Lather, Rinse, Repeat
As per usual, it doesn't matter who is in charge in the Middle East. The one thing we can be sure of is that Christians are going to be attacked. The Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power in Egypt. That hasn't stopped them.
For 67 years, the Virgin Mary Church has been a peaceful refuge for Shenouda El Sayeh, much like the Giza province village of Kafr Hakim where it rests and where he has lived all those years.
But, as he swept its floors on Thursday, it was painfully obvious things had changed.
The night before, a mob -- chanting against Coptic Christians such as El Sayeh and calling for Egypt to become an "Islamic state" -- had torched and looted the Virgin Mary Church.
"I didn't expect this to happen," El Sayeh said.
He's not alone. Christians all around Egypt are cleaning up in the aftermath of a spate of attacks, which came on the country's deadliest day since the 2011 revolution that overthrew longtime President Hosni Mubarak.
Just more churches burning. That's all. In a hilarious bit of propaganda, the Muslim Brotherhood has denied any attacks on churches. Somebody should explain that to Shenouda in the video below.
Note that the Copts there are familiar with who attacked them.
Somebody really needs to explain to the Brotherhood guys that (a) they don't have a great record of not burning churches as it is and (b) when you call for a "Day of Rage," don't act all shocked if some people interpret that as a call to burn churches. After all, that's sort of your thing.
Naturally, the Obama Administration is quick to point out that the violence against the church burners is unacceptable. I'm sure there will be a statement at some point condemning violence against the Christians there. Remember how strong the President came out against the previous assaults against Copts and Coptic churches? Probably not, since it never happened.
But hey, that kind of persecution can't be something that happens on a regular basis, right? Is it not utterly amazing that the long-suffering and persecuted Christians of Egypt can't even get a single sop of compassion from this administration?
Nor is there going to be a whole lot of focus on this aspect. I've seen CNN and Fox reports already today that talk about the horrible situation and the military crackdown. Nobody mentioned the MB violence. On that note, the Coptic Church issued a statement that expresses no small amount of frustration with how western media is covering the situation.
The world waits with bated breath for the last of our brethren in the Middle East to be exterminated. Then, perhaps, there can be some measure of peace. Peace bought at the price of regional genocide, but I'm sure our world leaders are willing to see that paid if it means that they don't have these kinds of flare-ups to worry about anymore.
6 comments:
According to Western Policy nothing in the middle east is worth
anything other than oil and Israel.
Everything is calculated accordingly. And in every istance there is lying as to who did what and doing what. Before the peace
agreement between Egypt and Israel brokered and paid for by
the U.S. the Israeli's set bombs in Egypt disguised as Egypt bombing attempting to make the U.S. go to war against Egypt. This of course is not the only time Israel has employed these tactics.
Now who is doing all manner of things to make the Egypt Military appear to be the good guys? I am not supporting either side because of lack of trust. The U.S. and Israel use Christians when they benefit the alliance. Otherwise they don't care about Christians anymore than they care about all the Arabs of any stripe that they kill. Oil and Israel are the interests of the alliance and they aim to strangle any other alliance.
A couple of things
First, I include Israel in the statement I made about the world anxiously awaiting the death of Christianity in the Middle East.
Second, I don't know if the crackdowns were initially justified or not. I know that since Christians are being attacked with such frequency, something needs to be done. My biggest issue is that nobody cares what's happening to the Christian population, whether it's in Iraq, Syria, Israel or Egypt. Where is the global condemnation of this persecution?
Third, I have some difficulty attributing these attacks to Israel in any fashion. The MB has a history. The Copts in the video say they know who did it. I believe them.
Moreover, in my opinion, Israel probably shouldn't focus on Egypt right now. Syria should be a far greater concern for them as a threat to destabilize Jordan, not to mention the chances of all these other countries getting involved there. When the US is talking about armaments to Syria, the possibility that chemical weapons have been used, etc is a way bigger deal right now.
Again, just my opinion, but I don't know what the point would be to step into the problems in Egypt (that are still mostly internal) when Syria is still having issues.
The solution is not the US spending more money and lives in that part of the world. Would you want young men in your family to lose their legs over there so that Christians could be safer until we leave again....as in Iraq right now?
The solution is the Vatican asking each of the 1.2 billion Catholics to send Rome one to ten dollars each mandatory,indulgence attached and the result could be three billion dollars to relocate every Christian family away from large muslim populations. Coordinate it with welcoming countries who would receive them. Or make all non Catholics give $20 each and you my collect $6 billion. We do not use our numbers creatively.
That second to last sentence should denote affluent Catholics giving $20 each....not non Catholics....and then you might collect $6 billion.
I disagree somewhat with your concluding paragraph. When all trace of Christianity has been removed from the Middle East, there still won't be lasting peace. The different Muslim alliances will then simply be able to focus all their efforts on destroying each other.
You are absolutely correct in your assessment of our own political leaders. But they are a collection of spineless cowards, so it isn't surprising that they lack the courage to speak out.
I am more disappointed that religious leaders appear uninterested in taking up this cause.
Bill Bannon
I don't disagree with anything you said. The problem with any such amnesty/relocation proposal is that most of the Copts probably won't go. It took a complete governmental collapse before the Chaldeans in Iraq even began a large scale migration. And that was after a period of being relatively undisturbed under Hussein.
The Copts have been dealing with this for a while. Granted, it wasn't this bad under Mubarak or Sadat but it still happened. I think their threshold is going to be high enough that nothing short of full-on civil war will move them.
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