08 May 2005
Antoun Sidhom
The ever-present
On 2 May ten years ago, ++Watani++ lost its
founder Antoun Sidhom, and
Sidhom’s only weapon was his pen. He used
it, through ++Watani++,
to expose conspiracies woven against Egypt—whether those which originated from
outside the country, those plotted by a fanatic few in Egypt, or by Egypt’s
then executive and security authorities whose members sowed hate and disunion
between Egyptians. Sidhom wrote with admirable
courage and candour at a time when these attributes exacted a stiff price from
the authorities, his sole objective being the benefit and safety of
When Antoun
Sidhom passed away, many files on the problems he
tackled were yet open. And since it takes years in our country to admit ills
and expose them, and more years to remedy them, a tour
through Sidhom’s articles feels like a reading in
Egyptian
contemporary problems. The values and principles he upheld are the same we advocate so
strongly today.
Following are excerpts from his
writings.
On the subject of national unity, Antoun Sidhom wrote in September
1977: “We Egyptians presented humanity with a civilisation which led to light,
and gave humankind good, beauty, truth, and sublime values. It therefore befits
us today to preserve our unity by defeating the irresponsible currents which
attempt to assault our values and destroy our national pride. Throughout the
years, our unity has been the symbol of our national struggle, has formed the
foundation of our future, and the way to our Egyptian revival.”
In June 1986 he wrote: “Copts have
always been strongly attached to their Muslim brothers and fellow citizens,
bound to them with love and sympathy. Nothing but this fraternity can ever be
the focal point of a dialogue between the two.”
And in March 1990 Sidhom wrote, addressing the
same topic: “
In April 1990, Sidhom
wrote on extremism and terrorism as follows. “What can we expect from young
people who have been charged since childhood—through school books and teachers,
mosques and radio preachers, as well as printed material brimming with insults
against religions other than Islam—with hatred and disrespect of anything
non-Islamic? The occasional sectarian outbursts are merely the natural outcome
of such long-time charging. We should fill our children with the spirit of love
and tolerance, revise our school curricula to sow the seeds of accepting the
other, and weed hatred from our media material and religious address. Moreover,
we ought to revise the social and economic conditions in our society, which
lead young people to adopt violence and destruction.”
On the topic of religious
conversion, Sidhom wrote in May 1978: “How easy for a
person to convert to a religion other than his or hers, for the sake of escaping
problems or obligations, or gaining social or tangible benefits. In many cases
such a person finds ample encouragement from those who care nothing for true
faith, and exploit religion to trifle with this country’s interest. The matter
then departs entirely from faith, and enters the realm of farce. It goes to no
religion’s credit to hold on to those who merely utilise it for their own
advantage.”
As to the exclusion of Copts from
official posts, Sidhom wrote in November 1990, and
later in November 1991, referring to two consecutive groups of newly-appointed
prosecutors and assistant prosecutors, where the proportion of Coptic
appointees did not exceed 1.25 per cent. This, he wrote, was no isolated
incident, but clearly represented a movement to exclude Copts from official posts, a movement which Sidhom
asserted could never meet the approval of
The notorious Himayouni
Edict which dates back to 1856, and the infamous Ten Conditions of al-Ezaby Pasha who was deputy interior minister in 1934, both
of which govern the building and repair of churches, came under Antoun Sidhom’s fire in an
editorial he wrote in February 1993. He questioned the reason why such outdated
regulations should be exploited to humiliate Copts and curtail their basic
right of freedom of worship. He bitterly asked if it was not time yet to
abolish such legislation and replace it with a fair, unified law to govern the
building and repair of all places of worship, for all Egyptians equally.
The day will surely come when