Most discernibly since the 1970s, the language of citizenship has given way in Egyptian public life to a language of protection in which, perhaps ironically, all of the principal players in sectarian disputes – the state, the Coptic Orthodox Church, human rights organizations, and the Muslim Brotherhood – have indulged and engaged. This notion of protection conjures up an image of Coptic Christians in Egypt as an inert, monolithic bloc – a bloc whose leadership is assumed to reside with the Church. With increased indulgence and engagement in this language of protection, the notion of Copts as Egyptian citizens, equal before Egyptian law and the Egyptian state to Muslims, has tended to fall away. As a result, Copts are widely conceived not so much as equal citizens but as a distinctly sectarian constituency in Egyptian society. What has changed most discernibly since the January 25 revolution is that the pretense of equal citizenship has been replaced by what one might call a layered paternalism towards the Coptic community: the Egyptian state potently declares its commitment to protect the Copts in no less important an event than the Christmas mass of the Coptic Orthodox Church, and the patriarch welcomes that stated commitment as an endorsement of his own paternal role over the community. For most external observers of Egyptian politics, Copts are regarded as victims in the process of sectarianization described above. This paper draws upon a wide range of primary sources, recently made available to scholars through the digitzation efforts of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, to recount how the leaders of the modern Coptic Orthodox Church have, in fact, embraced this sectarianization. Specifically, a close analysis of the minutes of the modern Coptic communal council or majlis al-milli will reveal the great success of the Coptic clergy, at least since the 1950s, in partnering with the Egyptian state to weaken lay or civilian leaders within the Coptic community – very much to the detriment of equal citizenship in Egypt. For the state, Copts are regarded as a constituency best left in the hands of the Coptic Orthodox Church, as per the long-established pattern of Egyptian presidents relying upon Coptic patriarchs to ensure that the Coptic community remains politically quiescent. The Church remains satisfied with this role as long as the state respects the patriarch’s prerogatives as the sole legitimate representative of the Coptic community.

How do states treat the artistic legacy of despised or persecuted minority groups? While such sites or objects can be neglected, destroyed, or appropriated, they also prompt critical questions about the theory and practice of cultural heritage, historic preservation, as well as the international cultural heritage regime. These questions appear saliently in the case of the medieval ghost city of Ani. Located on the border between Turkey and Armenia, Ani was inscribed by Turkey on the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage List In July 2016. Once one of the Silk Road’s capitals, Ani’s ruins feature remarkable monuments from many historical periods. However, the site is most closely associated with its Christian Armenian layer, and features some of the most iconic Armenian churches. For Armenians worldwide, Ani is an architectural masterpiece, a cultural touchstone, and a sacred site. Yet official Turkish discourse only rarely acknowledges the Armenian layer of the site’s history or its importance for the Armenian Church, just as it does not acknowledge the state-sponsored violence against Armenian citizens. Long neglected and even vandalized, Ani became the focus of a new preservation campaign in the last decade. Highly publicized as well as politicized, the preservation campaign is spearheaded by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey in association with international heritage organizations such as the World Monuments Fund in New York, culminating in the inscription of the site on the highly prestigious World Heritage List. Many questions remain about the site’s physical integrity and its interpretation. UNESCO’s discourse celebrates cultural diversity. Reflecting this view, official Turkish discussions of Ani extol it as a multicultural site that bridges cultures and symbolizes tolerance, yet they rarely acknowledge the cultural groups that made up this diversity of cultures. What will the UNESCO inscription mean for the ongoing interpretation of the site, and how will that reflect the vexed relationship of the Turkish state with its own minority communities?

The word Dayr al-Zur still conjures powerful emotions for Armenians whose ancestors died there a hundred years ago. Poet Peter Balakian has described Dayr al-Zur as being to Armenians what Auschwitz is to the Jews. Dayr al-Zur constituted the killing fields during the Armenian Genocide. This paper discusses the ways Armenians have collected, displayed, and exchanged the bones of their murdered ancestors, in formal and informal ceremonies of remembrance. These pilgrimages — replete with overlapping secular and nationalist motifs — are a modern variant of historical pilgrimage practices; yet these bones are more than relics. Bone rituals, displays, and vernacular memorials are enacted in spaces of memory that lie outside of official state memorials, making unmarked sites of atrocity more legible. Vernacular memorial practices are of particular interest as we consider new archives for the history and spaces of memory for the Armenian Genocide. This essay is a preliminary attempt to document the experiences and raw emotion of Armenian pilgrimage practices within the deathscape of the Euphrates and Khabur River basins that converge on the city of Dayr al-Zur, a place held by the Islamic militant group ISIS. This project seeks to rehabilitate the memory of an historical site into public consciousness, since the Armenian Genocide Memorial Museum and Martyr’s Church at the center of the pilgrimage site, were both destroyed by an explosion in 2014. The multiple layers of bone and trauma contained within the geography of Dayr al-Zur poses a challenge to this reconstruction, but also offers an opportunity to consider the shared experience of trauma among both Armenians and local Dayri Arabs in this troubled border zone over the last hundred years. What do bones do to those who make pilgrimages (including local Arab residents who live among them) in Dayr al-Zur? How do Armenians describe the compulsion to collect, display, and keep the bones of their murdered ancestors? How are these forms of collecting, exchange and display ethically understood by those who engage in these practices?

In the early 20th century the Jews in Damascus were a vibrant community and an essential component of the urban social mosaic of the Old City. However, the turmoil following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, rise of Zionism, and the creation of Israel in 1948 resulted in the migration of Jews from Syria. In this paper, I focus on the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Damascus where in 2016 only a dozen Jews continue to live. While other groups have moved into the quarter, it retains its Jewish identity. Prior to the war in Syria, the quarter was witnessing urban revival with the opening of hotels and art galleries in previously owned Jewish homes. As a UNESCO Heritage Site the Old City was becoming a destination for cultural tourism that renewed interest in the Jewish presence in Damascus. Based on ethnographic and archival research, this paper will address the ways in which the Jewish minority became part of the official narratives on tolerance and co-existence. The regime has promoted itself as the protector of ethnic and religious minorities in Syria and the heritage industry in the Old City depicts the historic site as an example of social urban diversity and harmony. I will begin with a brief overview of Jews in Damascus during the 20th century and describe the contentious relation between the nascent Syrian state and its religious minority. I focus on how the decline of the Jewish population has only increased interest in their historical presence in the Old City by the heritage industry. In conclusion, I will demonstrate how certain minorities, even when they were no longer present in the nation-state, can still serve the purpose of the regime in its official policies.