The little known but miserable facts of being Christian and living in Egypt. "The jihad on Egypt's Christians," by Michael Coren for the National Post, October 23 (thanks to Patrick P.):
Last week I was supposed to interview Father Zakaria Boutros on my television show. It would have been the second time I had spoken to this gentle, thoughtful man, one of the leading figures of the Egyptian Coptic Christian community and now obliged to live in exile in the United States after twice being arrested in his homeland. But on this occasion the interview was suddenly cancelled. A $60-million bounty had just been put on his head by Muslim extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda were thought to be intent on fulfilling the fatwa and it was considered too dangerous to allow him to travel to Canada. The fact that the United States government bounty on Osama Bin laden is a mere $25-million rather puts the case of this disarmingly gentle and jovial priest into proportion.
Because while he is anonymous to most North Americans, Boutros is famous or notorious throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, where his daily television broadcasts attract enormous audiences and his Web site millions of hits. His style is uncompromising. Speaking in Egyptian accented Arabic, and fluent in Islamic scholarship and the various sub-cultures of the Muslim world, he carefully unwraps the layers of the Koran and the life and teachings of Muhammad and presents his viewers with a virtually unprecedented critique of their faith. It’s the combination of accessibility and originality that makes him so threatening to militant Islam.“We know people are leaving Islam because of what I say and they know people are leaving Islam because of what I say,” he explains. A long pause, then: “People in the West simply don’t understand the significance of this in a world that has not and probably will not embrace pluralism. The Islamic response is not to argue with me but to try to kill me.”
[...]Egypt is a particularly acute and troubling case because of the size of the Christian minority, the horror of their treatment and the systematic and cynical denial by the Egyptian government and their puppets and fellow travellers abroad. There are between eight and ten million Christians in Egypt, around 10% of the population and for the last 30 years in particular they have faced organized discrimination in the law, education, employment and housing. As a consequence they leave Egypt in disproportionately large numbers.
Beyond this now regular, degrading oppression there are numerous cases of grotesque violence. In January, 2000, for example, in El-Kosheh, Upper Egypt, 21 Christians were killed in rioting by local Muslims, aided by the police. When authorities eventually reacted, they arrested more than a thousand local Christians, many of whom were tortured. There are numerous cases of Coptic girls being kidnapped by Muslim gangs and then being forcibly converted and married to Muslim men. If they flee these marriages and try to return to Christianity they are killed as apostates.
Church desecration is common, as are public burnings of Bibles and Christian literature. There are also documented cases of Christians being ritually crucified, the rape of Christian girls and the prolonged beating of children, some of them babies. These are not isolated incidents condemned by the state, but part of a reoccurring pattern often ignored and, in some regions, actively encouraged by police and militia. Egyptian apologists will point to certain Christians in positions of influence or, more frequently, argue that these accusations are propaganda -- lies told by Christians and Jews in North America and Europe.
They are not. Spend time with an Egyptian Christian living in forced exile and the stories and the pain tumble forth as the toxins of dark experience flow from their memory. Or speak to Father Zakaria Boutros, if he is allowed to travel and manages to survive the multi-million dollar bounty on his head.
I would like links to Father Zakaria's show, preferably with English subtitles. Anyone have any?
Ah, Abuna Zakaria...
Whilst this article is pointedly bleak about the reactions to Abuna Zakaria and, more particularly, relations between Egyptian Muslims and Christians, there are some rays of hope on the horizon: as Ustaaz Ibrahim will know, there are many, many interfaith relationships occurring daily in Egypt. Dialogues of life. Where Christians and Muslims work together or live in the same quarter or neighbourhood. This is even more relevant in terms of Upper Egyptians, for which those inhabitants of substantial parts of Minya and Assiut, interreligious dialogue is a daily occurrence. Indeed, the journey of the Holy Family into Sa'eed is something celebrated by Muslims and Christians alike.
Unfortunately, as innocent as it may seem, and this is just the tip of the iceberg of 1500 years of persecution, discrimination and violence, because of the heavy concentration of Christians in Shubra in Cairo, the mere mention to another Cairene that you're from Shubra will put a glint in his eye - as Shubra (inta shabrawy, ey? with a twist of the wrist and a wry smile) connotes craftiness and stimulates an barely concealed display of contempt on the part of the questioner.
Egyptian Christians could therefore be forgiven for considering themselves to be the new 'Jews', what with whispers about money and influence; 'innocent' remarks about the number of lawyers, accountants and chemists (pharmacists for US) who 'happen' to be Christian; those oh-so 'naive' anecdotes about the Sawaris family or Ramy Lakah (who just happened to be a Copt) and and and...
But there are some nice stories: my former calligraphy teacher (Copt) who enthuses about the Muslim family who sponsored him as we was starting out; the Christian-Muslim partners who run a small haberdashery business down the road and and and the mutual loathing that Egyptians, of all walks of life and religious persuasions have for that veritable horror of horrors, the Manoofy.
former liberal WF, you can find downloadable shows with English dubbing, no subtitles though, at:
http://alislameyat.com/english/audio/father_zakaria_botros/questions_about_faith.htm
There are PDF documents with transcripts of the shows in English as well at the site. Be sure to select the icon under the video column with the down arrow, because the video camera icon doesn't seem to link to a valid file.
Hope that helps.
I have to say that after watching some of the shows on this site, I have been very encouraged by the work of this man - and I totally understand why he would have such a bounty on his head. I now pray for the safety of Father Boutros and his co-workers on a daily basis - and I pray for confusion in the minds of those trying to harm him and that any plans they have will be foiled.
Active Listener
Yet another story for the Christians among us to email to our parish priests, pastors and other leaders.
My own parish priest, after receiving emailed links from jihadwatch with the stories of Anila and Saba the kidnapped Christian girls in Pakistan, and with stories about the persecution of the Christians in Iraq, is rapidly getting the idea about what Islam is and does.
Reminder (newsflash for Christians, primarily) - 9 November is the worldwide day of prayer for the persecuted church. Christians are, of course, persecuted in places other than the Islamosphere (for example, North Korea and China, and the recent terribly distressing events in parts of India) but the Islamosphere persecutes always and everywhere, not only Christians but anyone who is not a Muslim, and has been doing it steadily and sadistically for 1300 years.
Jihadwatchers who happen to have Assyrian Christian, Sudanese Christian, Coptic Christian or Maronite Christian emigre churches in their immediate neighbourhood, might consider attending those churches on that day; and explaining why.
Here's the link to Father Zakaria website.
http://www.fatherzakaria.net/
Cheers,
For anyone who hasn't yet read it: Mr Spencer's anthology "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance" contains, on pp 232-245, an essay entitled 'A Christian Minority: the Copts in Egypt', Bat Yeor's magisterial overview of the historic and contemporary sufferings of the Copts under Muslim domination.
If you read it, you will see that everything that is being done to the Copts today - and worse, much worse, including spectacular episodes of mass murder - has happened before, at Muslim hands, all down the centuries.
The flat fact is this: in Muslim-majority Egypt the Copts, as Copts, are neither free nor safe, in any meaningful sense of the word; and they never have been, not since the day the Muslims invaded and took over the place and proceeded to institute and elaborate the dhimma, which Bat Yeor describes, with ruthless accuracy, as "a codified system of legal tyranny that was spiritual in theory but in practice often led to genocide and was at the base of the Arabization and Islamization of the Christian Orient".