The fighting erupted after a mass funeral for five Copts who were killed during violent clashes in a north Egyptian town on Saturday. A Muslim man also died in the clashes, which happened after an Islamic institute was daubed with offensive graffiti.
April 8, 2013
"Hundreds of Christians were under siege inside Cairo’s Coptic cathedral last night..."
"... as security forces and local residents, some armed with handguns, launched a prolonged and unprecedented attack on the seat of Egypt’s ancient Church."
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38 comments:
The Copts have been taking it on the chin for some time now. So much for the Arab Spring.
And where, O where, is our diplomatic Dream Team - Choom, Lurch, and, yes, Hillary!?
"The future must not belong to those who insult the Prophet."
Thank god that President Foodstamps is sending lots of money and military equipment to those tolerant centrists in the Muslim brotherhood.
"The Muslim Brotherhood and extremist groups here want us to leave. They don’t accept Copts. But this was our country, ever since the time of the pharaohs.”
Do you think Obama and/or Hillary! give a damn? The modern left have nothing but gruesome empathy for Muslim extremists.
Huh, the muzzies slaughter Christians by the dozens and no lib notices. Should someone utter the merest slight referencing the 9th century pedophile mo, and the left ,and their apologists, begin with their whining hue and cries. Yea, the religion of peace, my a$$.
Detroit was burned down, looted and left for dead by black politicians.
Now, it is being re-populated by Muslims who want to live under Sharia law.
A metaphor for the future of the U.S.?
Our pandering to the Brotherhood and silence about the pogram is disgusting...
If I were Israel, Those Copts look attractive...
The Copts having taking it on the chin ever since the illegal Arab invasion and occupation of Egypt. Free Egypt now!
Paul's genius was in having the chutzpah to argue that getting fucked over means you're doing it right.
Shit's going to get even uglier for the Mideast's Christians, and it's not like they were pretty to begin with.
As Egypt falls apart & hunger sets in, the Copts will be the locally available scapegoat, because, you can rest assured that the Islamists won't be blaming themselves for their troubles.
I think the EU & the Anglosphere should help resolve the problem by giving Mideast Christians preferential refugee status & emigrating them out of there.
I expect Christianity to be extinct in the area of its birth in 100 years.
Today's canary in the coal mine are Egypt's Copts. They are an Eastern Orthodox like Christian denomination founded in 70 AD. As such, being faithful to their God they are what is left of the ethnic Egyptians who refused to bow to Mohammed's Arab Armies of conquest 600 years later.
Morsi's Jihadists are going about proclaiming extermination war on Jews, and they are using the Copts for urban warfare training.
Kadafi was a bad guy, but within the last 10 or so years he had become very much neutralized and actually acted to aid the US in keeping Al Qaeda at bay in Libya. Good thing Hillary! had him killed. Now Libya is a hot bed of Muslim extremism (also known as Arab Spring) with the Al Qaeda flag flying high and Al Qaeda extremist sympathies on the rise.
Arab Spring is the time to put out the weed killer.
Don't worry, Barry's got this:
He's liked the Copts on Facebook, and sent them a request to join "Organizing for Action."
The arc of history bends towards justice, after all.
****Disclaimer, bending the arc of history may also include the following:
-Constant campaigning
-A petty politics of division
-Less for everyone
-Invasive government and stagnant bureaucracies
-Crony capitalism
-Ineffective, weak governance
-The possibility of greater conflict and strategic vertigo
Thanks Barry O, I can see that bend now, on that line heading into the future which leads to a soup kitchen.
traditionalguy, the Copts aren't Eastern Orthodox, they're actually part of the Oriental Orthodox communion, as they're Monophysite church not in communion with the Greek, Russian, Serb, Bulgarian, Arab or Lebanese Byzantine rite churches.
Do you think Obama and/or Hillary! give a damn?
Get it through your skulls, beautiful perfect people, Obama and Hillary are RADICALLY committed to the death of the West and every outpost of the West, including Christian communities worldwide. Their passion to KILL the West makes them natural allies of Islam. Yes Althousians, UGLY but TRUE.
@Tradguy,
Actually, while the Coptic Churches call themselves orthodox, they are not in communion with either the Roman or the Eastern Orthodox Churches (e.g. Russian, Greek, Antiochene, Armenian, etc). The Copts are one of what are called the Oriental Orthodox Churches.
The Coptic Churches rejected the Council of Chalcedon, and so the Roman & Orthodox Churches consider them to be monophysite. They consider themselves to be miaphysite, and thus orthodox believers in the dual natures of Christ.
Mitch H.... Yes the Eastern Orthodox communion is different from the Coptics in a doctrine or two that Church Fathers finally settled on between 200 and 360 AD.
The Coptics stayed with their own faith, not wanting a newcomer Roman or Greek as overseer. But their rituals and Priesthood are nearly identical experiences with the Eastern Orthodox.
Funny how a post about ethnic cleansing starts to turn into an erudition fest about the classification of Coptic Christians.
I predict liberals will bravely blame both sides ... out of the firm conviction that they wouldn't be able to get aways with blaming the Christians -- the truly gutsy move in their minds.
IMO this is a post about Muslim's deep fear of Christianity that makes them go insane, murderous, killing sprees.
That the oldest Christian Church still stands up to them is quite a story. And their faith is what gives them the wisdom and the strength. So their scripture based faith seems relevant.
@Tradguy,
One of the reasons the Copts are in the pickle they're in now is because, unlike some of the other Middle Eastern Rites (e.g. the Melkites & Maronites in Lebanon), in the 2000 years they've been around, they never reached out to the Orthodox or Roman Churches to build broader ecclesio-political relationships around the Mediterranean basin. They preferred to take their non-Chalcedonian marbles & go home.
Now, sadly, the Coptic Churches have no outside relations with long historical ties to argue their case or to stand up for them on the world stage, unlike, e.g. the Lebanese Maronites, who had the Roman Church or France.
Detroit was burned down, looted and left for dead by black politicians. Now, it is being re-populated by Muslims who want to live under Sharia law. A metaphor for the future of the U.S.? - ST
Not a metaphor. A template.
@Unknown,
Funny how a post about ethnic cleansing starts to turn into an erudition fest about the classification of Coptic Christians.
There's nothing "ethnic" about it. The two groups slaughtering each other are the same ethnic group. It's a question of religious belief, and maybe understanding what the term "Coptic" means might just shed some light on the situations. You know, like understanding what it means that the Muslims who are murdering them are "Salafist".
The Copts have always had an Earthly protector but not today thanks to the pogrom happy party .
Our current exchange daughter is an Egyptian Christian. Believe me, you did not want to be in our house last night as I tried to reassure her that her family and she would be all right.
Unknown, tradguy, Younghegelian, I didn't unpack my comment earlier, but yes, their lack of communion does tend to leave them unprotected historically. Although the Russians, the most natural protector of the Copts, barring the whole lack-of-communion thing, have not shown any particular affinity with their co-religionists in the current generation, preferring instead to protect the Alawi in Syria instead. For the children of the KGB, their Orthodoxy is tactical and domestic, and their interests in the Eastern Med are strategic rather than doctrinal.
The Catholic communion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq did little to protect them during the late war, except to provide some mechanism for evacuation and refugee settlement of the survivors.
@Mitch,
The Catholic communion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq did little to protect them during the late war, except to provide some mechanism for evacuation and refugee settlement of the survivors.
I agree with your example, but my point is on the historical level. That the various ME Churches were in communion with other Churches allowed them historically to send their own youngsters out for education to Europe, and thus they created a "clerical" class that could move seamlessly between Europe & the ME. This allowed the ME Christian elite to build their own private & political lines of power to the European elite, and to argue their case in a language that their potential protectors could understand.
If nothing else, it also provided them with a quick means of escape when the shit really hit the fan (e.g. a huge fraction Palestinian Christians have now emigrated).
@CWJ,
I have an old family friend who is half Egyptian Coptic, and I've discussed with her more than once that she needs to start planning on trying to get some of her father's family out because it's going to get uglier & uglier.
So far, she's not been very receptive.
BTW, have you thought about what you'd do if things go south quickly & your student applies for refugee status?
The word "Egypt" comes to us from the Greeks who found the ancient Egyptians' pronunciation of their homeland unpronounceable. The Greeks called the place "Aegypti."
When the Arabs invaded, they couldn't pronounce the word "Aegypti," so they began referring to the newly conquered land by the way its people called themselves.
The people living there were Christians who called themselves Copts. Thus, the word for Egyptian Christians is the origin of the word Egypt.
Egyptians call their country Misr. (Mass-rah)
YH,
She's a dyed in the wool patriot, no way she's not going back. In fact, all kids from Muslim countries are controlled by our state department under the YES program. This is so regardless of which exchange program you work through stateside. We host parents have very little pull. I wonder if they're up to making the hard decisions.
On the other hand, yes I expect that at some point that I will face the need to try to get at least one of my children's family out of their native country.
End the Muslim occupation of Egypt!?
Also sprach YoungHegelian,"There's nothing "ethnic" about it. The two groups slaughtering each other are the same ethnic group."
The Copts are slaughtering the Muslims, eh?
The always reliably evil CBC described this ethnic cleansing/genocide as 'fighting between Christians and Mustims' and said it was 'ignited' by a Christian funeral. Damn Christians, expecting to be able to be bury their dead.
@Unknown,
From today's Reuters:
Four Christian Copts and one Muslim were killed when members of both communities started fighting and shooting at each other in El Khusus ....
So, yes, there are some Christians killing Muslims. Maybe in self-defense, maybe not.
You know, unknown, I've posted a lot of comments on this thread. Are there any make you think that I lack sympathy for the plight of the Copts, or that I don't understand that they are the losing minority in this?
Or, is your latest comment, like your comment on "ethnic slaughter", more of your generally obtuse views on reality?
Some victims are more victims than others. Copts do not have official victim status. Neither do Palestinian Christians save in those cases where they are made to wait at Israeli checkpoints. Perhaps Obama could show solidarity with the Copts by pardoning that Coptic whose film, he claimed, caused the BenGhazi murders.......You could make a long list of murdered millions whose deaths never registered among leftists. A million and a half Cambodians died under Pol Pot. To date, one person has been convicted of those atrocities. Six thousand died under Pinochet. The left will not rest until all involved in Pinochet's crimes have been properly tried.
YH: "So, yes, there are some Christians killing Muslims. Maybe in self-defense, maybe not."
LOL
Yeah, those muslims in Egypt. They just can't catch a break from those murderous Copts.
Drago, the point is that Copts are people, not plaster victims, and they do fight back, or even sometimes start the fight. They just happen to be outnumbered at least nine to one, and probably more. Underdogs, not saints.
You'll find out if we end up opening the borders to Coptic refugees en masse, that they're Egyptian before they're Christian. There will be tut-tutting about Coptic immigrant honor killings, female genital multilation, and the full range of standard recent-immigrant issues. Look at the assimilation problems with the Hmong over the last decade.
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