Violence In Egypt.

For the last couple of days rumours have been circulating in Cairo that a young woman was being held prisoner in the Saint Mena Church in order to prevent her converting the Islam. Matters came to a head yesterday (7/5/11) night when a group of Salafist Muslims protested outside the Church calling for her release. As it appears that the woman didn't exist the Church was unable to release her but this didn't stop the Salafists attacking the Church in an attempt to free her. This prompted a night of rioting which saw the Church burnt and 186 people injured plus 10 killed as firearms were used. Eventually the Egyptian military who currently govern and police the country regained control arresting 190 people in the process. In the post-revolutionary absence of a civilian legal system those arrested will have to be tried by military tribunal.

Given Egypt's recent history and the fact the violence appears to have been started by an entirely false rumour there are lots of conspiracy theories circulating as to who started the rumour. Some people say that it was remnants of the Mubarak regime trying to get back into power. Others say that it was the military trying to delay handing over power to a civilian government. I would like to add to those that it could possibly have been the Americans trying to kill bin Laden's ideology now that they've killed bin Laden himself or possibly the Israelis in an attempt to prove that their Egyptian neighbours can't be trusted with democracy. Most probably though it was exactly what it looked like. That is a group of Salafist Muslims attacked and burnt down a Church because they don't like Christians.

Salafism is a very extreme branch of Islam. Basically Salafists believe that there is no other political or religious ideology other then Islam and Islam should only be practiced in the way it was in the time of the Prophet Mohamed. Ideologically this puts them close to both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and their extreme methods have actually been causing Hamas problems in Gaza. Therefore the death of bin Laden and the signing of the Hamas/Fatah reconciliation deal would be enough to make them angry enough to lash out and attack a Church. On the plus side the unsophisticated nature of the violence indicates that at present they lack the support and ability to carry out proper terrorist attacks.

The attack though does put pressure on both Egypt's Muslims and Christians. It puts pressure on the Muslims to isolate the Salafists and it puts pressure on the Christians to remember that Salafism is a very small and extreme branch of Islam. All Egyptians should also be prepared to give the military a bit of a break. Not only have they been given the task of keeping the civilian peace while building the Egyptian political and legal systems from scratch - tasks they're totally untrained for - they've also been forced right into the middle of the Libya situation which is probably the worst thing the international community could have done to them.