Hours after leaflets from Egypt’s jihadi organizations were distributed promising to “reward” any Muslim who kills any Christian Copt in Egypt, specifically naming several regions including Asyut, a report recently appeared concerning the random killing of a Christian store-owner.
According to reporter Menna Magdi, writing in a report published August 14 and titled “The serial killing of Copts has begun in Asyut,” unidentified men stormed a shoe-store, murdering the Christian owner, Refaat Eskander early in the morning.
I have said it before but it bears repeating. If you are a Christian in Egypt, GET OUT!
Ad Orientem, I am shocked each time you say this. You MUST know as an Orthodox Christian that Alexandria is one of the ancient patriarchates with apostolic foundations. Are you seriously saying that this history should be abandoned? And isn’t to do so to give in to the bullies? And surely Copts can say ‘This is my country too?’
Would that have been your advice to Jews in Germany in 1933?
It was their country before Islam arrived. This is their homeland. Copts are the descendants of the builders of the pyramids and the tombs tourists visit. And many Copts in Upper Egypt in the villages, like this unfortunate shop owner, really do not have the capability to leave Egypt; nor do the Copts living in Trash City under the cliffs east of the Nile in Cairo.
Amen to #4. Its very easy for us wealthy westerners to say, ‘why don’t they just leave’?
Public pressure on this issue is important. Egypt as a nation needs good relations with the West – tourism is one of its most lucrative industries. Many Egyptians depend on it. Therefore we do and will continue to have influence there, more so than in countries like Syria, so keep up the political and public pressure. Keep the spotlight on the plight of the Copts.
In answer to Ad Orientem, what the Copts face is not genocide, like the Jews faced under the Nazis, but ethnocide, that is to say, the slow strangulation of a culture and a community through pressure on its organisations and also through targetted assassinations. I agree with 4 and 5 above: it is up to us to do what we can to push back this ethnocidal pressure. The US, after all, is a huge donor to Egypt, keeping it afloat financially.
I notice that Ad Orientem does not answer my question of whether the extinction of an apostolic patriarchate would be acceptable? Or perhaps its transfer (like that of the patriarchate of the equally ancient Church of the Assyrians) to California?
#7, Terry Tee, the Vatican returned the relics of St. Mark to the Coptic Church. They now rest in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo. The disappearance of this ancient patriarchate would be a disaster for all Christianity. And, of course, there are Catholic Christians in Egypt, and Anglicans, and various Protestant groups. Telling 8-10 million people to “just leave” is not practical advice.
I dunno — I think it’s a little late to exert “public pressure” now that the “Arab Spring” has ended precisely as certain realists on T19 were pointing out it would end a year ago.
The Islamists won. Their religion — the jihadists — are now in charge of Egypt and somehow I don’t think they’re as interested in money and “good relations” and “tourism” as they are in fulfilling the tenets of their religion.
This is going to be really really bad now for many decades.
I understand that Copts will now face a difficult choice. I don’t know what I’d do if I were they. But facing reality would be a start. If I were a Christian mother in Egypt, I’d say “well, if we stay, I can depend on much of my family being killed and my children having very little opportunity, if they are able to survive. If I leave, we will have to start all over again as immigrants, and it will be very hard.”
It’s a tough tough choice and I don’t know which I would make.
But that’s the choice. An entire country has surrendered — either unconsciously or with willful knowledge — to a very savage, primitive, violent, bloody religion.
Generally speaking, that doesn’t end well.
Many well-to-do Copts will leave, and have done so. The poor will face the Islamist evil.
Sorry about the delay in responding. I don’t live online.
The patriarchate might become extinct or it might go into exile. There is precedent for both. The argument that we should encourage people to stay and be slaughtered because it is their native country is so ludicrous it beggars belief. Likewise the argument that you are going to convince religious fanatics not to exterminate a reviled minority by threatening to not visit the pyramids. The fact that some people may have difficulty emigrating is a poor excuse for encouraging everyone to stay and die.
Rather then threatening a tourism boycott we should be encouraging western nations to open their doors to immigrants fleeing Islamic persecution. Again. shades of the 1930’s.
Why is it that whenever a nation or a majority group threatens to exterminate a minority group we all tut tut and dismiss it as so much bluster?
I just received by email a pubic statement from the Anglican Bishop of Egypt about the second meeting Christian leaders had with Morsi, just this week. Coptic Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant leaders were there. These church leaders (the Copts having by far the most people) have not advised their people to leave. Copts have survived fourteen centuries of oppression in their homeland, and they must figure they’ll survive this too. I hope so.
Re my #4, those who consider that they know for a certainty that Egypt is lost, need not make any effort to put public pressure on the regime. It doesn’t bother me, as I know what I will be doing.
Similarly, those who for some bizarre reason see (a) opening doors to those fleeing, and (b) bringing political pressure on behalf of those who remain, as an “either/or” proposition, may rest content in the superiority of their own reasoning.
RE: “Similarly, those who for some bizarre reason see (a) opening doors to those fleeing, and (b) bringing political pressure on behalf of those who remain, as an “either/or†proposition, may rest content in the superiority of their own reasoning.”
While I am sure that they [i]would[/i] rest content, if any of them were on this thread, nobody made those two propositions “either/or.” What some did do is point out that 1) the grandiose delusions of a few commenters back during the ill-named “Arab Spring” were dead wrong and 2) now that that’s been demonstrated, the country’s future is [i]far far far more deadly and chaotic than back *before* the ill-named “Arab Spring,”[/i] and 3) the resulting choices for those who don’t share the same jihadist murderous religion as those in charge are now [i]significantly[/i] fewer than they were back before the “Arab Spring.”
As to resting content in the superiority of their own reasoning, I think the ones who are doing that are the ones who will never — despite all the evidence to the contrary — admit that their cries of support for the “Arab Spring” were naive and clueless in the extreme. I have no illusions about their being able to drag themselves back from the position they took a year ago.
[blockquote] “While I am sure that they would rest content, if any of them were on this thread, nobody made those two propositions “either/or.— [/blockquote]
Yes they did. Go back and read the third paragraph Ad Orientem’s post at #9, which is what I was referring to. I never at any point suggested or hinted that we should not welcome those fleeing persecution, a point that you and Ad Orientem should have realised.
[blockquote] “What some did do is point out that 1) the grandiose delusions of a few commenters back during the ill-named “Arab Spring†were dead wrong…” [/blockquote]
What are you referring to?
[blockquote] “now that that’s been demonstrated, the country’s future is far far far more deadly and chaotic than back *before* the ill-named “Arab Spring,  etc” [/blockquote]
Who has suggested otherwise?
[blockquote] “As to resting content in the superiority of their own reasoning, I think the ones who are doing that are the ones who will never—despite all the evidence to the contrary—admit that their cries of support for the “Arab Spring†were naive and clueless in the extreme.” [/blockquote]
What on earth are you talking about? I remember some “naive and clueless” comments being made by those who suggested that Europeans and Americans should not support the rebels in Libya. Their delusion is now obvious to all. But what does this have to do with Egypt?