Critics say Egyptian government absolved of blame in film on Muslim-Christian divisions

Critics of a new Egyptian film that takes a lighthearted look at Muslim-Christian relations in the North African country say it doesn’t do enough to address the government’s role in exacerbating religious tensions, Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday.

According to the article, in “Hassan wi Morkos” (Hassan and Morkos), the lives of a Muslim sheikh and a Christian priest are put in danger, forcing each “to go into hiding and take on new identities from the other side of the sectarian divide.”

Some say the film only scratches the surface of Egypt’s sectarian issues, though. The film “does not come anywhere near to dealing with the problem because it is too deep, especially in the last few years, as opposed to the 1930s and 1940s when Hassan and Morkos would have loved each other,” film critic Tarek Shennawi told AFP, adding, “The state itself is behind the spread of corruption among the security apparatuses who have taken on the sectarian issue, turning the tensions into the full-blown crisis that we are witnessing today.”

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