H/T Armaros
The Guardian’s “Arab Spring” hasn’t been all too kind to Christians, and the “world’s leading liberal voice” hasn’t found their, um, voice, in condemning the religious bigotry and violence this glorious revolution has unleashed. Here’s Harry’s Place on the deteriorating situation of Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Firefighters extinguish a blaze at a church started by a Muslim mob in Cairo, Egypt on May 8, 2011
Another Church has been attacked and burned down in Egypt by a mob of Muslim extremists on the basis of “a rumour” that the Church was holding captive a Christian woman who, they claim, wanted to convert to Islam.
My guess is that it will pass largely unremarked as Liberal and Left opinion-makers cast an Nelsonian eye in its direction. There is growing evidence that the secular democratic revolution in Egypt will be victim to a Trojan Horse filled with theocrats.
Let’s face it, little fuss was made or concern shown when it happened last time. On News Year’s Day, a bomb killed 22 Coptic Christians attending Midnight Mass. Inevitably – so removed from reality is the political milieu this is happening in – the finger was pointed at Israel by some prominent Egyptian political leaders.
Even today, as the ashes of the church still smoulder, The Guardian has a CiF piece pontificating to Coptic Christians:
The way forward is for Egyptian Copts to participate vigorously in political life. They should do that not as a religious group seeking to solve limited Coptic problems but as Egyptian citizens calling for equality and freedom for all.
Read the rest of the essay, here.
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14 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 8, 2011 at 5:26 pm
canadaneil
The below-the-line comments to the Guardian CIF piece are refreshing however…
May 8, 2011 at 5:39 pm
SarahLeah
This actually made the BBC television news this evening. Looks like the Arab spring isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be, or at least won’t promise “democracy” to all Egypt’s citizens.
May 8, 2011 at 6:02 pm
pretzelberg
My reaction to the headline of the CiF article was likewise: BS.
But if you read the entire article, I’m not sure it was really “pontificating” to Coptic Christians.
That said: the issue in itself is of course deeply disturbing, i.e. attacking churches over mere rumours about one individual.
Islamic clerics denounced the violence, sounding alarm bells at the escalating tension during the transitional period. … “These events do not benefit either Muslim or Copts,” Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the Sheik of al-Azhar told the daily Al-Ahram.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/05/08/ml_egypt_sectarian_clashes_1
Well, at least they’re not all crazy, eh CiFWatchers?
May 8, 2011 at 7:41 pm
armaros
Nobody says all are crazy.
The comment is about the article which not once condemns the bigotry and intolerance of Muslims in Egypt which is reflected in the acts of the Islamist mobs as well as the actions or lack thereof on the part of the authorities. Be it under or after Mubarak.
The fact remains is that 10% of Egypts population is now facing a force which wants it expelled or otherwise removed from Egypt.
Clerics may condemn acts of morbid violence but clerics also incite it when they call upon all Egyptians to bow to Allah or do not preach against violence when they have a chance every Friday. As these acts seem to always occur upon exiting of mosques.
The profile of these events is not unique. We see the same stuff out of Nigeria, Iraq, PAK, Indonesia and even Malaysia.
Yet when reports emerge they depict “sectarian conflicts” instead of persecution.
Lets face it, Egypt is now sinking more than it is in elevation to something better than what it was under the old regime. It seems the regime was in fact putting a lid on the fanaticism which is now seeing the door kicked open.
We are still not told of the full story of just how extreme is the harassment of women, the hate of Jews and the overall rise of Islamist movements which were always there. Egypt produced the vilest and most fanatical of Islamist leaders and was the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Before the so called spring, these vermin were said to have existed due to the oppression of Mubarak and their ideology thus contextualized. Today they whitewash them under “sectarian conflicts” or refuse to discuss the issue at all.
These are not “sectarian clashes”. This is not Northern Ireland or Shri Lanka. This is Islamic fascism going after its enemies. There are no
‘clashes” when one side attacks another and burns its properties down, massacres its people who then are subject to further humiliation by a state supposedly refereeing as impartial arbiters we are not facing a sectarian conflict. We are seeing intolerance and oppression.
This is persecution 101. Pogroms aided and abetted by the state or elements of the state.
May 8, 2011 at 8:04 pm
SerJew
“Sectarian conflict” their asses! it is *real* ethnofascism, that is found wherever muslims have power.
May 9, 2011 at 10:38 am
walt kovacs
rumors nothing.,….it was a blood libel used as an excuse to kill christians
how many churches were burned down during mubarak’s reign?
now christians have always been an oppressed minority…as they are dhimmi…but they werent being shot in the streets and burnt out of their churches
they dont have the saturday people to kill…so they are going after the sunday people….just as they promised
and israel should want another islamic state at their doorstep?
hell friggin no
may 15…the palestine myth ends forever
May 8, 2011 at 11:17 pm
benorr
The Egyptian Jews were lucky to leave when they did leave that sick hell hole called Egypt,otherwise they would have suffered the same fate as the Copts.
I have heard of stories of the Israeli Navy getting Jews out of Port Said Egypt,they were taken to Israel on Israeli Naval boats to Haifa.This happened at the time of the Suez war.
Not at all easy for non Muslims to live among Muslims.
May 9, 2011 at 8:57 am
ziontruth
“Not at all easy for non Muslims to live among Muslims.”
The real apartheid. Not the Left’s cause, however–does not serve their cause of undermining the hated West.
May 9, 2011 at 5:52 am
Derek Pasquill
Genocide in the making – file under Emergent Genocide Studies.
What a piece of lowlife scum this Amira Noweira is viz her use of the weasel phrase “sectarian tensions” (translation – Copts as second-class citizens should know their place).
May 9, 2011 at 9:55 am
Snigger
Yes, Derek Pasquill – similar weasel words were used by the Nazis about their “final solution to the Jewish problem.”
May 9, 2011 at 6:24 pm
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July 15, 2011 at 2:26 pm
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[...] Muslim extremists burn down another Coptic Christian church in Egypt (cifwatch.com) [...]
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Egypt: What Kind of Revolution? | Tea and Politics
[...] Muslim extremists burn down another Coptic Christian church in Egypt (cifwatch.com) [...]
January 31, 2012 at 10:53 am
Obama Regime hands huge propaganda victory to radical Islamists seeking to criminalize speech deemed ‘offensive’ to Muslims
[...] jail or execute “blasphemers.” In nations like Egypt and Iraq, Christians are attacked and their churches torched while Muslim-dominated governments are unwilling or unable to protect [...]