Coptic Church Thesis CYW 10-03-04 >>Interviewer: So there, we are recording. Yay. Ok, so this whole project is about capturing people's literacy stories. Literacy, in this context, is defined as anything to do with reading, writing, composing. It could be a childhood memory, all the way to something present. It is really up to you what is most interesting, and maybe easiest to talk about. We've had people talk about composing music, and that's their literacy narrative, whereas others...the person I interviewed yesterday, his goal is to write a book. So his whole literacy narrative was about his writing process. And so, I told you, mine was about reading that horror book. And I mean, it's like, so...and another person's was about reading "James and the Giant Peach" when she was in third grade >>Carron: That's a good one. >>Interviewer: Yeah. So It's really up to you, what you want to talk about. But one of the things you had mentioned in class was this idea of discussing your thesis. I think that would be really interesting to talk about, if you wanted to share that. >>Carron: I would like to share about my undergraduate thesis. >>Interviewer: What was the topic? >>Carron: It was the Coptic church in Egypt? >>Interviewer: Phew, that's impressive. So...what...Did you go to Egypt, to be able to write this? >>Carron:I did, and my original intention was not necessarily to write on this particular topic. I went with the aim of taking Arabic classes, and I figured- it was my junior year, right after my junior year- so I thought I might encounter a potential topic during this trip. So I went with an open mind, and I didn't even...I was in the air, on the plane, when I came up with my thesis topic. I hadn't even gotten to Egypt yet, I was en route from- where was I?- from Austria to Egypt. >>Interviewer: Wow. >>Carron: I was on Air Egypt, and I was given a newspaper. The front page story on the newspaper was the fact that an Egyptian man had converted from Islam to Christianity, on the front page of the state newspaper. I thought that was pretty shocking. >>Interviewer: What did the newspaper article...what did they say about it? What was their spin? >>Carron: It was a general story, I don't quite remember the details, now that I've read so many of these front page stories about these...apostasy, that's when you change religions. It happens, then there's a story about it, the language is not very scandalous, but the content- in that particular context- is scandalous. So they don't have to even really use that many ominous of descriptions. Just basically says this person, this individual, he lives here, he's this age, and he converted from Islam to Christianity, and his family is outraged, people threatening his life, and it's basically what happens every time. And those conversion stories usually involve people going back and forth due to marriage. It's harder to get divorced in the Coptic church, so some people decide to convert to Islam in order to get divorced, or there's elopement. There's a trend where young girl, Coptic girl, she runs off with a young Muslim man, and that's a big scandal for the community. These all make the front page in these papers, it's a very big deal, a dangerous situation, too, for the people involved. >>Interviewer: So what does "Ancroptic...?" Did you just... >>Carron: Coptic? C-o-p-t-i-c. >>Interviewer: What is that? Is that...? >>Carron: It's a Orthodox church. They were established in mid-first century CE. Very old church, not many people know about it. They split from what's now Catholic and regular Orthodox during the Council of Chalcedon, was in the 5th century. Think it was based on the nature of Christ. But, very old, established church, a lot of people don't know about it, there's about between, I think, 5-10 million Coptic Christians. People don't know the exact number in Egypt, because you can't do a thesis...a, what do you call it, a census, and get the right numbers. The government tends to give low estimates and the Copts tend to give really high. The middle number is probably around in between 5 and 10 million. >>Interviewer: Wow, I have never heard of that. Do you...Do you think...It sounds like the problem is that's really an Arabic world, and so they're identifying with some form of Christianity, and so that's a little bit... [Both talk at the same time] >>Carron:...Eastern Orthodox churches. I think Orthodox Church, in general, doesn't get a lot of attention, whether it's Greek, or Armenian, or... >>Interviewer: Right. >>Carron: They're a part of that community, not necessarily doctrine-wise, but it's in that spirit, and they actually have a, there's an African pope, who is an African patriarch. They have a pope, they used to be connected with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and their pope was also the same pope for that church, but they split, I think in the 70's or the 60's, I think the Ethiopians were able to get their own pope, but there's actually an African pope, Baba Shenouda. >>Interviewer: Wow, why don't we know that, these things? >>Carron: That's what I keep wondering, and that's what keeps pushing me. My motivation is, you know, religious freedom for everyone, everywhere. This community is very special, and they've been overlooked. Their issues have been overlooked, their needs have been overlooked, their identity has been overlooked, and I think it's very interesting, get the awareness out and also help them, and to study something in my field of Near-Eastern Studies at the same time. >>Interviewer: Right. Ok, so this process started with this open mind, you were going to be immersed in the culture, see what happened, and then this newspaper comes across, literally across your lap on a plane, and you just, you find out about the topic that was really interesting to you. And it sounds like you found an opportunity to give voice to what, it sounds like, a people that have been marginalized and kinda ignored. I mean, I've never even heard of it. >>Carron: There's a big diaspora, and that's part of my paper was comparing methods that people, activists in the diaspora community use to activist in Egypt. A lot of them live in Jersey City, New Jersey...Trying to think of...supposedly, a good population in the Midwest, and then there's a lot of Middle Eastern people out in California. But the main center is in Jersey Center, New Jersey. That's where the big diocese they have. >>Interviewer: So then you find this topic, and then what was next? >>Carron: We did talk about that in class, in our book, the Christian landowner- he was a Copt. [Awkward pause] >>Interviewer: I'm like, "Ugghh, so many texts."...So what was your next step from seeing that newspaper, hearing that person's story? What did you do next? >>Carron: My next step was basically to get there and get over my initial culture shock, get settled in. But as soon as I was settled in, my spare time was spent visiting spare churches and getting an idea about their cultural identity. I didn't necessarily do a systematic search, but I went to as many churches as I could, for both urban ones in Cairo, and I went to the monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai Peninsula. I just walked around the churches, sat there, saw a couple Bible studies in Arabic, it was really neat. >>Interviewer: Wow, huh. So did you talk to mem...It sounded like you were there and observing, but did you also interact with members of the community? >>Carron: I interacted with members of the community, but I didn't necessarily do interviewers, ask them specific questions about their struggles. That's something I want to do later in my research, but the initial point is something that has to be approached very carefully, because it's a dangerous issue. >>Interviewer: So then what happened? So then you're...now you're getting immersed, getting all this information, I'm sure you're reading about it as well... >>Carron: I got the information, and I did most of my book research when I got back to Princeton. I -saw- some books, when I was in the churches, they have a lot of book stores, and I noticed that the titles of some of their books resemble some of the religious themes in Islam. So I saw that there was a lot of influence, probably back and forth...a lot of statements that are...there's a...think there's a part of the pronouncement you make when you become a Muslim- "Ya, Ilaha Illallah-" "there is no God but God." That's something that's considered to be a Muslim statement that rolls out of Islam, and something that other people might also agree with, but culturally, it's Islamic. They have books titled that in the Coptic book stores. It seemed like they share- like the community shares- a lot of the same sayings and customs, a lot of sharing going on, even though it's occasional animosity and conflict. When I got back, that's when I went to the library, started collecting my sources for these papers and I got to work with a lot of articles in the Egyptian press, and I found a couple of local, smaller Coptic, usually Coptic-American newspapers that they had come up with. A lot of them were online. You can find them...It was interesting, because you work with Egyptian newspapers, you never know- things may not be as they seem? On the surface. There's a lot of government control, and things are... They have interviews, and they say "So-and-so said this-and-that." But you never know what the precise circumstances are, so you can glean information from them, but you can't take everything at face value, when it comes to the Egyptian papers. What I found in a lot of Coptic-American papers was: very passionate language, a desire to express on several occasions, to work with Muslims, and to have inter-community dialogue and cooperation. But at the same time, they would have these inflammatory articles about Islam, and someone who isn't a historian doing a brief overview of Arab conquests, and describing how militant Muhammed was, things like that. And then the next article is, "I hope we can all hold hands and talk." [laughs] So there is the issue of... >>Interviewer: Who is their editor? [laughs] >>Carron: These are not scholars, these are just members of the diaspora who feel passionate about their community, and they decided to put these magazines and papers together. A lot of them were several years old, but there was only about two issues and I don't know what happened after that. But it gave me an idea of some of the different contradictions that are involved in this issue of inter-faith dialogue in Egypt. The other angle is in Egypt, the Copts won't outright say they are a minority, they have issue with that, with identifying themselves as a minority. They do things that, from the outside, would seem counter-intuitive when it comes to working with the government and trying to defend themselves from different hate crimes that come up based on certain rumors. There's a lot of rumors, especially in rural areas and upper Egypt- that's actually the southern half. For some reason they call it "upper" Egypt, the southern half, and the top half is "lower" Egypt. >>Interviewer: Interesting! >>Carron: Yeah, it's like, flip-flopped. But people spread all kinds of rumors, usually about young relationships and young people eloping that'll start something that ends up resulting in deaths and church burnings and things like that. >>Interviewer: God... >>Carron: One of the really bad things about that is they're not allowed to do any types of repairs, whether it be a toilet or something on the exterior of the building on a church without government permission. And the government is a huge bureaucracy, so you can, like, pretty much, it'll take forever to get your pass to repair your toilet. So a lot of them have to be clandestine about repairing their churches. >>Interviewer: This is just the Christian churches? Or... >>Carron: This is just the Christian churches, the churches. The mosques can do whatever they want. Originally this was...this was made during the Ottoman period, this rule. It's pretty outdated, it had a different purpose back then, that was meant to be helpful, but now it's just basically a bureaucratic barrier, for people repairing their churches. When people do undergo repair, sometimes Muslim neighbors will find out, and will say, "You don't have government permission for that," because they don't understand that the rule was not meant to be oppressive, it was appropriate during the Ottoman period, but it's not now. They're looking at like, "Oh, these people, they're not following the rules, they're taking the law into their own hands, repairing their toilet..." So. >>Interviewer: Wow... >>Carron: Next thing you know, there's violence, based off of something like that. >>Interviewer: Wow... >>Carron: So. Very touchy issues. >>Interviewer: And this is kinda, this is what you explored through your paper? >>Carron: Yes. >>Interviewer: And did you feel that writing process was sort of writing-to-learn? Like, by going through the writing, you deepened your own knowledge about it? >>Carron: Oh, I definitely deepened my own knowledge, due to what I felt at the time was the monumental size of the task. I'd never written anything that long before. It was...It pushed my endurance for reading and writing. It was unprecedented for me, because we had Junior papers on a smaller scale, but they were only 20 pages, and you did one per semester, so just 40 pages. >>Interviewer: What was this one? >>Carron: Well, the Junior paper was on a variety of things... they're a lot shorter >>Interviewer: [speaking slower] What was the length of this one? >>Carron: My length, I think, with everything together, once I had fixed the typesetting on it, leather cover, it was like 110 pages. >>Interviewer: Wow... >>Carron: Yeah, they made us pay $60 at this school company to bind it, like if you wanted gold engraving that was extra, $20, but I got the basic type of leather or pseudo-leather and got the job done for $60. >>Interviewer: And how many copies did you have to make? >>Carron: There's one copy in the Princeton Library, and if I had had more money, I would've kept one, got one for myself. But it was kind of expensive. >>Interviewer: Yeah. >>Carron: ...cheap leather to bind it, but I delayed turning it in for a long time because I was so... >>Interviewer: [Sympathetic noises] >>Carron: it was so nice to have a leather-bound, engraved book in my hand that had my name on it, I didn't want to turn it in. >>Interviewer: Yeah! >>Carron: I turned it in two weeks late to the depository, or whatever is holding these, but yup, it's sitting in there now. >>Interviewer: Well, that'll be a good trip to go back and see it. >>Carron: It would, I hope nobody like, what happened with Michelle Obama- she went to Princeton and she had her thesis, people were looking at it during the election, trying to see if they could find something inflammatory in it. >>Interviewer: So, the length? I mean, that is huge. How about the time? How much time did it take you to write this, with everything? >>Carron: The academic year. >>Interviewer: Wow. >>Carron: I wasn't working with the same momentum throughout the whole year, but things definitely picked up in the last four months before it was due. >>Interviewer: Thank goodness for due dates. >>Carron: And that's probably when the bulk of it got done. Before then, I was trying to figure out which direction to go in, doing a lot of reading and exposing myself to what's important. I read a lot. The bibliography was 10 pages...A lot of sources, I'd never had that many sources before, and I didn't get to use or cite everything I'd read but...Gave me an overall picture, I don't think there's anything else that I have this amount of comprehensive knowledge about. >>Interviewer: Wow, that's amazing. >>Carron: Even some things that would involve me personally, or about my own demographic group, I don't know anything as much as I know about these people. [laughs] >>Interviewer: But this is, something that...it sounds like something you're really passionate about, so you're planning to continue...? >>Carron: I am. I would like to expand on it here. >>Interviewer: That's great. So, is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your writing process or...I don't know, anything? >>Carron: Nothing that I can think of. >>Interviewer: Ok, well thank... >>Carron: Go Copts! >>Interviewer:...you so much [laughing]. Thank you, Carron.