#1 I attended the local Catholic church when we lived in Egypt, but there was also a Protestant church in our town. Given that an increasing number of ex-pats worshipped there, the Protestant congregation submitted permits to add a wing and fix the place up. Those permits were successively denied. Finally, in frustration, they submitted a permit to add a chickent coop on the premises. That was approved, as were a number of modifications to it to add a door, a few windows, to solidify the walls, and improve the quality of the roof. Near the end of the project, an inspector came out to see that the work had been performed according to the permits and nearly had a conniption when he saw the beautiful addition that had been made to the church. He threatened that the new construction would be torn down and the responsible parties jailed. Finally, the German ambassador intervened, pointed out how silly the building permits directorate had behaved, and all was left as constructed. The situation would have gotten very ugly without the benefaction of that ambassador, who was, of course, a congregant.
I also knew a number of Egyptian Copts who had Arabic names, though not necessarily Muslim ones. I asked one why that was so and he said that it was to blend in and avoid the most overt discrimination.
Finally, there is the story of a young fellow I met in the library of the town's Protestant church. He was about to enter med school at Ain Shams University in Cairo after completing his undergraduate studies in the US. He had an abiding interest in his religion. So, when a course was offered on the history of Christianity at his college, he took it as one of his electives, knowing he would never find such a course in Egypt. Because he was in the US, his father attended the interview with the Dean of Medicine on his behalf. As the dean looked over his son's transcript he came upon the history course and said sharply, "What's this?!" His father, used to a life of subterfuge said without hesitation, "It was required!" The dean frowned, but seemed to accept it and his son was enrolled to start his medical studies in the fall. |