A Scene of Faith
January 28, 2011
As you may be aware, Eygpt is in the throes of civil unrest. The protesters are (mostly) non-violent, though there has been some destruction of property. Violence against persons is almost all directed at the protesters by the police. The situation is evolving rapidly, but I found the following picture taken today in Cairo (found on the Guardian website) very moving:
Here we see the power of (shared) faith to quell violence. According to reports this scene was repeated in a number of locations, with the police pulling back temporarily for protesters to perform their prayers. I feel in my gut there are lessons to be drawn from this photo, but I am having a hard time articulating them. Any thoughts?
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Well, who is doing the praying?
The lesson may be simply: The Muslim Brotherhood is on the verge of taking over Egypt, the better to finally exterminate the Copts.
Much will be decided according to the temperament of the leaders who emerge to form the new order.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for George Washington.
Since the Muslim Brotherhood is behind the curve and not the instigators of this revolt, I think that you are missing the mark. These are muslims, but not necessarily members of the Muslim Brotherhood or Islamists.
Someone who cannot recognise genuine piety in the worship of other faiths has no real spiritual dimension to his own; his is only about identity politics, in my opinion. And, again, in my own opinion, this is the natural colouration of right-wing American Catholicism; their religion is exclusively about “America,” its “religious team” and their pope-mascot.
RC above is typical in this: he hasn’t even bothered to notice that the support by the Muslim Brotherhood of the popular revolution in the streets of Egypt’s major cities has been so belated as to discredit them in the eyes of many of the young people who are manning the barricades; in fact, the “leadership” of the movement–to the extent it has one–is the former head of the UN’s Commission on Nuclear Disarmament.
Oh please, the Muslim Brotherhood is as tame as they get these days. Lest you forget, they condemned the recent attack on Christians. I wish Americans would simply stop interfering – calling for democracy where they don’t like the incumbent (Iran), getting all nervous about democracy where they don’t like the victor (Palestine). This is a major generational heave against the corrupt and rotten governance structures in the middle east. Let it play out, and let’s pray for a minimum of violence. But to start telling Egyptians that Mubarak is the best they deserve is incredibly offense. These things get noticed. American hypocrisy and double standards get noticed.
On this photo, my first reaction was the US civil rights protests in the 1960s.
And if RC is truly concerned with the Christians in the east, I wonder what he/she thinks of the accomplishments of George Bush, who set in motion events that are leading to the obliteration of a 2000 year old Christian tradition in Iraq.
I think you folk misunderstood my comment.
This was more my fault than yours, I think: As I reread my note, I find that I didn’t make my thoughts particularly clear.
I said the lesson may be simply…et cetera. It may be that, or it may be something else, depending upon “who is doing the praying.”
I am worried that the Muslim Brotherhood may be able to make capital of this. I am not confident that they will. I do not know what the temperament of the new leaders emerging from the current crisis will be.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for George Washington, as I previously said…but on the other hand, I do hope for something better than a Sunni equivalent of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In short: My note was a worry, not a prediction; and it was an expression of ambivalence about the meaning of the picture: I think more information is needed before that picture can be interpreted confidently as a sign of hope.
Sorry I didn’t state that more plainly, before.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Allowing these peaceful protesters to pray speaks volumes.
One more thing:
I received a couple of what seem to have been reflexive “slams” (perhaps mild sneers? …but not quite “flames,” though; none of them were offensive, really) in response to my post.
Why is that?
David’s response was not one of those. He misunderstood me as stating that the Muslim Brotherhood was the instigator (rather than, as I actually was, worrying that, instigator or not, they’d be able to capitalize on it). For the record, I know they didn’t instigate the revolt; for the record, I still worry they may be able to capitalize on it if a new governing order sweeps away the old.
But then digbydolben says I am “typical” persons who:
(a.) can’t recognize piety in the practices of other faiths;
(b.) have no spiritual dimension to their own faith;
(c.) think of their faith as a sports team for whom they root and/or confuse it with their country of origin (or something along those lines)
…and that the proof that I am typical of such persons is that I haven’t “even bothered to notice that the support by the Muslim Brotherhood of the popular revolution in the streets of Egypt’s major cities has been so belated as to discredit them….”
Well, to begin with, this proof is itself erroneous, coming as it does from a misinterpretation of my original post. (For which, as I have said already, I am more responsible than any of you, inasmuch as I should have been clearer.)
But had that interpretation of my original post been a correct one? Had I mistakenly believed that the Muslim Brotherhood was a big player in the demonstrations rather than a late-coming hanger-on? How would that error of fact lead to the conclusion that my faith has no spiritual dimension and is, moreover, polluted with tribalism and jingoism? That’s a bit of a leap, I think.
Morning’s Minion’s “slam” isn’t quite so bad. He mentions something I simply didn’t know: That the attacks on the Copts had been condemned by the Brotherhood. That’s good news…though even as I say that, I sense an itch of cynicism rising up: Did they condemn it in order to look good, or because they really disapprove? Did they say the same kind of thing in Arabic, or did they just make a statement in English for the benefit of the Western press? “Trust but verify.” But at least they condemned it; they mightn’t have done even that.
Mubarak, of course, is a nasty autocratic thug. Of course we want him out of the way…provided he’ll be replaced with something better? Will he?
I certainly hope so. I just am not confident it will work out that way; it didn’t in the case of the Shah.
But MM, you go on to say, “But to start telling Egyptians that Mubarak is the best they deserve is incredibly offense.[sic]”
Who said that? That view can’t be extracted even out of the misunderstood version of my original note, so I’m convinced you can’t think I said that. I haven’t even thought in terms of what the Egyptians deserve until this very moment when you brought it up. Before now, I’ve only worried about what they’ll actually get, and that it will be something worse than what would be best, and possibly worse even than Mubarak.
It’s a strange question, what they “deserve.” I can’t make heads or tails of it, except to say that I hope that God grants them mercy, like He does to us: That is, that they get better than they deserve.
As for Iraq, MM? That Christians are ill-treated there hasn’t escaped my notice. I pray for the Christians in Iraq as I do for the Copts. I hope the Iraqis democratically select a better form of government than Saddam ever provided, and not a worse form.
Likewise I hope that when Mubarak is gone, whether it is now or later, the Egyptians democratically select a better form of government than Mubarak ever provided. If it were 1979 right now, I would hope for the Iranians to democratically select a better form of government than the Shah had ever provided. Were it 2004, I would hope for the Ukranians…, and were it 1933, I would hope for the Germans…, and were it 1789, I would hope for the Americans… and so on.
All of that is to say: Democratic elections are good up to a point, and popular uprisings are good up to a point, but they don’t necessarily always end in a good government. When they involve the overthrow of a bad government, the replacement isn’t always better.
I hope for the Egyptians that it will be.
RC, the picture is of people PRAYING; your reflexive sneer at it is all that is needed to know where your heart is, despite all your circumlocutory semantics to wiggle your way out of what is obvious.
[Okay, I let this by, but can we all take a deep breath and stop dishing dirt on one another? I want to get back to the image itself: men kneeling for peaceful public prayer, an act being allowed by police who only moments before were trying to brutally suppress it. ]
I rarely frequent this site, even if I agree with half of its content, because of the corrosive divisiveness here.
“Okay, I let this by, but can we all take a deep breath and stop dishing dirt on one another?” This statement is utterly ironic and by all appearance entirely insincere, coming as it does just after the previous paragraph.
If people were to really stop dishing dirt on one another, how would wing-nuts (left and right) spend their time? And would the straw-men and hermeneutics of suspicion industries go out of business?
As to the photo which this post is about, I’ll offer three comments:
I’m moved that the police backed off to allow the protestors space to perform their obligation of salat.
Assuming that most of the police are Muslim as well, why weren’t they on their knees by the side of their brothers?
It would be a remarkable day when protesters (or online adversaries) in the US, Europe, or elsewhere took the time in the middle of their demonstrations and exchanges to get on their knees together to pray to whoever their God (or non god ideal of peace) is.
Re: the US Civil Rights protests of the 1960s:
“Assuming that most of the police were (allegedly) Christian as well, why weren’t they on their knees by the side of their brothers (and sisters)?”
Need more be said?
Jimmy Mac, I think more does need to be said, because I’m not sure what you point is. If in the example you cite, what came to pass is what I proposed, then it would have indeed been a remarkable day…would have been.
But I live in the present, Egypt is in the present, conflict is in the present. It’s in the present that concrete and positive actions (not rhetorical point scoring) need to take place.
Digby,
My original post had nothing but worry in it, not sneering — certainly not at the praying. As I said before, I only hope the Muslim Brotherhood won’t be able to capitalize on the fall of Mubarak. The closest thing was the sentence re: George Washington, if a bitter sort of wistfulness is anything like sneering.
My later posts were entirely forthright and honest with respect to my motives and feelings, as is this.
My first post was too short and misled readers. My second, intended to correct the shortcomings of the first through careful explanation, is rather long and so you say “cicumlocutory semantics.” But there is no deception. I have told you the truth, so far as I know it.
As for the image itself, since that was your primary concern: I am glad to see these men in public prayer. I am glad the police are not interrupting (and in places have joined the marchers, from what I hear).
The more that this photo is indicative of the reality, the better things will be after the crisis is resolved. The fewer claims of violence the rank-and-file of each side have against the other, the better. It can make the difference between….
“The other side let some of their worst individuals get out-of-hand once or twice, but for the most part we’re all Egyptians together and can trust them,”
…and…
“You can never trust the other side; remember all the nasty things they did during the crisis?”
The latter is a bad start for constructing a civil society!