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"To come back to the issue of the Copts in Egypt, I contend that the
fact that most senior officials continue to ignore the Coptic issue will
bring Egypt to crises which I can almost make out on the horizon. They
are similar to the crises of others in the region - others who fell [sic]
prey to the temptation to ignore some problems, and especially to
ignore the realities of today's world, that is, the post-Cold War world
. This is a world in which the idea of sovereignty in its old sense, which
had been stable for the many decades preceding the fall of the Berlin
Wall, is no longer of any use to anyone. There are those who
understand this new world, and there are those who are unable to
understand and take in all dimensions of this change", Heggy explained
to the international media that covered the conference on religious
minorities in Washington, D.C.
The sincere and emotional remarks of Heggy caused a storm back in his native country of Egypt. The Egyptian media in its frenzied coverage of the event called the conference and those participating in it conspirators and traitors. Egypt’s media considered the event that aimed at starting a rational dialogue about the status of its Copts as a conspiracy to pressure and defame Egypt.
As usual, the Mubarak regime does not deal with incidents related to the Copts not as a phenomenon that needs serious deliberation and governmental measures to correct the wrongdoings inflicted on the Copts, but rather it downplays and sweeps it under the rug.
On February 10, 2002, the news agencies reported attacks on Copts in a village in the al-Minia district. Copts' homes, cars, and churches were burned, and 10 Copts were hurt. An Egyptian writer living in New York City wrote a critical account of the Egyptian government's treatment of its Christian Coptic minority, in the London daily al-Quds al-Arabi. “Lack of a clear penal policy: In self-respecting societies, there is no dialogue or compromise whatsoever with a criminal who commits an act punishable by law. Yet in Egypt… the real criminal ends up going free, and the ones brought to trial are youths against whom the judge has no evidence whatsoever… All this, when everyone knows who really committed the crimes – not one of whom, for some unknown reason, is brought to trial or punished", explained the writer. (3)
Aladdin Elaasar is author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age (Excerpts from The Last Pharaoh in this article by permission of Beacon Press). Email: omaraladin@aol.com
