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As Egypt's presidential elections come to a close, with the Brotherhood claiming presidential victory, the future of Egypt's indigenous Christians, the Copts, looks bleak.

Earlier, after the first presidential elections of May 23-24, any number of Islamists denounced them, bemoaning that it was the Copts who were responsible for the secularist candidate Ahmed Shafiq's good showing.

Even though Shafiq is a "remnant" of the Mubarak regime, which Copts suffered under, he is widely seen as the much lesser of two evils. As one Copt put it: "What did they want us to do? Whoever says that supporting Shafiq is a crime against the 25 January Revolution, we ask him to advise us whom to vote for? The sea is in front of us and the Islamists are behind us."

Regardless, Abu Ismail, the Salafi presidential candidate who was disqualified, expressed "great disappointment" in "our Coptic brethren," saying that "I do not understand why the Copts so adamantly voted for Ahmed Shafiq," portraying it as some sort of conspiracy between the Copts, the old regime, and even Israel: "Exactly what relationship and benefit do the Copts have with the old regime?"

Tarek al-Zomor, a prominent figure of the Gama'a al-Islamiyya—the terrorist organization that slaughtered some 60 European tourists during the Luxor Massacre—"demanded an apology from the Copts" for voting for Shafiq, threatening that "this was a fatal error."

To an extent, of course, Islamist attacks on Copts were due less to Coptic votes for Shafiq, and had more to do with the usual animosity for Christians—an animosity that seems to seek any excuse to attack them. By virtue of their greater numbers, many more Muslims did in fact vote for Shafiq than did Christians; even the Islamic Sufi Council of Egypt expressed its support for Shafiq instead of for the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate who advocates Islamic Sharia law.

Realizing that threats—with which Copts are well acquainted—would not prevent Christians from voting for the secular candidate, in a campaign that borders on the comical if not absurd, Islamists began imploring the Copts to vote for the Brotherhood's Morsi—who some say vows to return the Copts to bondage. Islamist kingpin Yusuf al-Qaradawi himself called on politically-active Muslims to go and meet with the Copts and "explain to them" how they have nothing to fear from an Islamist president, and convincing them that "Shafiq will be of no use to you."

Most adamant was popular TV personality Muhammad Hassan, a cleric who appeared several times assuring Copts that they have "nothing to fear from the application of Sharia," which he portrayed as the best guarantor for their safety and freedom. A day before the elections, Hassan implored the Copts "to elect Sharia and vote for Dr. Muhammad Morsi, promising them peace and security, and that they would live in prosperity under Sharia law."

Sheikh Muhammad Hassan is, incidentally, the same cleric who says Islam forbids Muslims from smiling to infidels—except whenever Muslims need to win them over. One week before he began beseeching Copts to vote for Sharia, he was in Saudi Arabia making disparaging comments about "those who say Allah has a son," the Koran's condemnatory language for Christians.

What does all this mean? For long, the various Egyptian regimes and Islamist organizations have downplayed the numbers and significance of the nation's Christians, the Copts, sometimes saying they amount to as few as 5% of the total population—a statistic which many Western resources quote without hesitation. Others, however—some pointing to the Coptic Orthodox Church's birth and death registry—say Egypt's Copts amount to up to 20% of the total population. Based on the Islamist response to the first presidential elections, such a figure may not be so farfetched.

Either way, Copts constitute the largest Christian bloc in the Middle East—a circumstance that has other implications. As seen during the presidential elections, large numbers of Christians may help stave off, or balance out, the Islamization of Egypt.

But if Egypt's government does go Islamist—and early presidential elections indicate it is—fears of persecution on a grand scale become legitimate precisely because of the Copts' large numbers, which will work against them under an Islamist regime: millions of powerless Christians will be seen as troublesome and unwelcome infidel enemies, now not just by "extremists," but by the government as well—which, as history teaches (e.g., millions of Christian Armenians under Muslim Turks) is often the first step to genocide.

kanelli wrote:Religion and government together... it would scare me, but, I'm not Egyptian and it wasn't my vote. Let's see what happens...

kanelli wrote:Religion and government together... it would scare me

But if Egypt's government does go Islamist—and early presidential elections indicate it is—fears of persecution on a grand scale become legitimate precisely because of the Copts' large numbers, which will work against them under an Islamist regime: millions of powerless Christians will be seen as troublesome and unwelcome infidel enemies, now not just by "extremists," but by the government as well—which, as history teaches (e.g., millions of Christian Armenians under Muslim Turks) is often the first step to genocide.

Copts voting for Mursi!

I woke up to a phone from a friend who lives in Australia. He is a Copt and our families have had very strong ties for the past 40 years. After talking for a while about past memories and the situation in Egypt, he told me he does not want Ahmed Shafiq to win the presidential elections because he is a representative of the old regime.

He then took me by surprise when he told me that his relative in Egypt actually voted for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi. In fact, he told me that many Copts he knows are also going to vote for Mursi because they believe that he will punish the remnants of the former regime for the way they oppressed and impoverished Egyptians while they enjoyed absolute power and kept accumulating wealth.
...
Despite the general fear of Islamist rule, my Coptic friend decided to give Islamists a chance. If they fail to rule justly, the revolution will continue and if they fare well, then Egypt will benefit. The most important thing is for us to steer clear of the former regime and military rule.

I do hope my friend is right because otherwise we would be escaping from a military dictatorship to a religious one.

Despite the general fear of Islamist rule, my Coptic friend decided to give Islamists a chance. If they fail to rule justly, the revolution will continue and if they fare well, then Egypt will benefit. The most important thing is for us to steer clear of the former regime and military rule.

I do hope my friend is right because otherwise we would be escaping from a military dictatorship to a religious one.

Shafique wrote:As I said, it remains to be seen whether Ibrahim's prediction of a slide into persecution of Copts will become reality:

rayznack when he was 'event horizon' wrote:
Peace with Islam and Muslims is impossible. The only time Muslims seek peace is when they need to reload.

We've got some people on this forum with some pretty extreme views.

Berrin wrote:]Jews created Hitler

European wrote:The world according to Berrin.

by ordering 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent living on the West Coast interned in concentration camps. In March 1942 Roosevelt accused them of being "security risks." The Japanese men, women and children were imprisoned behind barbed wire fences and armed guard towers in the blazing hot desert.

In Canada, similar evacuation orders were established. Nearly 23,000 Nikkei, or Canadians of Japanese descent, were sent to camps in British Columbia. It was the greatest mass movement in the history of Canada.

Though families were generally kept together in the United States, Canada sent male evacuees to work in road camps or on sugar beet projects. Women and children Nikkei were forced to move to six inner British Columbia towns.

"The Jewish Question is for me neither a social question nor a religious question ... it is a national question."
This is a colonial doctrine. Here too, the lucid Theodore Herzl does not hide his objectives. The first step is to set up a "Charter Company" under the protection of England, or any other power, as a stepping stone toward the formation of "the Jewish State." That is why he called on the master of this type of operation, the colonial trafficker, Cecil Rhodes, who used his Charter Company to carve out of South Africa a subsidiary bearing his name: Rhodesia.
Theodore Herzl wrote him on January 11, 1902:
"Please send me a letter stating that you have examined my program and that you approve it. You may be wondering why I am calling on you, Mr. Rhodes. It is because my program is a political program."

SOURCE: Herzl, "Tagebuch," Vol. III, p. 105.

Source: Israel SHAHAK, "Racism and the State of Israel", from p. 152.

The overall result is as follows : A million and a half Palestinians having been driven off the land, "jewish land", (as the people of the "National Jewish Fund" call it), 6.5% in 1947, today represents more than 93% of Palestine (75% to the State and 14 % to the National Fund.)

It is noteworthy (and significant) that the consequences of this operation were summarized at an early stage in the newspaper of the Afrikaners of South Africa, "Die Transvaler", an expert in matters of racial discrimination (apartheid):

"What is the difference between the way in which the Jewish people struggles to remain what it is in the midst of a non-Jewish population, and the way the Afrikaners try to stay what they are?"

Source: Henry Katzew, "South Africa: a Country Without Friends", quoted by R. Stevens (Zionism, South Africa and Apartheid).

The same system of "apartheid" manifests itself in the status of the individual as it does in the appropriation of land. The "autonomy" which the Israelis want to grant the Palestinians is the equivalent of the "homelands" for the blacks in South Africa.

Analyzing the consequences of the law of "return", Klein asks the question:

"If the Jewish people are easily the most numerous in the State of Israel, by the same token, one can still say that the entire population of the State of Israel is not Jewish, as the country has a sizeable non-Jewish minority, mainly Arab and Druze. The question which must be asked is to what extent the existence of a Law of Return which favorizes the immigration of one part of the population (defined by its religious and ethnic adherence), cannot be regarded as discriminatory."

Source: Claude Klein, Director of the Institute of Comparative Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "The Jewish Character of the State of Israel", Ed. Cujas, Paris 1977, p. 33.

Hitlerism was a human catastrophe which, unfortunately, had a precedent in the policy applied over five centuries by the European colonialists to "colored people". What Hitler did to white people, they did to the American Indians, of which they killed [75%] (also through forced labor and epidemics, even more than through massacres); just as they did to the Africans, of which they deported between 10 and 20 million, which means that Africa was robbed of 100 to 200 million of its inhabitants since ten people had to be killed for one to be taken alive during capture by the slave-dealers.

The myth suited everybody : to speak of the "greatest genocide in history" was for the Western colonialists to have their own crimes forgotten (the decimation of the American Indians and the African slave-trade), as it was a way for Stalin to mask his own ferocious repressions.