The real plot to partition Egypt.

Map of Egypt and Sudan, produced by Islamists, and surfaced on the internet some time ago, which shows the imagined different countries that the alleged American-Jewish plot is supposed to create.

The real plot to partition Egypt.(OCN).By Dioscorus Boles.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMERI) published an important article recently. MEMRI explores the Middle East through the region’s media, and this time, on 17 February 2012, it focused on Egypt, bringing to the attention of the public two articles that had been published earlier, on 9[i] and 10[ii] February 2012, by the Egyptian official newspaper, al-Ahram, in which a government’s official and journalist attacked national and international NGOs, and accused some, particularly one American organisation – which it did not name – of working to partition Egypt into four states. MEMERI’s article comes under the title: “Egyptian Government Daily: U.S. Striving to Divide Egypt into Four Countries”,[iii] and the reader can access it by clicking the link below:

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6104.htm#_edn1

MEMRI’s article reminds us of the conspiratorial mind of the Egyptians; and this malady seems to be getting worse as the military and Islamists entered in a coalition to rule Egypt. Recently, the Superior Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), supported by the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) and the more fanatic Salafists, has raided national and international NGOs’ offices in Egypt, arrested some of their members, and accused them of fermenting unrest. A bizarre accusation, which was repeated in the government’s al-Ahram newspaper, is that these organisations, particularly one American organisation which has not been named, plot to partition Egypt. Division maps, they say, have been “uncovered at the headquarters of an American organisation”, and the seizure of a partition map of Egypt there “proves the existence of this dubious plan”. The newspaper goes on to call the so-called “Egypt’s Partition Plot مخطط تقسيم مصر”, “Bernard Lewis’ Zionist-American Plan”. Lewis is of course the British-American scholar who has written most than any other to make readers understand Islam and the Islamic world.

I was aware of the existence of this type of thinking in the mind of some Muslim Egyptians. It is not new, so it is not surprising. The Islamist literature and internet pages abound with it;[iv] and ex-president Anwar Sadat (1970 – 1981) irresponsibly propagated it at some stage, even though he did not dare to point the finger of blame at the Americans or Israelis but accused poor Pope Shenouda, the spiritual leader of the Copts, of plotting to become the political as well as the religious leader of the Copts and “set up a separatist Coptic state with Assiut as its capital”.[v] As evidence for the alleged Coptic separatist plan, he told the Parliament, on 14 May 1980, that the Palestinians in Lebanon had arrested three Coptic volunteers fighting in the ranks of the Christian Maronite militias.[vi] One can also add here the repeated allegations by Islamists that the Copts store weapons in their churches and monasteries, and this seems to be an article of faith with them, however unfounded, on which they perpetually feed their anticoptic hatred and violence.

It is, however, interesting to know what the current rulers of Egypt think Copts fit into all this alleged conspiracy, and what area in Egypt they suspect is projected to become a Coptic country. The fanciful plot, they tell us, envisages four states:

1. A state in Sinai and the eastern part of Delta (one assumes it is basically Bedouin): this is supposed, somehow, to be under Jewish influence. We are not told what the capital of this state will be.
2. Nubian Egypt, with Aswan as its capital: this will, somehow, be integrated with South Sudan and will also be connected to the Berbers in North Africa.
3. Coptic Egypt (which they call, in a derogatory way, “the Nazarene State الدولة النصرانية”[vii]), with its capital at Alexandria: this will stretch southward from the southern part of Bani Suwayf Governorate to the southern part of Asyut Governorate, and westward to the city of Mrsa Matruh.
4. Islamic Egypt, with its capital at Cairo: this will include the remainder of Egypt. This is intentionally made to look comparatively so tiny in area (see map below) so as, of course, to instigate the maximum emotional response possible against the Copts and the Nubians (who will take, as the Islamist map alleges, the largest part of Egypt). The reader can watch the following Egyptian TV programme to understand how a sample of Egyptians, presumed educated but actually a bunch of low IQ idiots, react to such claims:The “Nazarene State” of course is what interests us here. From al-Ahram’s article and the circulated map, we can conclude that the SCAF and the Islamists assume that such state is planned to include:
   
   • The Governorate of Alexandria
   • The Governorate of Matruh
   • The Governorate of Minya
   • The Governorate of Asyut
   • The Governorate of Sohag[viii]
   • The western part of al-Buhayrah Governorate
   • The western part of Giza Governorate
   • The western part of Fayyum Governorate
   • The western part of Bani Suwayf Governorate
   • The northern part of New Valley Governorate
   Curiously, their imagination does not stretch as far as Qena or Luxor Governorates or any part east of the Nile River. A detailed map of this proposed Coptic State will, therefore, look like this.Read the full story here.