Photo credit, Universal Images Group via Getty Images
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- Author, Yoland kneel
- Role, BBC News, Jerusalm
For years, visitors ventured on Mount Sinai with a Bedouin guide to observe the sunrise on the immaculate rocky landscape or participate in other hikes led by Bedouins.
One of the most sacred places in Egypt, venerated by the Jews, Christians and Muslims, is now at the heart of an impious controversy around the project to transform it into a new tourist megaprojet.
Known locally as Jabal Musa, Mount Sinai is the place where Moses would have received the ten commandments. Many also believe that this is where, according to the Bible and the Koran, God spoke to the Prophet from the burning bush.
The Sainte -Catherine monastery, dating from the 6th century and managed by the Greek Orthodox church, is also there – and it seems that its monks will remain there now that the Egyptian authorities, under the Greek pressure, have denied wanting to close it.
However, the transformation of this long isolated desert site – listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and including the monastery, the city and the mountain – still arouses strong concerns. Luxury hotels, villas and commercial bazaars are under construction.
It is also the home of a traditional Bedouin community, the Jebeleya tribe. The members of this tribe, known as the “Guardians of Sainte-Catherine”, have already seen their houses and their tourist eco-camps demolished without any compensation, even without compensation. They were even forced to get their bodies out of their graves in the local cemetery to develop a new car park.
The project may have been presented as desperately necessary sustainable development which would stimulate tourism, but it was also imposed on Bedouins against their will, explains Ben Hoffler, a British travel writer who worked in close collaboration with the Sinai tribes.
“This is not a development such that the Jebeleya see it or ask for it, but what it looks like when it is imposed from above to serve the interests of foreigners to the detriment of those of the local community,” he told the BBC.
“A new urban world is built around a Bedouin tribe of nomadic origin,” he added. “It is a world that they have always chosen to detach themselves, which they have not made to construction, and which will forever change their place in their homeland. »»
The inhabitants, about 4,000 in number, do not want to talk directly about the changes.
Photo credit, I’m Hoffler
Until now, Greece is the foreign power that has expressed the most about Egyptian projects, due to its links with the monastery.
Tensions between Athens and Cairo intensified after an Egyptian court ruled in May that Sainte -Catherine – the oldest Christian monastery in the world still used continuously – is on public ground.
After decades of dispute, the judges declared that the monastery had “the right to use” only the land on which it is and the archaeological religious sites which dot its surroundings.
The Archbishop of Athens, Ieronymos II, church of the church of Greece, was quick to denounce the decision.
“The goods of the monastery are seized and expropriated. This spiritual high place of orthodoxy and Hellenism is now faced with an existential threat, “he said in a statement.
In a rare interview, Archbishop Damianos, Archbishop of Sainte-Catherine for many years, told a Greek newspaper that this decision was a “blow for us … and a shame”. His management of the case caused profound divisions between the monks and his recent decision to withdraw.
The Greek Orthodox patriarchy of Jerusalem stressed that the holy place – on which he exercises an ecclesiastical jurisdiction – had received a letter of protection from the prophet Muhammad himself.
He said that the Byzantine monastery – which also houses, unusual, a small mosque built at the Fatimid era – was “a sanctuary of peace between Christians and Muslims and a refuge of hope for a world mired in conflicts”.
Although the controversial decision of the court is still in force, a wave of diplomacy finally led to a joint declaration between Greece and Egypt guaranteeing the protection of the Greek Orthodox identity and the cultural heritage of Sainte-Catherine.
Photo credit, I’m Hoffler
“Special gift” or insensitive interference?
Egypt launched in 2021 its great transfiguration project, sponsored by the State, intended for tourists. The plan includes the opening of hotels, eco-lodges and a large visitors’ reception center, as well as the enlargement of the small neighboring airport and a cable car leading to Mont Moïse.
The government promotes this development as “a gift from Egypt to the whole world and to all religions”.
“The project will provide all tourism and recreational services to visitors, promote the development of the city [de Sainte-Catherine] And its surroundings while preserving the environmental, visual and heritage character of virgin nature, and will provide accommodation to those working on the projects of Sainte-Catherine, “said the Minister of Housing, Sherif El-Sherbiny, last year.
Although the work seems to be interrupted, at least temporarily, due to funding problems, the El-Raha plain, for the Sainte-Catherine monastery, has already been transformed. The construction of new roads continues.
It was here that the disciples of Moses, the Israelites, would have waited for him during his stay on Mount Sinai. Critics say that the particular natural characteristics of the region are in the process of destruction.
Detailing the exceptional universal value of the site, UNESCO notes how “the rugged mountainous landscape that surrounds it … forms a perfect backdrop for the monastery”.
It is said: “Its location demonstrates a deliberate attempt to establish an intimate link between natural beauty and distance from the one hand and human spiritual commitment on the other. »»
Photo credit, I’m Hoffler
In 2023, UNESCO underlined its concerns and called Egypt to stop development projects, to verify their impact and to develop a conservation plan.
In July, World Heritage Watch sent an open letter asking the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to enroll the Sainte-Catherine region on the list of World Heritage Sites.
Activists have also contacted King Charles to sponsor the Sainte-Catherine Foundation, which collects funds to contribute to the conservation and study of the heritage of the monastery and its collection of precious ancient Christian manuscripts. The king described the site as “a great spiritual treasure that should be preserved for future generations”.
This megaprojet is not the first in Egypt to arouse criticism for its lack of sensitivity to the unique history of the country.
But the government considers that its series of grandiose projects is essential to invigorate an economy in difficulty.
The Egyptian tourism sector, formerly flourishing, began to recover from the effects of the Cavid-19 pandemic, struck by the brutal war in Gaza and a new wave of regional instability. The government has declared its objective to reach 30 million visitors by 2028.
Under successive Egyptian governments, Sinai’s commercial development was carried out without consulting the native Bedouin communities.
The peninsula was conquered by Israel during the Middle East war in 1967 and only returned to Egypt after the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries in 1979. The Bedouins have since complained to be treated as second-class citizens.
The construction of popular Red Sea destinations in Egypt, including Charm El-Cheikh, began in the south of Sinai in the 1980s. Many see similarities with what is happening today in Sainte-Catherine.
“The Bedouins were the inhabitants of the region, they were the guides, the workers, the people to whom money,” said Egyptian journalist Mohannad Sabry.
“Then industrial tourism arrived and they were pushed towards the exit – not just outside the sector, but physically pushed from the sea to the background. »»
Photo credit, I’m Hoffler
As with the sites of the Red Sea, it is expected that Egyptians from other regions of the country be recruited to work on the new project of Sainte-Catherine. However, the government also claims to modernize the Bedouin residential districts.
The Sainte-Catherine monastery underwent many upheavals during the last and a half millennium, but, when the oldest monks on the site settled there, it was still an isolated retreat.
It started to change when the expansion of seaside resorts in the Red Sea attracted thousands of pilgrims in a day at rush hour.
In recent years, we have often seen large crowds scrolling in front of what is said to be the vestiges of the burning bush or visit a museum with pages of the Sinaiticus codex – the oldest handwritten copy of the New Testament, almost complete, still existing in the world.
Today, even if the monastery and the deep religious meaning of the site remain, its environment and its secular lifestyles seem to be doomed to be irreversibly modified.
