There is nothing out of the ordinary in the scenes of violence seen in Egypt at a time when the heat of the parliamentary elections that will be held on Sunday is mounting. There is nothing out of the ordinary because the Levant has in general succeeded in combining “democracy” and violence, and consequently in coming up with the goals to justify the means, even if the tools are fists raised high to allow the rise of the “free voice.” It might be said that “individual” incidents in a country of forty million voters is not worth mentioning, but the promotion of the scenarios of terrorization – while they do not defeat the purpose of the elections – at least herald the exit of the battle from the ballot boxes to Cairo's streets and squares. It is not odd for the ruling National Party to accuse the Muslim Brotherhood group without naming it, of committing provocations and maneuvers against “legitimacy,” or for the left wing to accuse the government of lying and the MB of resorting to violence. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood is bombarding the ruling party with accusations of bullying, saying it attempted to assassinate one of its candidates, while the leftist Tagammu Party is adding to the fierceness of the battle a disobedience scenario “drawn up by the MB to gain control over the authority” on Sunday. In an exceptional confrontation supposed to constitute the real test a few months prior to the opening of candidacies for the presidential elections that will be held in June, all weapons are valid for the Muslim Brotherhood's opponents in order to clip the group's wings in parliament. Although the announced justification is the preemption of turmoil in Egypt next summer – through the obstruction of “the group's trick” (to nominate “independent figures”) and the containment of its presence underneath the dome of the People's Assembly - what is worrisome during these difficult months is seeing the exceptional and temporary violence becoming almost “ordinary.” Can the tensions of the elections and the tensions affecting the Copts' “file” as some Americans like to call it be separated? Was it just a coincidence that the “church clashes” yesterday and the rise of the heat on the street on the eve of the parliamentary elections concurred, only a few days after the diplomatic “clash” between Cairo and Washington following the American report regarding religious freedoms in Egypt? It is definitely not ordinary – if the stories are true – for Coptic demonstrators to throw Molotov bottles on the security forces instead of stones, in protest against the discontinuation of the building of a center annexed to a church. Regardless of the core of their demands, the fact that they chose violence which led to the killing of one person and the wounding of dozens of others, cannot be justified except by the fact that they fell in the trap of reactions. Moreover, the recent raising of banners against the Christians in Egypt was a mere primitive act worthy of condemnation. This is due to the fact that its horrendous outcome gave those fishing in murky waters and claiming to protect the rights of the Copts in the United States, live ammunition to launch a new chapter of slander against Egypt and besiege any attempt it might undertake to change its weak role in the region. It is not a secret that the Copts' “file” and status has become a weapon in the electoral battle and that it has introduced another weapon through warning against the intentions or “plans” of the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, the questions now revolve around the authority's initiatives and whether or not they are enough to uproot the seeds of sectarianism that are being watered domestically and abroad. Seeing how the answer is negative, we should also inquire about the role of all the Egyptian political forces in containing these seeds, and not just settle for responding to slogans with unproductive debates or electoral gains. This is due to the fact that the voices and fists that rose during the church clashes are enough to complete the image revealing that no one will come out a winner. And while the other facet of this picture is seen in the banners attacking the Copts, the job of the ear should be replaced with that of the tongue: All the screaming is overshadowing the alarm bells and what happened in Al-Haram neighborhood in front of the church can no longer be handled with statements talking about national unity. Among the most basic duties of the authority and the opposition in Egypt – following the end of the electoral duel – is to launch a dialogue that would relinquish the addiction to cheap disputes and define the priorities to mend unity, before sectarianism expands and turns into a plague in a region where sectarianism and denominationalism have become the greatest enemies. The authority and the opposition - which always accused the governments of allocating the shares to the opportunists and the supporters “as though Egypt belongs to them” - must look into the reasons behind the erosion of the Egyptian role at the level of the regional and African crises, to the point where Ethiopia would be encouraged to defy Cairo by proclaiming war over the Nile water. The alarm bell is resonating with confrontations domestically and pressures and a blockade abroad.
