His Grace Bishop Angaelos, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK, spoke in a Coptic New Year service at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey, earlier this month of a telling incident that demonstrated the shift in community attitudes.
He retold the story of how when Islamists intent on violence gathered to attack a church in Upper Egypt recently, local Muslims stood united in front of the church in support of their Christian neighbours.
It is such acts that give Bishop Angaelos hope for progress and peace in Egypt. He finds encouragement in the nonviolent nature of the majority of Egyptian people and in a new sense of shared responsibility that hasn’t been seen in the country for decades. “Had all this happened in another country the outcome could have been very different, but the Egyptians have a social mindset and are not a people who ascribe to civil war.”
Although the Coptic Christians have faced a dramatic escalation in attacks since the overthrow of President Morsi in July, Bishop Angaelos emphasised that it had been a “devastating time” for people throughout society. “Now that the tension and pressure that built up around the demonstrations in Cairo has eased, the vast majority of Egyptians want life to return to normal.”
It has been a particularly distressing time though for the Copts, who are the largest non-Muslim group in Egypt, comprising about 10 per cent of the country’s population of 80 million. Some Copts have been murdered, and others have been kidnapped. Moreover, at least 130 churches and Christian-owned properties have been destroyed by pro-Morsi Islamists, who belong to different hardline factions of the Muslim Brotherhood.
As outlined in a letter to President Obama sent by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently, Coptic leaders object to the fact that incitement against Christians has been tolerated and even encouraged by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Robert P. George, chairman of USCIRF, added: “The absence of prosecutions from past sectarian incidents targeting Copts has fostered a climate of impunity that encourages future attacks.”
The repercussions of such neglect and insecurity for the Copts have been “enormous and tragic,” says Dr Helmy Guirguis, president of the UK Copt Association. “The Islamists’ goal is not massacre or complete genocide. They want Copts to accept that they are second-class citizens and to acknowledge the supremacy of Islam.”
Many in the Coptic community believe that the international media, too, have neglected to tell the whole story. According to Bishop Angaelos, the suffering of the Copts appears to have been more thoroughly reported in the Egyptian press than by its counterparts abroad. “The Egyptian media has seen the damage being caused by the Muslim Brotherhood’s aggression and has realised that this time there is a common enemy. Foreign coverage, on the other hand, has been quite bad and sporadic.”
While Coptic leaders seem genuinely baffled as to why the foreign media has “turned a blind eye,” Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, asserts that news organisations such as the BBC and CNN often take their leads on Egypt from the Arab-backed Al Jazeera news channel. “It’s very difficult to follow the doublespeak of Al Jazeera,” he says. “While in English they define themselves as pro-democracy and anti-coup protesters, in Arabic they cling to the language of martyrs and, at times, violence.”
A BBC spokesperson defended the corporation’s “comprehensive coverage of the crisis in Egypt which has included a number of reports examining the persecution of the Coptic Christian community.” Little, however, was reported on the burning of dozens of Coptic churches over the weekend beginning Friday August 16.
Social media has an important role to play here. “The truth comes out, whether it’s by a tweet or a Facebook post,” says Bishop Angaelos. “This has made mainstream media sources more accountable, and they need to be more careful.”
The note of renewed hope sounded by Coptic leaders recently is largely founded on the emergence of a civil society that separates state from religion and upholds a legal system that is equal for all Egyptians. Given Egypt’s current state of flux and transition, Dr Guirguis sounds a note of caution: “A change in the law is good but changing the hearts and minds of men who feel hatred is a different matter.”
An ongoing series of operations by the Egyptian security forces to arrest militant Islamists who have committed violence in towns such as Delga in southern Egypt, and Kerdasa on the outskirts of Cairo, has helped to relieve tension.
“We are hopeful. This is not new to us. We have lived for centuries under this threat and have been experiencing it for a long time. But Egyptians want to move on,” says Bishop Angaelos.
“Having the Christian foundation of reconciliation and forgiveness is critical to what we’re living through at the moment and that will make a huge difference to Christians and Egyptian people as a whole.”
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The Times, UK
