How Egypt's Coptic Christians can keep the Arab Spring fresh

Violent attacks on Egypt's large minority of Coptic Christians since July have pushed this ancient indigenous church to respond with love and forgiveness. Such behavior, noted by moderate Muslims, can be the basis for the equality necessary to revive Egypt's democracy.

|
Reuters
Coptic Christians pray at a burnt and damaged church in Minya governorate, 152 miles south of Cairo Aug. 26. Coptic Christians make up 10 percent of Egypt's 85 million people and have coexisted with the majority Sunni Muslims for centuries.

Among all the minorities in the Muslim Middle East, Christians have perhaps had the roughest decade. In Iraq, they became easy targets after 2003 in the Sunni-Shiite conflict. In Syria, since the Arab Spring began in 2011, they have been caught in the middle of a civil war driven in part by friction between Islamic groups. But in Egypt, the Copts and other Christians, who number in the millions, have lately suffered particular violence at the hands of angry Muslim militants.

The anger erupted in July after the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many Islamists held the Coptic Christians, who are about 10 percent of the population, partly responsible. Dozens of churches have been looted or burned with many Copts killed. Even a Christian orphanage was destroyed. Hundreds of Copts have since fled Egypt.

Those who stayed have asked for better police protection and more foreign attention to their plight. They deserve both. But in the midst of this violence and fear, Christians of different faiths have also responded in ways that give hope to all Egyptians that their country can form an inclusive and pluralistic democracy based on equality.

Rather than meet violence with violence, Coptic Christians have found solace and hope in prayer, restraint, and in forgiving those who attacked them.

“According to our faith, we should expect hardships on account of our being Christian. We should accept this calmly; we should forgive those who wrong us and pray for them,” said Anba Macarius, the Coptic bishop of Minya, to the Watani Weekly Newspaper. His province has been the scene of the most recent and some of the worst violence.

When Minya’s orphanage was destroyed, the Christians running it left behind a message on the wall: “You meant to hurt us, but we forgive you. God is love. Everything works out for good.”

Such behavior has not gone unnoticed by the majority moderate Muslims in Egypt. Many have often protected their Christian neighbors and fed, sheltered, or clothed them during times of persecution. These friendly Muslims have often surrounded a church under attack.

Such mutual respect between different faiths can be the basis for ensuring freedom in Egypt as it tries once again to write a constitution and hold elections in hopes of fulfilling the dreams of the 2011 protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

At the same time, the violent attacks against Christians must not go unpunished. “Our peace and forgiveness do not mean that the crimes are all right, or that the criminals should not be brought to justice,” said Bishop Macarius. Egypt’s security forces must step up their protection of the Christian community whose roots go back to AD 42.

“Not by bloodshed will the country prosper, and not by the lack of security,” said Anba Raphael, secretary of the Coptic church’s synod, to Al-Ahram Weekly. “A message to Copts: Stick to our faith, our ethics and our love, and we will not compromise on the ethics of the Gospel.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to How Egypt's Coptic Christians can keep the Arab Spring fresh
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2013/0917/How-Egypt-s-Coptic-Christians-can-keep-the-Arab-Spring-fresh
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe