Yet it looks as if that is what is happening. I tried to tell you. "Christians worry Egypt being hijacked by Islamists," by Sami Aboudi for Reuters, May 26 (thanks to Kamala):
CAIRO (Reuters) - Last January, Nazih Moussa Gerges locked up his downtown Cairo law office and joined hundreds of thousands of fellow Egyptians to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down.The 33-year-old Christian lawyer was back on the streets this month to press military rulers who took over after Mubarak stepped down to end a spate of sectarian attacks that have killed at least 28 people and left many afraid.
Those who camped out in Tahrir Square side by side with Muslims to call for national renewal now fear their struggle is being hijacked by ultra-conservative Salafist Islamists with no one to stop them.
For Reuters, an "ultra-conservative" is someone who wants to impose Sharia on a society, and simultaneously an "ultra-conservative" is someone who opposes the imposition of Sharia on a society. Hence a politician like Geert Wilders is routinely described as "far right," even though he opposes these "ultra-conservatives."
"We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists," Gerges said. "We want an Egypt that will be an example of democracy and freedom for the whole world." [...]Egypt's military rulers have vowed to punish those behind sectarian clashes, banned demonstrations outside places of worship and promised to give Christians equal rights.
But Christians say no one has been tried yet for the burning of a church in Helwan, south of Cairo, in March or for violence in the Cairo suburb of Imbaba on May 7 that left 15 people dead. At least 13 died in clashes after the Helwan incident.
The army has said 190 people will face trial over the Imbaba clashes, which began when a group of Salafists demanded to look inside a church where they suspected a female convert to Islam was being held against her will.
IRON FIST?
When Christians gathered to worship in the eastern Cairo district of Ain Shams last week, they said Salafists and other local Muslims blocked access to the church and pelted them with cinder blocks.
The Christians said they had to abandon their attempt after security forces arrested eight of them.
"The General has said he will strike with an iron fist. Where is the iron fist?" said Marcelino Youssef, a spokesman for a Christian youth group that has been leading protests against sectarian attacks. He was referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads Egypt's ruling military council. [...]
Some blame leaders of Egypt's Coptic church for cultivating fear of Muslims, in turn stoking sectarian tension by making the Christian community more defensive.
"The Church has promoted a fear of Muslims, arguing that the Egyptian people lack awareness and that democracy will not work in our context," Muslim political scientist Amr Shobaki wrote in a column in newspaper al-Masry al-Youm on May 14. [...]
Gerges recalls bitterly the time when he applied to join the prosecutor's office in southern Cairo soon after graduating from Ain Shams University with distinction.
He said he was told by the recruiting official that his qualifications made him the ideal candidate.
"Then he looked at my family name and shook his head."
For Gerges, the message was clear: a Muslim gets priority over a Christian when it comes to government jobs.
Egyptian Christians say discrimination against them starts in school.
"Coptic history has been removed" from textbooks, said Imbaba priest Sarabamon Abdo Rizeq. "How is a Muslim going to love me if he doesn't know anything about my Christianity?"
At a sit-in outside state TV headquarters by the Nile in central Cairo, protesters posted a list of what they called "The Copts' Demands."
They included giving Christians equal access to government jobs, recognizing Egypt's Coptic history by making it part of the school curriculum, and easing restrictions on the construction of churches.
Christians complain that under laws inherited from Ottoman rule, Copts are required to obtain special permits from the head of state to build or repair a church.
"Our demands are actually basic rights," said Malak Maher, 33, one of the protesters. "We want equality."
Yet Sharia mandates inequality for dhimmis, making it unlikely that Malak Maher will get what he wants.
Interesting that Reuters says:
"Christians complain that under laws inherited from Ottoman rule, Copts are required to obtain special permits from the head of state to build or repair a church."
Rather than "under laws based on Sharia" which is more true because Ottoman rule had nothing to do with it, these rules have been around since the 7th century.
Egyptian Christians: "We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists"
Oh yeah you did.
Apparently your idea was that, when the Moslem clerics took over, they'd consult the writings of Madison and Jefferson, or maybe Diderot's piece on natural religion, and then turn around and embrace tolerance religious tolerance.
Apparently the Copts don't know their enemy. They should take a bus down to the Cairo Barnes & Noble and buy a copy of the Ko-Ran to inform themselves.
*** 33:21 ***
Speaking of the French Englightenment, wouldn't the consensus among that crew have been that Islam is an unnatural religion? Nah, they didn't bother themselves with making such distinctions.
But we do.
In the majority-Muslim world, legitimacy is ultimately based in Muhammad and the Qur'an and the Islamic law derived from them. Islamic legitimacy thus trumps all other forms of legitimacy. Secular forms of political legitimacy -- whether based on humanism and science, or on the Judeo-Christian tradition, or on religions that are not totalitarian -- simply do not have the power to organize themselves in the context of a Muslim majority. Islamic legitimacy makes holy the use of extreme violence against other forms of social organization. Those who criticize Muhammad can be righteously killed. Even where Muslims are a minority, we see frequent self-censorship among non-Muslims, who often do not dare to criticize Islam or Muhammad publicly, for fear of the intimidation, death threats, and violence that can follow.
In core Islamic texts, Muhammad says your "lives and property" are not safe from him unless you become a Muslim
In Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the two most canonical hadith collections:
Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 2, Number 25:
Sahih Muslim, Book 031, Number 5917:
In non-Muslim nations, the climate of self-censorship among non-Muslims talking about Muhammad and Islam is a symptom that the legitimate governments in those non-Muslim nations are not entirely ruling anymore. Shadow governments of orthodox Muslims are imposing on the nation Islamic laws about speech and conscience.
1) The silence about the persecution of the Copts by the Obama administration is shameful. He should be publicly damning them about this.
2) Would arming the Copts be a good or a bad idea? If they shot back they could protect themselves, but would the Egyptian Army then just massacre them?
Irenaeus Chrysostom wrote:
"Christians complain that under laws inherited from Ottoman rule, Copts are required to obtain special permits from the head of state to build or repair a church."
Rather than "under laws based on Sharia" which is more true because Ottoman rule had nothing to do with it, these rules have been around since the 7th century.
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Very, very true, Irenaeus. I was going to note the same thing myself.
This isn't some odd quirk left over from "colonialism"—this is the essence of Islam itself.
This is straight from the 7th-century Pact of Umar rules for dhimmis:
"We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims."
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pact-umar.html
Fro the article:
Egyptian Christians: "We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists"
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No more than the democrats and leftists who opposed the Shah wanted to see him replaced by the Mullahs in Iran—*but that is exactly what happened*.
More:
"We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists," Gerges said. "We want an Egypt that will be an example of democracy and freedom for the whole world."
...........................
Good luck with that. I only wish it were so.
More:
Some blame leaders of Egypt's Coptic church for cultivating fear of Muslims, in turn stoking sectarian tension by making the Christian community more defensive.
"The Church has promoted a fear of Muslims, arguing that the Egyptian people lack awareness and that democracy will not work in our context," Muslim political scientist Amr Shobaki wrote in a column in newspaper al-Masry al-Youm on May 14.
...........................
Observe the "logic" here. The reason Christians are oppressed and Egypt has no democracy is because the Coptic church fears they will be oppressed...
The church has acted out of dhimmitude—which is likely the only reason so many of its members have been able to survive at all under fourteen centuries of Islamic rule.
More:
"Coptic history has been removed" from textbooks, said Imbaba priest Sarabamon Abdo Rizeq. "How is a Muslim going to love me if he doesn't know anything about my Christianity?"
...........................
With all due respect to Father Rizeg, I believe he has this backwards—it is not that Muslims don't love Christians because they learn nothing about Christianity in school—it is that Coptic history is not taught in the Egyptian schools *because Muslims hate and despise Christians*.
Americans have several sayings for this sort of situation.
1. Buyer's remorse.
2. Closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out.
3. Buy in haste, repent at leisure.
4. Better to deal with a devil that you know than a devil that you don't.
I could go on, but why bother? At this point it seems to me that the Egyptian Christians would be better off risking their lives to escape to more friendly countries and joining the fight against the Grand Jihad. Flee Egypt, just like the tribes of Israel did. Become fluent in the language of their new countries, support the nations that have given them refuge and relentlessly speak the truth about the threat posed by islam, islamists and muslims in general.
If you believe you are about to be killed, then die fighting! You have nothing to lose, and the whole world to gain!
Well, the Christians of Egypt surely couldn't have hoped that Mubarak would live forever. Further, the same Mubarak's security forces used anti-Christian sentiment to deflect criticism of the regime on a traditional scapegoat.
(channeling ACE)
"Egyptian Christians: "We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists""
you whine
YES MORONS, YOU DID!
Maybe we should be figuring out ways to get boat loads of military arms into Coptic hands along with some serious military training. A Christian Egypt is a rather pleasant thought, really.
{^_^}
Jdow wrote:
Maybe we should be figuring out ways to get boat loads of military arms into Coptic hands along with some serious military training. A Christian Egypt is a rather pleasant thought, really.
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Jdow, Copts make up just 10% of the population in Egypt—moreover, they are surrounded by—with the small exception of Israel—dozens of Muslim states.
I'm afraid an armed insurrection by Copts, far from leading to a "Christian Egypt", would lead to nothing but a lot of slaughtered Christians—likely not just in Egypt, but in many surrounding parts of Dar-al-Islam, both out of "revenge" and to ensure that no local Christians got the same idea.