After a long history of persecution as a minority in
Egypt, in these days the nonetheless resilient Copts face a dire moment.
The ominously Sharia-leaning Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt,
headed by President Mohammed Morsi, has taken over the country from the
oppressive - but slightly more tolerant - Mubarak regime.
Adding to this
crisis is the absence of spiritual and political leadership for the 18
million-strong Coptic community, namely a Pope.
The church is still in
the throes of a longstanding selection process to name a new spiritual
head to permanently replace the interim administrator, a bishop, who has
been the caretaker leader since the death of Pope Shenuda III earlier
this year.
Recently, the Copts of Alexandria embarked on a three-day fast (no
food, no water), petitioning God to find the leader divinely suited to
be the successor of the beloved Pope Shenuda III.
The institution of the
Pope is of central importance to Copts, since the first Pope was
consecrated in the first century AD upon the death of Saint Mark: He
guides and directs Coptic life and the Orthodox Church.
During the 1,400
years that Islam has dominated Egypt, Copts have been treated by the
Muslim authorities as second-class citizens, with minimal rights but
maximum duties. The Copts, who see themselves as the rightful inheritors
of the land of the Pharaohs, have always found solace in the refuge of
the church, insulated and protected by their clergy.
Representing a culture as much as they embody a religion, Copts
constitute roughly 20 percent of Egypt’s nearly 80 million people.
Morsi’s rise to power is the result of an 80-year struggle by the Muslim
Brotherhood to rule Egypt with aspirations to control the entire
Arab-Muslim world. After years of hibernation, the Brotherhood
experienced a rebirth during the Arab Spring. And now Egypt's Copts face
the brunt of Morsi’s Islamic-supremacist leanings.
Until now, Copts managed to survive under Muslim dictatorships, even
though those dictatorships often covertly fostered crimes against the
Coptic community - bombers, snipers and gangs of Muslim thugs - who were
assured of receiving favorable court hearings that kept them free and
able to commit violence. Meanwhile, repeatedly victimized by deadly
attacks, Copts were generally rounded up and thrown into jail and
received none of the special judicial privileges or immunity that their
attackers did.
During the Tahrir Square protests of January 2011, Copts
had good reason to rise up against the Mubarak state.
Today, under the new political class of the once-banned Muslim
Brotherhood, Copts are already paying a higher price - with their lives
and property - for their religious beliefs. They are frequently accused
of showing contempt for and insulting Islam, and face related trumped-up
charges. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the threatening
atmosphere in Egypt for Copts is Nazi-like.
Coptic Christians are
praying, fasting, and begging for mercy.
Islamist efforts to infiltrate Egypt’s church hierarchy have been
ongoing since Islam came to Egypt, but in the past four decades Islamic
influence over the church has intensified. This way the governing
regimes could guarantee both secular and religious Copts were corralled
away from political activism and local organizing, a strategy that
worked at least until the autumn of 2010.
Over time, this subtle
pressure has forced Copts into a dependency on religious leaders to
dictate political decisions for the whole body of the community, whether
related to local, neighborhood issues or to wider, international ones.
The state political involvement in the church leadership evolved
gradually, and has now got to the point where the government is
attempting to influence the finances of the church.
Under such imposed
'oversight,' the state is attempting to legislate and regulate church
donations and expenditures, such as church salaries, schools, charities
and maintenance.
The Coptic congregation has no state institutional
power to resist the intrusion by Egypt's government to intrude upon the
church's decisions about how to direct its own financial resources.
Copts represent a major obstacle in the implementation of the Islamist
plan for a pan-Islamic umma or Caliphate. By definition, in order to
progress the idea of a global Muslim state, the fate of Egyptian Copts
is either to convert or be expunged from history.
So the destruction of
Coptic churches, homes and businesses, kidnappings, forcible marriages
of Christian girls to Muslim men, and mob violence instigated by the
slightest perceived provocation, keep Copts living in fear.
In today's Egypt even secular people face charges of blasphemy, of
insulting Islam, because of their denial of the existence of God.
Indeed, Islamists go one step further and charge that secularists are
also guilty of insulting Christianity as well. However, this is
completely alien to Christian doctrine.
Christians do not support any
such blasphemy laws, because Christian doctrine teaches that belief
cannot be legislated for or against; convictions of the heart should
replace the law.
Islamists therefore posit a false picture of
Christianity, and a false kinship between the two religions with regard
to blasphemy, in an attempt to 'play' at inclusivity, in order to appear
to be defending all religions. Even more sinister, it is an attempt to
Islamize Christianity.
Assuming that Muslim juridical principles are
equally applicable to Christianity - that Sharia-like legal thinking
exists for the Christian faith - is simply not true.
Needless to say, a tawdry portrayal of the Koran in a video legally
produced in California by an unknown person who calls himself a Copt
(among other identities) will, of course, be easy ammunition for
Egyptian Islamists, on the other side of the world, who have shown their
willingness many times to exploit real or invented events to attack
Copts.
The enforcement of Sharia blasphemy laws against non-Muslims are
often based on little more than rumors spread by Muslim religious
vigilantes that there has been some insult to Islam.
The violent fallout from the film controversy is now being borne by
Egyptian Copts, the victims for so long of Egypt’s internal and
religious politics.
It is just the latest expression of an ongoing
dynamic of blame and hatred that the Coptic community of Egypt is sadly
long used to, as well as an illustration of how far the free world’s
free expression is constantly subject to the scrutiny of Arab-Muslim
religious and political leaders.
* Dr. Ashraf Ramelah is founder and president of Voice of the Copts, a human rights organization.