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So go and get some books. Hello everybody and welcome back to new books in Middle East Studies. I'm Mark Holder in Aberdeen, Scotland. Today we'll be talking to a board called right about his book, Dilemma's of Attachment, Identity and Belonging Among Palestinian Christians.
It's a really interesting book. It's packed full of ethnographic detail, which makes it enjoyable to read. And the theoretical reflections add a great deal of value due to their attention to the ambiguities and political implications associated with such a diverse as Palestinian Christians. So board called right in Oslo.
Welcome to the show. Thank you. But I wonder if you could begin the interview by telling us a little bit about yourself. Well, I'm going to read in the report.
It's from an article published from eight of the people in the North of Norway. I left the article to study in the in Britain on the rules of West Coast painting. And that's where I stumbled onto anthropology in Middle East. It's a very study.
So I started with a master degree. Well, later on, I ended up doing a PhD with a focus on Christian Palestinians. So yeah, that's a brief introduction. Yeah, I did.
To write Dilemma's of Attachment then, was that based on your PhD research? Well, I'll backtrack a little bit. As a master student, I wrote a thesis on Palestinian return migration from the US to West Asia. From that, I conducted feed work in some Palestinian villages in 2000, just before the second father broke out.
And while there, while doing feed work, I got to know a few Christian Palestinians then in the drama law. I was sent a call to West Bank. And I got to learn that this was a small bit resourceful group, well-educated, politically engaged, and rather their history region. I also got the sense that they were emigrating after the ferry high rates.
So I wanted to learn a bit more about these people. So about their history region and about their position in Palestinian society. And so was this the question that you sought to pursue through your PhD research there in terms of integration? Well, that was my starting point.
But it was particularly a treat by this tension that arise from their identity as the national identity as Palestinians, as members of an Arab and predominantly Muslim community, and as Christians. As members of a wider Christian community, where bigger Western churches have a history of strong support for Israel, which has a source of some resentment, some disappointment among local Christians. So I wanted to learn a bit more about how these tensions well played out in Palestinian context. I see.
You may be helpful for listeners to have a quick overview of Palestinian Christians. Their numbers, where they're concentrated, perhaps how they have been represented in the past. Yes, and it's a fairly small community of around 50,000 people that now live in the West Bank, King Gaza, and in East Jerusalem. That's a bit more than 1% of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories.
And they belong to 13 different church movies, which the biggest is the Greek over us and the Catholic Church. And for most of all, they constitute a very well-educated middle class minority. For generations, they have been at privilege access to church-run private schools that are far better than public schools. Now and in the past, many of them were in educational health institutions, international NGOs in the tourist sector.
And as a community, they're more socially liberal than their Muslim neighbors. Historically, they consider themselves the servants of the people who lived there before the Muslim Arab invasion of the 6th century. And there's small numbers, partly due to a long history of immigration, especially from the Baton area, an immigration that dates back to the late Ottoman period. But in spite of this, they still hold a considerable influence in the Palestinian community.
Christian intellectuals played a central role in something developing up, called the secular Palestinian nationalism, and they still hold fairly strong voice in Palestinian politics. And today, local Christians, whether clerics or community activists, are still very active in that, when it comes to creating non-violent forms of resistance to the Israeli occupation. So, yeah, that's a few words of that. Yeah, absolutely.
Could you describe your own focus in the Bethlehem area? Why did you choose to focus on Bethlehem in particular then? Was it mainly because of this history of immigration? Or is there something else about Bethlehem that's particularly interesting?
Well, Bethlehem is kind of a stronghold of Palestinian Christianity. It's almost half of the Christians are left, around 22,000 lived in the town of Bethlehem, at a neighborhood town, so the Bejala and Bejal, so that was basically my starting point. But it's also an interesting region. It's very socially diverse.
There is a Bethlehem itself with its switch, biblical heritage, and local population. I'm immensely proud of that. There's also a number of refugee camps based in that area. And that's several of the smaller villages surrounding Bethlehem itself.
You actually talk, I think, earlier in your book about Bethlehem is comprising different social worlds. What do you mean by this exactly? Is it just that there's these different rural refugee camps, urban zones, if you like? Or is there something a bit more cultural social about that different social worlds?
Well, it's the nights I talk about their other part. This is one of the first things I noticed coming there. I came to Bethlehem in 2006 with our time. And I started working as a part of the English tutoring at a student center, associated with the Bethlehem University.
And at the student center, where there were local Palestinian students, they wanted to basically learn some conversation with English. Many of them had, when most of these students were from refugee camps and from villages around Bethlehem, they came from families with plenty of children, usually fairly core families. And basically going and getting to Bethlehem University at all had been quite an achievement for them. But some of them, some of them had also basically completed a three or four year degree at Bethlehem University.
Some in business studies, pretty much without being able to put together more than very, very basic sentences in English. And this was a first media contrast with the Christian communities of the Bethlehem area. I lived with a, I got the chance to live with a legal family based on base level and true that family and true that neighborhood. So I got to know them.
I got an immediate introduction to the local Christian communities. I worked characterise with higher level of education, levels of education. Most of them spoke English quite well. Many of them had attended the church from private schools in here.
Somehow to live abroad. And they had a, in some ways we might take a cultural orientation towards the West. In many ways, many of them had lots of family. But lots of relatives living in the US and Europe and certainly Latin America.
And when it comes to integration, it comes to personal aspirations. So young people either had fairly high ambitions in terms of what they could or want to achieve in the West match. Or they had a clear ambitions of getting out of going to the US or Europe for studies at work. And these were sort of, another kids had this, the students had this student form.
Some of them also had this idea of going out of integrating. But if so, it was more, it was more of a matter of plans for short term trips to Jordan or the Gulf States in Hossamom. But also all that they had, their main ambitions were to basically live decent lives in the Bethlehem area. So in terms of perceptions of their own possibilities, in terms of aspirations, I experienced quite a gap in these two worlds.
It's very interesting how you bring out the difference between the ways in which Palestinian Christians understand themselves to be connected to a wider world. And also Palestinian Muslims in Bethlehem and contrasts between refugees and urban elites and so on. Just a few non-Palestinian Christians for the time being, especially with questions of their identity. Christians in Palestine have become a kind of currency and very sure political contests, some of which you described early on in your book.
Were you concerned at all about your work being appropriated in ways that could distort Palestinian Christian realities or even harm their interests? Yes, certainly. In many ways, the situation of minorities in the Middle East altogether has become something of a political focus in Western countries in recent years, not just in Palestine, in Egypt as well. But it's been a focus on Palestine for the last 10 years or at least.
And it's become a, since there's been quite a bit of alarm about the flight of Christians from the area and its own business. There's no matter they are almost disappearing from the area. And it's become kind of a battle of a narrative. So who's to blame for this?
Israel or Palestinian Muslims, basically. And well, local Christians find themselves in the Middle of this. And so they have a clear interest in sort of shaping their own narrative. As a researcher, I find it important to convey the complexity in all this.
On the one hand, they're just a community with some internal tensions, certainly some conflicts that are some conflicts between Christians and the other. In some ways, it has a heart of the Christian communities in particular ways. In the Bethlehem area, in particular, the closing off of the Bethlehem has a devastating effect on the tourist industry. The tourist industry is a lifeline for many Christians in the Bethlehem area.
In particular, it's sort of the closing off of the Bethlehem, has a devastating effect on the tourist industry. The tourist industry is a lifeline for many Christians in the Bethlehem area. When it comes to land confiscations, a lot of land has been confiscated by Israel, for the building of settlements, for the building of war, especially in and around the Bethlehem area. And much of this land has belonged to Christian landowners.
And another thing is that the Israeli restricted restrictions on return for Palestinians that lived abroad. It's really a rule of that, regulations that comes to the right to settle, the right to residency in Palestine changes all the time. And this is something that strongly affects those who have lived abroad, those who have family members abroad, wish to come back. And in the Bethlehem area, this is a case for many Christian Palestinians in particular, I think, who's the tutor there, earlier, strong history of immigration.
I think one of the really compelling features of your book is how you, if you like, remain faithful to the complexity all the way through. And another aspect of the multiple loyalties that Palestinian Christians may have and the various kinds of groups which they may belong. Could you describe some of this for all listeners, the kinds of group loyalties that might have a decisive role in the way Palestinian Christians better understand themselves? Well, it's sort of, as I mentioned earlier, it's a very diverse area, which switched with various social divisions.
It's an area where people are divided along with different lines. Traditionally, these local communities have been organized by family class. And to this day, they have a patriarchal family class, some that can number more than 10,000 can be a source of land, wealth, power and protection. But this also means that smaller family class, to which many Christians belong, can be a source of vulnerability.
And then there are social divisions between villages, long-time cities, whether it's camp-based refugees and communities of settled veterans in the area. Then there are regional divisions between those of those in Bethlehem area and the people from other parts of the West Bank, in particular the District of Hebron. And there are sort of deep socioeconomic villages, with a large population of poor villages and refugees and with a significant wealth concentrated along a few at least families. And there are political divisions between political factions as well.
But in the Bethlehem area itself, it's sort of a different situation, different identities are, it's actualized. I lived in a, I had my primary base in Beethsehoor, which is known as a city with a strong sense of internal solidarity. And where sort of conflicts could have wrapped between members from a Bethlehem family and somewhere outside of Bethlehem. Now that's from Beethsehoor family, outside of Beethsehoor, from a nearby Muslim village, from Hebron family, or Christian families from Bethlehem.
Sometimes conflicts involving disputes over the sale of land, which in the case of Beethsehoor, there was a strong sense of duty of keeping the Beethsehoor land within the village. And this is something that actually transcended Christian Muslim lives as well. But in relation to sort of the outside world, in relation to Israel, it's sort of a, these sort of these internal tensions are out. To some extent set the site.
There is a strong sense of, certainly, about the Christians that are in relation to the outside world. It is important to keep a united front as Palestinians as well. There is a sense of strong, that there are concerns about their position in Palestine as a minority. Deep concerns are considering the strength and future fate of Hamas, political movement, and whether under us under us is in a Palestine dominated by such moves, what kind of place there would be for them as Christians.
But at the same time, they have historically, they have a lot invested in a secular Palestinian nationalist vision of Palestine. And sort of based into this, what you might call an eaters of national unity. This idea that you stand together against the outside world and you keep internal differences too. It keeps internal differences too, until national liberation has been cheap.
So it's sort of in concrete context, when situations of strong conversations with Israel, in particular, is sort of an internal solidarity. That crosses all internal lines. This is a national solidarity. It's very visible, very strong.
There is a lot of interesting theory that you deal with in the book. I just want to focus on one of the key concepts that you use, which is borrowed from Bruebaker, which is that of the sadness. It seems to be relevant to what you're talking about there. Could you elaborate a little bit on this idea of groupness with reference to Palestinian Christian interlocutors?
Well, it's sort of Bruebaker starts out with a basic distinction between categories as aggregates of people who may share certain characteristics and groups. That's aggregates of people who, on the basis of those characters, this also share collective conscience and sense of solidarity and a capacity for collective action. And he goes on to distinguish between groups and groupness. By that he refers to, well, he refers to groupness as an event, as a phenomenon, where a sense of group belonging and commonality can occur occasionally, triggered by specific events or situations between people who may not usually strongly regard themselves as a group.
Well, in Palestine, Israeli transgression, as a military or politically, cannot sometimes have that effect of bringing people together as Palestinians. And while I was there in 2006, this was a few months after Hamas had come to power. At the time there was a Hamas government that had been boy-caught by the justice committee, and that boy-caught had an effect on them. Well, it kind of affected everyone.
It's heightened everyone. And it had some absurd consequences. For instance, Bethlehem University, where most of the young people in the better, right, wants to go. It's a Catholic university, originally established by the Vatican.
And it still gets quite a bit of funding from a truly Catholic church, but it also depends on that. One of the fairly high student traditions. But during, at this time, he used to have a lot of families with a heart and financial, and struggling to sort of mobilize the mind to send her kids to the university. What happened then was a lot of them received generous funding, scholarships from Saudi Arabia.
We have a situation in which, due to boycott aimed at weakening Hamas, a Catholic university, and its Christian students, find themselves relying on Saudi funding. And so it's sort of this boycott against Hamas, that rally pulled together, even though few cashiers had had to be hated Hamas in some sense. During December, in 2006, Israel also arrested a number of Hamas parliamentarians. And this too was seen as a grave, in soft against Palestinians, against a Palestinian Democratic institution.
And then there was a Lebanon war as well. This was the year when Hamas kidnapped some Israeli soldiers on the border. And sorry Hezbollah kidnapped a few of them. Some Israeli soldiers on the border between them.
Israel in Lebanon. And Israel saw the heavy military in culture, into the south of Lebanon, devastating consequences for some of those communities. At the same time, there was an Israeli, a strong Israeli military, against Gaza. And during this time, there was local Palestinian Christian and Muslim, where they were in a rage, they organized a big concentration center, but truly passionate in their position to Israel, in any and everywhere.
And also, and also when there's a court for Hezbollah, sort of, we talked to local priests who would, who would praise the leader of Hezbollah for his freedom of position to Israel. And it's sort of a, this is a kind of situation that invoked not just the Palestinian but strong sense of Arab identity. So that's the performance of Palestinian groupness as a response to the threat of Israeli reach or restrictions or violence. Could you give us an example of a different kind of groupness or perhaps the same people performing groupness as they relate to a different kind of group?
Well, it's sort of the next year. Well, from other, actually the same year we have some other situations that sort of triggered some, well, basically religious tensions in the area. You had the aftermath of the Mohammed cartoon crisis. This was an incident in which Danish newspaper published some cartoons, early controversial cartoons of Mohammed, which basically started a massive campaign of protests against Denmark and later Norway for publishing these cartoons.
In Palestine, I would talk to local Christians to do that, during these two months, when they were huge rallies against these, against these cartoons, they actually found that a relationship between Christians and Muslims were a bit stronger. And Christians and Muslims were a bit strange because of this, in some sense, local Christians, sometimes experienced being seen as basically the extension of Western Christianity. This was seen a habit later as well in Fall of 2006 when the whole Benedict made some rather offensive comments about the Prophet as well. When that happened, four churches, Palestine, where Alsomhed, and there were rumors that someone had attempted to march in the Catholic Church in Batesville as well.
But I was there at the time, I couldn't see any signs of that. At that time, as well, they created a sense among many Christians that are a sense of vulnerability, a sense of standing up as we've been seeing in some situations as internal others. So there's no situations as well that can occur. That's really interesting.
Gender plays a very important role in your analysis as well. How would you summarize the centrality of gender in your account beyond the quite familiar stereotypes of Middle Eastern gender roles? Well, it's the Christian community of Palestine, they take pride in, sort of, well, things help us a bit more socially liberal in many ways now, they're Muslim neighbors. When it comes to gender roles, when it comes to the focus on the individual freedom and all these things, at the same time, a patriarchal family structure is certainly important.
It comes to a strong place within these communities. And this is particularly evident when it comes to marriage or rituals. Deciding who to, well, first of all, when it comes to the rules of social interaction between men and women, young boys and girls are still fairly strict in some relative, most Europeans are tight. Any social interaction between them, young boys and girls are very tightly monitored.
And young women do have to look out for their own, their social reputation. Having any kind of so-serious romantic involvement before getting married is usually front of all. And who you get to marry, who you can marry is not a, it's not entirely optimal. It's not entitled to individual rights, and it certainly is.
There are some clear terms for who one might be allowed to marry. Who is considered a suitable partner. Historically, anyone was expected to find a partner within their own church community. Now, this may be many of the church communities in the special and the battle in the area are fairly small, so that's no longer almost possible.
And in recent, well, at last three or four decades has become much more common to sort of a, to be a part of this. Well, if you're a blond to the author of church to find out, I can't believe all of it, for instance. But when you marry, have to come, have to come from a family of good sattings. And especially for young women, it's sort of a, it's vital to have your, your, your family's blessing in terms of choosing you to marry.
Looking at individual cases, I did find some cases of young men who were able to sort of, to kind of force through their will and be able to be allowed to marry someone that their family, at first did not approve of. This is far more digital to that for young. For young women. At the same time, it's sort of, I had the sort of ideals of romantic love and ideals of, of individual freedom.
In these, in this area are growing stronger. And in recent years, there has been, there has been, in recent years, there has been a few cases of, well, marriage by a lot of young people who have, who have left, who have sort of run away and got married to, to someone that their families did not approve. And this is something I write about as well. It's, I, I describe a few cases of, some cases of young people running away and marrying someone that their families do not approve of.
And it's sort of, this is the source of, of some more alarm within the community. There's a sense of, I'm on older generation president, among some people, there is a sense of, of all the rules being, basically being soft. And when someone runs away and marry someone that, that their family is not approved of. And they are forgetting, given for it afterwards.
That in particular, sort of, is seen as very alarming, setting up an unfortunate presence. And there's sort of, in a, basically in a community where there's so much uncertainty, where politically they've been living in limbo for decades. There's, there's nothing, there's nothing resembling a kind of a political solution to the conflict in the horizon. Economically, people are struggling in general.
Some families are, are, are leading, leaving the country, or some members are leaving the country. Basically there's a, the people experience this uncertainty and instability. So many disruptions in so many areas. A patriarchal family structure is sort of, is seen by many as a, well, an important anchor.
Sort of one thing that they, they, they could cling to us as a source of certainty. Yeah. And, and, and when that as well as being challenged, there's a, there's a, there's a tough one. You describe at one point how upheaval is very radical and very rapid changing, Bethany him, has heightened tensions between those conservative forces and these kind of forces of change, if you like, and in particular to, to gender roles and marriage.
And do you think it has a broader application, this tension between conservative forces and forces of change being exacerbated in the context of upheaval? I'm thinking in particular, like every day applications of Christianity on the one hand, very traditional and artistic on the other hand, very radical and politically engaged, both of which feature quite prominently in contemporary Palestinian Christian discourse. Well, it's, it's kind of a, a, a, in the public in, in the public in context, you kind of find a drive to watch both in a, among, among local Christians, well, not just local Christians, but certainly not local Christians. There are some people, some families, young people who are turning to religion, who are turning to Christianity as a source of identity and as a source of, oh, that's kind of, it's a kind of anchor, I guess.
And kind of in response to, well, all these, in certain days, and also in response to what some of the perceived as, as a sort of growing pressure from a local, a local, Muslim majority population, kind of a, you have some segments of the local Christian community that sort of turn inwards towards, well, towards religion towards the church, and towards their own display of their own religious identity. And those, then, then there are also, especially among young people, those who are, seriously, wish to protect, kind of a sense of, well, to some extent, a secular, liberal, life-side. That they want to, well, they want to expand against the will of older generations, women in the world, and they want to protect against what they see as conservative forces in society, in general. So, there are, yeah, so there are sort of several cross-cutting, and, cutting at, driving, in this context, and it's sort of a, it's sort of in a context of, well, political uncertainty and economic, sort of, economic depression as well, which has been, has been a feature in Palestine for some time.
It's a sense of, a sense of social freedom is considered quite essential among, among many people. Changing focus on the kind of powerful account of the effects of the occupation upon the physical environment of Bethlehem. I'm quite interested in the relationship between these physical concrete changes in the Bethlehem environment, and then symbolic changes, changes in the ways in which Palestinians think about themselves, represent themselves, describe meaning to the world. Could you talk a little bit about the way in which physical disconnection has affected Palestinians and Christians in particular, when it comes to, for want of a bet of phrase, their symbolic lives, they're dwelling in the holy land, their relationship to modernity to the Christian world and so on.
All right, well, it's, I've been based in the Bethlehem area, and, well, Christians in Palestine, they have a, they take, and in Bethlehem in particular, they take it once pride in the, well, in Bethlehem, Bethlehem's, centrality to Christianity itself. They also have a strong emotional connection with Jerusalem, and it's sort of a, there's this, there's this dramatic context which contrasts between now, the fact that there's other people living in Bethlehem who have, well, members of the families have immigrated to El Paso, well, they have permanent connections throughout the Middle East, black America, and so on. In the US, New York, some of these, they have barely contacted, now to, well, to, to the internet. And some of them have also lived abroad, and hold one or two foreign passports themselves.
In all the West Bank, as Palestinians, they are, they are stuck in Bethlehem. So we're just getting to Ramallah, half an hour's drive away can be a major hassle. And Jerusalem, we just joke, look here, just five miles to north is mostly block for them. And then, and some of these battle Christians haven't been able to, to visit Jerusalem in, well, in a decade.
And so in terms of their own, it's of their attachment to the area, to local places, in terms of their, the anchoring of their Christian identity, this is quite dramatic, sort of a, Jerusalem as well, well, they live in and around Bethlehem. Jerusalem is still kind of a, what they see as their main spiritual center instance. And not being able to, but for those who have a strong, who feel really strongly about their religious identity in particular, not being able to visit Jerusalem, not being able to visit Jerusalem. Or not being able to visit the only signs, all the churches in Jerusalem is quite a dramatic loss in many ways.
And so it's a contrast, so, but it's so sharply with the extent to which they are connected with the rest of the world in other ways, with their sense of relational mobility in some sense. So there's this sense of relational mobility. That's sort of a contrast dramatically with the realm, which are a complete lack of physical mobility in the Bethlehem area. It's really interesting.
I think one of the things that really struck me, not least in reading your book was the way in which, as well as this disconnection, if you like, physically, symbolically to places elsewhere, particularly Jerusalem and to to Israel and so on. And this is which matter greatly to them. There's also a kind of disconnection from Bethlehem as well, because of internal migration, which you deal with an awful lot. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
A disconnection from a sense of having, I use it almost metaphorically, really, a sense of having been displaced within their own town because they recognize their own town, if you like. This is particularly, this is something that's an experience, a particular strong one. Those who live in Bethlehem itself, there's a difference here between Bethlehem and Bethlehem in particular. This is quite strong.
Well, historically, for the last few hundred years, Bethlehem has been a Christian majority, how it had historically, sort of the sea, as consistent of seven family class, six, which were Christian, one, which was well known. Well, basically, until around the turn of the century, around the late 1800s, when Christian families are immigrating to the Latin America in particular, this was the case. Christians were in the clearly majority, and they owned much of the land around the time. But then, as families have immigrating, they sold their land, and much of this land was sold to Muslim families in the area, and especially from the Hebron area.
And this is development that's been going on throughout the 19th century, the 20th century, was sort of with wealthy families from other parts of Western America. And this is something that's been referred to as the people referred to as the hybridization of the Bethlehem area. In addition, three refugee camps have been of the 1948, after the expulsion of Palestinians from from the United States, where established around Bethlehem. And I don't know how many of them know how many of them know many thousands of refugees, and they do constitute a strong presence in the city itself and around.
What does this presence look like? I suppose that's what I'm driving at. The everyday experience of this migration, well, it's sort of the experience of local, those who consider themselves all the battleites, is that they have gone from constituting 90% of the city's population to maybe 25. And they experience that, especially as many of the many properties in the old city of Bethlehem has been taken over by Hebron families.
They experience that this has changed the social character of the city, to some extent as well. Hebronites are considered more socially conservative in many ways, to an extent that families consider themselves as Muslim battleites. They have complained that these newcomers from Hebron have sort of changed the terms of what it means to be Muslims, in Bethlehem itself. So this is the main thing they have experienced that, they and that's Christians no longer dominate Bethlehem, and that the city sort of, the town has slowly changed it in front of them.
And where they have their biggest family networks mainly in Chile and other places in Latin America. There's their local social basis, a string. Now this experience is very strong in Bethlehem, in which they are in Bethlehem, in Bajalla. This is much less the case in Baysa War, which is where the Christians still constitute 75% of the population.
Yeah, and then it's very, very insistent of not selling it around to outsiders. That's really interesting. That's so nice. Just one general question really, it's a little bit obvious if you like.
Christians in the Middle East are in the media and awful lot at the moment. And that's much of it is good news really. Do you have any optimism at all the Christians in Palestine, in the region more generally, even other minority groups? What's the future if you like of that ancient pluralism of the Levant as far as you see it?
Well, actually I'm kind of, in terms of immigration, I do think that as long as if the political situation keeps deterring, and there's nothing leading towards a political solution anytime soon, at least in Palestine. This is something that leads to more immigration and local Christians being put up fairly well connected, will resourceful, well educated. They will be among the first to leave. This is always in any sort of conflict setting.
But at the same time, the few that stay behind are local Christians historically, they have this legacy of their own contribution to establishing a secular Palestinian national identity. And I kind of think this to some extent gives them a local buffer as well. It sort of gives them a, it gives them a, it strengthens their sense of belonging, their local investment in the area. And also they're around the sense among, they commit to it among local Muslims to work towards keeping the local Christian presence alive.
When it comes to the rest of the region, in general, I'm quite pessimistic. I mean, in Iran, the Christian communities of Iran has been completely decimated following the aftermath in the civil war, following a recommendation in 2003. In Syria, well, who knows what's going to happen in Syria? But sort of if it's sort of, well, lots of the authorities, is as they imagine, they're not going to be brutal.
It's sort of a local Christian, they experience a much worse fate under ISIS rules, where they start to hold all the powers, whatever happens there is, well, far to say. In Egypt, they have a, there's eight million people strong community. It's sort of a, I think the situation with cops in Egypt is going to be, well, it's hard to say what happens there, what happens in Egypt. At this point, it's most of all dominated by the strength of a repressive military system that's much more oppressive than anything in this system they've had before.
And that's probably for anyone in the area. Well, so I'm not optimistic. Well, thank you anyway, for giving us your perspective on that and also for taking us through some aspects of your book. We've taken up a lot of your time.
It's been really great to hear about your book, Dilemmas of Attachment. I wonder if you could end up by just telling us what you're working on at the prison since you finished that book. Well, I'm currently in the project focusing on masculinity among Egyptian cops. And for that, I've been conducting field work in Alexandria.
I'm being based in Alexandria, not in Egypt. I've also, as it's high-party, focused a little bit on the remaining small Christian communities of Alexandria as well. Sort of the small, tiny remains of what was once cosmopolitan Alexandria. So I'm sort of, I'm kind of still sitting with the Christian minority situation.
Well, we'll go to reading that one. Maybe we'll get a chance to talk about that as well in due course. I do all of our listeners to get hold of Dilemmas of Attachment. It's really quite an important contribution to this conversation about minority, the sustainability of minorities in the Middle East.
And it's been really great talking to you, but that's always got time for just now. So let me close by thanking you for a really stimulating conversation and wish you every success with your current work. Thank you very much.