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Coptic Revolution, Egyptian Revolution: Rethinking Coptic Political Activism beyond Citizenship
Abstract
The Coptic political activism of post-January 25th, 2011 has yet to be fully discussed outside of the “minority question” or this national unity paradigm. Thus, questions arise—how are Coptic political groups in the continuing revolutionary moment challenging the victimhood narrative or the national unity paradigm? Why are these groups making visible their claims through the framework of citizenship rights? What is left invisible? This paper will focus on how the present Coptic political groups, particularly the Maspero Youth Union (MYU), or Shabab Maspero, connects a call for equal rights before the law, renewed visions of citizenship and a secular, civil state within a (re)imagining and (re)connection of Copts to Egyptian nationalism. The all-encompassing and moral (re)configuration of human rights discourse has become integral to the discourse on equality and citizenship within Coptic communities and among political actors, such as the Maspero Youth Union. Thus, the Maspero Youth Union’s promotion of human rights discourse and secularism as a means to overcome sectarianism and “enlighten” Egyptian society requires reframing and must be contextualized in order to deconstruct the emerging political possibilities of reworking a particular grammar associated with the “Copt” and in envisioning how “citizenship,” in and of itself, does not provide the proper grammar for the desires of the current Coptic political groups and Coptic communities more broadly. This paper will present a history of the Maspero Youth Union as a means to (re)position the movement in a “national” political context that performs unity, but maintains difference. Second, this paper will seek to show how the Maspero Youth Union is a site of contestation in the “meaning” attributed to a “Coptic community.” Finally, this paper will focus on how the present Coptic political groups are opening up spaces for rethinking “citizenship” as a means to achieve “equality.” Importantly, this paper aims to discuss Coptic political groups outside of recent scholarship on a “Coptic civil society” that champions and re-enforces the referential connections of a “Coptic community” to the Coptic Orthodox Church or other Christian institutional denominations. In positioning Coptic political groups like the Maspero Youth Union outside of relations to the Church as institution and representative of the “Coptic community,” this paper seeks to (re)position the “Copt” into the Egyptian national imaginary looking through the lens of the continuing revolutionary moment.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
Identity/Representation