If you are local, please come out and learn the truth about how Coptic Christians are treated in Egypt.
Monday, May 16, 2011
UC Irvine Coptic Christian Club Events This Week
The UC Irvine Coptic Christian Club is hosting a week of events on campus this week entitled, "I am Egypt." I just learned of it and feel it deserves my support. Below is their flyer.
If you are local, please come out and learn the truth about how Coptic Christians are treated in Egypt.
If you are local, please come out and learn the truth about how Coptic Christians are treated in Egypt.
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7 comments:
If this is for real, its a good idea. The theme "I Am Egypt" sounds more nuanced that what I generally see on Fousesquawk. If this is a parody, its not bad.
My professor of Middle Eastern studies spent a year living and studying in Egypt during the 1960's. He described the brutality Egyptian Muslims inflicted on the Copts. My professor recalled one day in Cairo a Copt was standing on a street corner when he was swarmed by a group of young men who beat him unconscious. These men were Muslims. . Sadly, four decades later has not changed the oppression of the Copts in Egypt.
"the brutality Egyptian Muslims inflicted on the Copts" is roughly parallel to the brutality the Ku Klux Klan inflicted on African Americans, not to the brutality the Third Reich inflicted on Jews.
The difference? The Third Reich WAS the government of Germany, THE STATE, Adolf Hitler was Reichschancellor cum Feuhrer, and the Nazis ran the government. The KKK was an illegal organization, albeit tolerated by many components of the federal government much (not all) of the time, and including in its membership some of the finest pedigrees of the local population. So yes, there is activity analogous to the KKK going on against Egyptians of the Coptic faith. "Egypt" does not have a policy of "oppression" of its Coptic citizens.
One of the Copts complaints is the lack of political representation equal to their numbers. Under Mubarek, Egypt was a very efficient police state. Do you think they couldn't have stopped violence against Copts if they chose to?
Why Gary, I thought you were mourning the end of the Mubarak regime because they HAD effectively suppressed violence against Copts? I thought you had denounced the new shaky steps toward democracy in Egypt on the grounds that violence against Copts is now official policy? Please try to be consistent in your allegations.
My own thought is this. Mubarak allowed just enough anti-Coptic violence so that he could say "See, apres moi, le deluge," and con the U.S. and Europe into backing his repressive regime. Its a standard ploy for dictators. Papa Doc secured U.S. support by mouthing some anti-communist rhetoric, in between torturing anyone who ventured to question his rule.
Now, with "the lid off," there is enough political vacuum that those who are inclined to commit violence against Copts feel free to do so. Will they continue to have this space in the long run? That remains to be seen. Hopefully those who chanted "Muslim, Christian, we're all Egyptian" will have a powerful voice in the shaping of the new constitution AND, more important, the practical daily administration and culture on the streets. They may not.
When did I ever say I mourned the end of Mubarek because he had suppressed violence against Copts? The persecution has been going on a for a very long time.
How many pins can Gary Fouse dance on the head of? When protests broke out in Egypt, he darkly warned that a valuable American ally was falling, and the result would likely be the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power. When Mubarak fell anyway, Fouse played up every pogrom against Copts as a fruit of the new political disposition. Now he says that Mubarak ran an efficient police state, and COULD HAVE stopped such behavior (on his own watch) if he wanted. Accordingly, Fouse has admitted that it was already happening under Mubarak. When called on this discrepancy, Fouse denies (with misleading accuracy) that he ever "mourned the end of Mubarek because he had suppressed violence against Copts."
But he DID mourn the end of Mubarak, and all but implied that Our Presidient was amiss for not supporting the man.
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