Lights Out for the Middle East’s Christians?
The tumult in Cairo may spell much worse to come for the Copts.
ICC Note:
In Egypt, “there is every reason to believe that a democratically elected Egyptian government will become more Islamist and more hostile to the country’s roughly 8 million Christians,” the National Review Online reports.
By Rich Lowry
2/11/2011 Egypt (National Review) – Hosni Mubarak can count on at least one loyal supporter. Coptic Christian leader Pope Shenouda wants the anti-Mubarak protesters to stand down. He has two inarguable reasons to stick with the dictator: fear and experience.
Even if the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t take over, there is every reason to believe that a democratically elected Egyptian government will become more Islamist and more hostile to the country’s roughly 8 million Christians, who are overwhelmingly Copts. As a horrifying premonition, the Copts need look no farther than democratic Iraq, where the ethnic cleansing of Christians is still unspooling, slowly but inexorably.
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Before the invasion, roughly 1.4 million Christians lived in Iraq. About half of them have fled, with many more sure to follow. For a community that dates back almost to the inception of Christianity, this is nothing short of a historic cataclysm.
Iraq’s Christians have fallen prey to a one-two punch of terrorism and official indifference. Sunni extremists attack churches and assassinate individual Christians. In October, gunmen took 100 Christians hostage at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Baghdad and slaughtered more than 40 of them. The Shiite government can’t or won’t stop these depredations. By one estimate, 2010 was the deadliest year yet for Iraq’s Christians.
In Egypt, Copts are already targeted. A suicide bombing on New Year’s Day in front of an Alexandria church killed more than 20. Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute notes that “the context is a government that has failed to make the rights of religious minorities a priority.” And this was under the pro-Western, relatively secular dictator.
When the Muslim Brotherhood takes a place at the table, it will no doubt do all it can to imbue Egyptian government with Islamism’s enmity toward Christians. In terms of public opinion, the Brotherhood may be pushing at an open door. According to a Pew survey in Egypt last year, 84 percent of Egyptian Muslims — not yet familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists — support executing apostates.
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