Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ning in 639AD, that the faith had been forced into the country's borderlands. Ever since,
Christians have been persecuted, taxed more heavily to undermine the Church's founda-
tions, and generally driven underground. Nowadays, only ten per cent of people belong to
the Coptic Church - but, in a country as big as Egypt, that's still a sizeable population.
'Mr Wood,' Ibrahim said, as we walked through the inner chamber. 'What do you
think?'
'I think I may be the luckiest person on Earth. Who else gets to see the Temple of Luxor
without a hundred other people bustling around?'
For a fleeting moment, Ibrahim was visibly upset. 'What's lucky for you is not lucky for
us. It wasn't like this in the good old days. Mubarak was a good man . . .' His voice had
faded to a whisper. 'Look at this,' he said, pointing at one of the intricately decorated in-
ner walls. 'It breaks the heart to see what some of these Muslims have done to the temple.
They did this last year, when that clown Morsi came to power . . .'
I followed Ibrahim's gaze. Four-thousand-year-old hieroglyphs adorned the walls, but
across the top of them somebody had scrawled writing in Arabic - graffiti left by the mob
when the revolution had spiralled out of control.
I looked around the hall. Some of the statues had been disfigured, decapitated or worse.
'Was that the Muslim protestors, too?'
'Well,' Ibrahim admitted, 'that was actually Christians. But it was 1500 years ago - they
didn't know any better. Today people have the internet, they have education - but they still
use religion as a justification to deface our history.'
Ibrahim seemed to be typical of the tour guides of Egypt - he spoke a plethora of lan-
guages, held a master's degree in ancient history, was married to a European woman, and
generally hated the anarchy that had resulted from the so-called 'Arab Spring'. 'At least
we had stability in those days. Everybody had a job, the money was amazing . . . but now
look! We had almost two years of mob rule. I only hope this latest guy can bring back or-
der.'
'Sisi?'
'He has such a tough road ahead of him . . .' Against his will, Ibrahim had started to
shed tears. Beneath the colossus, he stopped to dry his eyes. 'At least he's clamping down
on the Brotherhood. He's arrested most of them and threatened them with the death sen-
tence. It's the only justice these killers will understand.'
I remembered vividly the policemen rampaging into the mosque to drag away the mem-
ber of the Brotherhood. Ibrahim's was a view held by many - but there were still plenty
of fanatics. However the fissures had formed in Egyptian society, it seemed clear that they
were not ones that could be easily healed.
We walked on. As he regained his composure, Ibrahim pointed out yet more graffiti -
this time from Ancient Greeks, Arab invaders, Italian and French explorers, Egyptologists,
