ElBaradei Goes to Church

There are rather confusing reports about Mohamed ElBaradei's attendance at Saturday Night's Easter liturgy at the Coptic Cathedral in Abbasiyya. Senior government officials, though Muslim, always attend, as do senior diplomats. In some of the coverage: beforehand, it had been announced that since he is a recipient of the Order of the Nile, he would be seated in the front row. (The Order of the Nile is Egypt's highest award, and recipients follow only the President in protocol, ahead even of the Cabinet.) But he apparently was kept at arm's length by the church. Pope Shenouda, of course, is on record as a Gamal Mubarak fan. There are some confusing contradictions in the reporting. This English-language report (the first two links were Arabic) suggests that he was almost snubbed by Shenouda and that he was seated well away from US Ambasasador Margaret Scobey, though the photo at that link appears to show him next to Ambassador Scobey. As Zeinobia notes, the official press is showing the photo; and as another of her blog posts notes, his photo made the front page of Al-Ahram for the first time since he returned to Egypt. (Online version of the article in Arabic here.) (A commenter on her post said ElBaradei wasn't identified in the Al-Ahram caption. Perhaps not in the print version, but he and Scobey are identified in the online version.)

Now, in case some readers are missing the rather obvious message of the official media parading that picture, the message is: ElBaradei is America's man. That would surprise a lot of Americans who dealt with him when he headed the IAEA, but the picture of him next to Scobey is pure gold from a regime propaganda point of view.

I doubt if Easter is this politicized even in most Christian countries; certainly (unless perhaps in Lebanon) a Christian holy day isn't this politicized in any other Muslim country.