6
September 2006
Out with the
religion box
During the past two weeks, Watani
has reported on the ongoing debate on whether to retain or delete data on religious denomination from formal identity papers. The matter
has been the subject of heated public arguments, with advocates of the deletion of the religious box from ID cards arguing that
this was an indispensable measure to uphold citizenship rights, and opponents stressing
the necessity of citing religion in ID cards
because of its being
instrumental in marriage, divorce, and inheritance—issues on which religions basically differ.
Each party strongly defends its viewpoint.
Advocates maintain that deleting the
religion box from ID cards would boost personal
freedoms—particularly freedom of belief—and prove the
veracity of the famous saying: “Religion is for God and
the homeland for all”. The move, they argue, would stress the state’s impartiality vis-à-vis
religion, and emphasise that faith has nothing to do with a citizen’s rights or duties, nor should
it entail any sort of discrimination or bias.
As for the relevance of listing religion as regards personal status affairs, they suggest
that computerising the data used by state
institutions in general and
the civil register in particular, and the existence of a central database
on births, marriages,
divorces, deaths and inheritance, would substitute for listing religion in ID cards.
It is thus obvious that retaining
the religion box in identity
papers is inconsistent with the electronic government Egypt is already establishing.
In many governmental departments employees today store data electronically instead of on paper that is liable to rot or waste with the
passage of time or through negligence.
Databases are available on the levels of governorates
and municipalities, and it is
hoped that a central database for all Egypt would be at
hand sometime in the near future, so that any data or official
document would be
accessible to people at any
time or place.
The newly computerised
ID cards are the first-fruits of the electronic government. The computerised ID card, dubbed the
national number card, cites
data on a person’s name,
place of residence, date of birth,
gender, marital status, education, work, and religion. But the number, when entered
on the e-government’s
computer, leads to the
central database through which a host of information on one’s
life and activities is available.
It thus made sense that the state should go ahead with its efforts to computerise its systems and compile a national database and, in this regard, it is comforting that
the minister in charge has lately announced that the government
is now studying
the proper time to invalidate all sorts of manually-issued
documents—birth certificates,
IDs and suchlike—in
favour of computerised ones. Along the same line, officials said that the
computerised IDs would substitute voting cards, a measure that would
certainly facilitate the process of voting and eliminate
a good part of the agonising problems undergone by no small portion of voters due to the inaccuracy of the manually-compiled voter lists.
The government could
have seized the opportunity of computerising the IDs to eliminate
the reference to religion; suffice it that
one’s religion is registered on the national database. But the government wasted this opportunity despite the fact
that religion is not cited on Egyptians’ passports. In any case, the ongoing debate
is in itself healthy, since it reflects a tendency
towards openly discussing sensitive issues rather
than sweeping them under the
carpet. It is to be hoped
that the call to delete the religion box from ID cards would
gain ground with the public, since such a measure would relieve the
tense climate resultant of tinting every aspect of our life with religion. Let us put this behind our backs
and get on to the business of developing and modernising our society, so that religion would indeed be for God
and the homeland for all.
* Youssef Sidhom is the editor of « Watani »
daily, of Cairo.