The Discrimination We Don’t See… Because It Looks Like Us
With a realistic view, I find that we deny discrimination while practicing it at the same time. Few of us accept being described as racist; we like to see ourselves as tolerant, well-intentioned, people who do not deliberately exclude anyone and do not practice overt hatred toward those who are different.
But human history teaches us an important lesson: the most dangerous forms of discrimination are not those practiced with hostility, but those practiced through habit.
Discrimination does not always begin with a hateful slogan. It may start with an administrative procedure, a social custom, or a “normal” practice that we have never stopped to question in terms of its meaning or impact.
In schools, during religion class, the teacher asks Christian students to leave the classroom when Islamic studies are taught.
This may seem organizational, even well-intentioned: “Everyone learns their own religion.” But the real question here is not educational—it is human.
What does the child understand from this scene?
Does the child grasp the difference between religious specialization and symbolic exclusion?
A child does not read the constitution or understand the philosophy of pluralism. The child understands one clear thing: religious difference means leaving the group.
Thus, unintentionally, we plant early in the mind the idea that citizenship is conditional, and that belonging is not inclusive but divisible.
When Al-Azhar University includes faculties of medicine, engineering, science, and agriculture, it has—by reality—ceased to be a purely religious institution and has become a higher-education institution graduating doctors and engineers who work in a civil state.
The question here is not about the status of Al-Azhar, but a simple and fair one:
Why should an Egyptian citizen be prevented from studying medicine or engineering because of their religion?
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The curriculum is scientific.
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The degree is civil.
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The funding comes from public money.
So what justification remains other than discrimination based on religious identity, even if it is not named as such?
One of the quietest yet most impactful forms of discrimination is the presence of a “religion” field on the national ID card. It raises a logical question:
Does a traffic officer, a bank employee, or a judge need to know my religion?
Does my religion affect my right to healthcare, employment, or justice?
If the answer is no, then the existence of this field does not serve administration; rather, it turns spiritual belonging into a tool of civil classification and silently opens the door to discrimination.
Broadcasting Friday sermons through loudspeakers at high volume—overlapping to the point that the sermon cannot even be followed—is not a matter of religious preaching. Anyone who wishes to listen can go to the mosque on Friday by choice.
At its core, this practice is a symbol of the forced presence of one religion in the public sphere.
The patient, the student, the non-Muslim, and even the Muslim who does not wish to listen—all become recipients without choice.
Faith, in its essence, is not broadcast by force, nor imposed by loud sound. It speaks to the heart and mind through freedom.
The truth is that discrimination in Egypt is not limited to religion alone. It seeps into our daily lives in more common—and more denied—forms.
We practice class discrimination when we link human value to appearance, accent, or residential address.
When someone from a working-class neighborhood is treated as less competent, when a person from a village is assumed to be less civilized, or when a public-school graduate is viewed with suspicion rather than objective evaluation.
This may not be said explicitly, but the look of condescension, the tone of voice, and the methods of selection all teach people—without a direct lesson—that opportunities are not distributed fairly, but according to social status.
We practice discrimination against women when we accept—without protest—that they are asked about their intentions to marry before their professional competence, or when their ambition is judged as “rebellion,” while the same ambition in a man is rewarded as “leadership.”
When guardianship is justified in the name of protection, or when women’s social roles are reduced to predefined limits, we are not protecting values—we are legalizing inequality in the name of custom.
We practice geographic discrimination when we classify people according to their governorates, tell jokes, build stereotypes, and treat some areas as “margins” rather than full centers of citizenship.
As if geography determines intelligence, evaluates merit, or grants a person added or diminished value.
We practice silent discrimination against people with disabilities when we treat their presence as a burden rather than a right; when we build cities they cannot navigate and institutions that do not address their needs; or when parents protest their inclusion in classrooms as if they will slow down their children’s learning—then we wonder why they are “absent” from public life.
Here, discrimination lies not in cruelty, but in chronic neglect.
All these forms are often not practiced with bad intentions, nor declared as exclusion, but they share one dangerous thing:
They teach people—from a young age—who deserves, who is marginalized, who is seen, and who is expected to fade away.
A just state does not resemble its citizens—it protects them.
A modern state does not ask its citizens to be identical, to abandon their faith, or to hide their identities. It is required to do one clear thing:
To be neutral and fair, and not discriminate among its citizens on the basis of religion, gender, class, geography, or physical ability.
Good intentions are not enough. Someone may say, “We do not intend to discriminate,” and that is often true. But justice is not measured by intentions—it is measured by outcomes.
When a citizen feels less visible, less entitled, or different in a way that excludes them, the problem exists, even if cruelty is absent.
The problem is not religion, but turning it—unintentionally—into a criterion of citizenship.
It is not faith, but using it as a tool of civil organization.
What may be required today is not a revolution against society, not a clash with religion, nor even a sudden change in laws. What is required is quiet moral courage.
To pause. To ask. To review what we have grown accustomed to.
For when religion is a free choice, it elevates the human being; when it becomes an imposed identity, it weakens faith and humiliates citizenship.
A strong state is not one in which a single voice dominates, but one in which every citizen—no matter how different—feels seen, respected, and equal.
True progress does not begin with chanting, but with awareness; it does not begin with confrontation, but with understanding and accepting difference. And sustainable, constructive progress can only endure through justice and reason.
And reason—always—begins with a question.
