In an article for Middle East Report Online, Mariz Tadros takes a detailed look at the current sectarian tensions in Egypt.

"For six weeks," she writes, "Egypt has been sitting on top of a sectarian volcano. Protesters, men and women, have been exiting mosques following prayers almost every single Friday since the beginning of September to demand the 'release' of Camillia Shehata, a Coptic priest’s wife who they believe has converted to Islam and is now incarcerated by the Coptic Orthodox Church."

One of the more interesting angles that Tadros explores is the role of "honour" in fuelling such conflicts. "There will never be a shortage of women to serve as pawns in the struggles to preserve religious communities perceived to be under threat," she writes.

"It is a truism of study of patriarchal societies that concepts of honour are tied to women. The Coptic demonstrations in Upper Egypt upon the 'disappearance' of Camillia were driven by a sense of having lost a priest's wife to a predatory Muslim majority. 

"The phenomenon of abduction is thoroughly gendered in Egypt, since it is always a woman, and never a man, who is thought to have been abducted for the purposes of conversion. When rallies took place in every corner of Egypt later, they were driven by a desire to emancipate the Camillia who had ostensibly donned the niqab from the clutches of the church. 

"The gatherings were about defending the honour of Muslims in claiming what is rightfully theirs – a sister in Islam. At no time in memory has such a large number of women wearing the niqab engaged, week after week, in collective protest."

Tadros suggests that with elections approaching and prices rising in the shops, the Egyptian government "desperately needs" a diversion and is "particularly wary of issues that can unite the population across various dividing lines". Heightened Muslim-Christian tensions may thus serve a useful purpose for the regime at the moment.

Meanwhile, she says, the space for advocates of a rights-based approach to citizenship – one that focuses on separation of religion and state – is getting narrower and narrower:

"On October 10, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights launched a Reject Sectarianism campaign, featuring a powerful online video of young Egyptians talking frankly about the issue. But those who genuinely believe in a rights-based framework have neither the power of numbers nor the clout afforded by allies in high places. 

"Egyptian electoral politics, focused as it is on promising patronage to clients, offers little hope. A discourse of rights for all citizens, irrespective of religious affiliation, is simply not a vote getter. 

"The sectarian crisis of 2010 has exposed the widening circle of actors involved in sowing inter-communal strife, but it has not introduced an honest process for addressing the roots of sectarianism, one that would include attention to the role of state security. The question is what it will take to make that process happen."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 14 October 2010.