical strength is, however, another thing.
[1] Ashraf Ghorbal was Egypt’s ambassador in Washington from 1973 to 1086.
[2] Egypt’s Statistics I Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics.
[3] Recurring every five years.
[4] An official licence issued by the Roman Catholic Church to print an ecclesiastical or religious book; a person’s authoritative approval. (Oxford Dictionaries)
[5] Muhammad Heikal, Autumn of Fury. The assassination of Sadat (Corgi Books, 1983), p. 174. Text in the brackets is mine.