The Fourth Night - الليلة الرابعة

و لما كانت الليلة الرابعة، اجتمعت الكوانين مرة أخرى و جلسوا في وسط الغرفة و أتت البنات من مدن بعيدة، لتحدث بأحاديث عجيبة و بدأت البنات في سرد الحكايات و استكمالا لما مضى و استشفافا لما هو آت، تحدثت البنات فقلن:
It was the Fourth Night after a long hiatus. And as one friend used to tell me, we are busy with what is public, which has been our lot for the past two years. When the public becomes the private and vice versa. And it goes without saying that the girls are part and parcel of all the events taking place, and they too were busy with the public and its ramifications on the personal and the private.

 But then we felt that the moment has come for the girls to gather around once more and share with us their stories. And as we sat around my dining room table, over cake and what not, we picked up from where we left last: Religion.
In this round we were joined by two girls who belong to the oppressed Coptic minority. And I don't use the term 'oppressed' as a way to pay lip service to Human Rights discourse or to undermine their agency or to exaggerate a particular political reality. I use the term 'oppressed', not just to indicate their position as a minority constantly under threat of arbitrary and random violence -whether by the state or their fellow Muslim citizens- but I mean oppressed by their own institutions, namely the Church.
And in a moment where I myself was incredibly curious about the relationship between faith and sexuality for a Coptic person, I could not have been more grateful for their presence, as I were at this moment.
We were also joined by one of the true idealist of this community. A girl who just does not give up on hope. She is too nice to a boot, she never disses here fellow sisters and truly believes that bitches should give back and unite. She is a dear friend and an inspiration to us all.
And with her I start the story of Religion.
She was born and raised in one of the countries bordering the Persian Gulf. She came from a family that was not particularly religious or conservative in that sense. And what was fascinating about her upbringing in that country, is the fact that the racial and ethnic diversity allowed for a diverse and open versions of religion to coexist. My dear friend pointed out to a reality that trumps an entrenched impression that all the Gulf Countries only have one model of Islam, namely Wahabism. But apparently that is not true. She is a living proof, that some of the Egyptians who grew up in one of those countries, actually had a positive experience growing up in a diverse community with diverse opinions.
Her true calamity begins when she came back to Cairo. And she describes her long journey to reconciliation that took a parallel path between religion and psychiatry.
Of course we all know that many psychiatrists in Egypt still 'claim' that homosexuality is a disease. Going against the universal consensus all over the world (West or not) that homosexuality is not a mental or psychiatric disease that can be 'cured'. Imagine the ethical and professional compromise these psychiatrists put themselves through by promising parents and families of LGBT people that they can 'cure' their children. That it is a matter of 'behaviour' or 'cognitive' issue. I can't think of anything more outrageous than controlling someone's capacity to form decisions based on pseudo-science or pscyobable.
She went to explain the various different positions that different men of religion took towards homosexuality. Some advised her to fast and pray, I prefer the Christian term self-mortification, and through her diligence and perseverance, she will 'pray the gay away'. Well, guess what, you can't pray that one away.
Others told her, literally, that maybe she should try sleeping with women. Yup. A man of God actually said that committing adultery in the hope of 'curing' homosexuality' is lesser of two evils.
It is truly extraordinary how far is the religious discourse from basic pyschological discoveries. The religious discourse is light years behind.
My dear friend constantly lived in the state of guilt and fall from grace. She constantly felt guilty for things she did not do, for things she only 'thought' about.
Its only much later on, when she discovered that there is something called 'progressive Muslims', those who sincerely try to work on opening spaces, mentally and physically, for a more diverse and accepting value system that does not necessarily thrive on exclusion or denial.

My second story comes from a fierce bitch who can hold her own. She is a multi-talented girl (and by girl I mean boy), whose wit and humour knows no boundaries. She was raised Christian and hails all the way from the heart of the south. She grew up in one of the southern provinces of Egypt and she gave remarkable insight into the relation between the Church and the people in those nether areas. She explained that because they were a small community, with only two churches in the entire town, people were not strictly affiliated with their district church like they are in Cairo, for example. She did not necessarily identify herself as a Christian who goes to this or that church, no - she attended church but that was not an institutional affiliation. And I believe it was this relationship with the church that influenced her later development into a non-believing Copt. But I digress.
Of course it goes without saying that the south is much more conservative than most of Egypt. And my friend points out that until the inauguration of the nearest university, conversing with girls on the street was considered as close as committing adultery.
Growing up denying her own sexuality, she moved to a coastal city up north and it was there that she came to terms with how polarized her own position is as a practising Copt. Coming from a place where church affiliation is not a big deal she was struck by how everyone identified themselves by the church they go to. She was astonished to realize that there is a deep, felt sense of 'oppressed minority'. There was suddenly the awareness of being a 'Copt' that follows the teachings of the church, in a very specific way. Something that she was not at all used to.
Thus began her journey between choosing the path of secular Christians (and eventually non-believing Christians) and those who try to reconcile themselves with their faith.
She too suffered the guilt and the trauma of coming to terms with her  sexuality and trying to come out and to take part of our 'community'. She pointed out that there are reformist tendencies within the Copts themselves (we have seen that in politics, in groups such Maspero Copts) that are trying to move outside the burden of a long tradition  of being seen primarily as a religious and ethnic minority. It is a path she is still discovering, but awareness and critique are true steps towards a more open and progressive understanding of one's own subjectivity.

The third story is one of an 'unorthodox' Copt, if such a term can exist. She is a girl, who is typically Cairian, but that is the only thing typical about her. Despite growing up Christian, her affiliation with the church was almost non-existent. She came from a family that did not believe in denominational divides and she worshipped wherver she wanted. She represents a more personal stream of religiosity, where Jesus was not mediated through the Church but experienced first hand.
She is a young bitch (and being young is enough reason to call her a bitch) who is precocious for her age, she started being aware of her sexuality much earlier on  then most, and even fell in love at such a young age.
But despite the open and free upbringing and being free from the strict and conservative strictures of the church, she still had problems with her sexuality. She still believed that Jesus does not love fags.
She, however, refused to give up on her faith, or to give up her Jesus to anything, even if it was her sexuality.
 So when her life came to a standstill, she realized she has to confront the fact that she might love other men, but still love the man up there. Despite having boyfriends and being part of the gay community, she still loves Jesus and believes that he knows the truth of her heart.

I would have loved if more Coptic bitches showed up and talked about their own experience but for now, I am grateful to my Scheherazades, who by telling us their stories and their relationship to their faith, they revealed a lot about a poorly understood minority, that is as diverse as this society can ever be and that holds as much as hope as this society can.