CHURCH / Egypt: Stop the persecution

Stop the persecution

By Michael Coren ,QMI Agency

First posted: Friday, August 16, 2013 06:28 PM EDT

A supporter of ousted President Mohamed Mursi throws a tear gas canister back towards the police during clashes in central Cairo August 13, 2013. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih

 

A Coptic Christian Church in Upper Egypt dating from the fourth century was destroyed last week by the Muslim Brotherhood. It was not of any military significance, it was attacked simply because it was a church.
At the time of writing, 30 churches have been destroyed in Egypt by Muslim mobs. Some of the buildings are ancient; most are modern, however, because it is extremely difficult in Egypt and in most Muslim countries for Christians to get permission to build new churches and repair old ones.
I suppose that compared to the thousands of people killed and wounded in the past week this is insignificant. Yet no matter tragic human suffering is, the deliberate removal of a fourth century church from Egypt is on a different level of sociological violence and ethnic cleansing.
You see, Christianity pre-dates Islam by 600 years, and Egypt was a majority Christian country long before Islam existed. The attack on the church was a clear statement to the 15% of Egyptians who refuse to abandon Christ. "You do not belong, you never existed."
At almost the same time as the church was destroyed, a little Christian girl, 10-year-old Jessica Boulous, was shot through the chest and killed in Cairo as she walked home from a Bible class. Her teacher had briefly turned away to buy something from a market. "I just can't believe she is gone," Nasr Allah Zakaria, her uncle, said. "She was such a sweet little girl. She was like a daughter to me."
We should remember Jessica as a daughter to the world. As a symbol of the legions of Christians who have been martyred in Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, China, and elsewhere. But mostly, it must be admitted, in the Muslim world. Not just the Arab world; the Islamic world.
The Copts of Egypt are the indigenous people of the country, with far more rights to the land than many Muslims. But while the world will sympathize with Palestinians, or for that matter Canadian natives and Australian aboriginals, it prefers to ignore persecuted Christians.
A former speechwriter to Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff went so far as to actually mock the plight of these poor souls when I wrote of them on my Twitter account recently. British actor and author Stephen Fry has written a letter to his prime minister demanding action be taken against Russia for its legislation regarding gay demonstrations. Will he write something similar for Christians tortured to death, raped and imprisoned? Of course not.
The situation in Egypt will probably get worse before it gets better, and the one guarantee we have is — just like the Jews of the past — the majority will somehow find a way to blame and beat the Christians when social breakdown and chaos occurs.
There are fashionable causes, trendy minorities, easy campaigns to support. Then there are the genuine cases of massive suffering, the open wounds on the international body politic. The world has turned its back before and held its head in shame afterwards.
The phrase "never again" sounds somewhat hollow right now, and this agony is not historical but contemporary. Its colour is blood red.