It's not often that the oppression and flight of Christian minorities from the Middle East is mentioned in the same breath as the flight of the Jews. This article by Maria Abi-Habib in the Wall Street Journal looks at the sorry fate of Christians in Iraq and Egypt. (with thanks: Eliyahu)
Bombed church in Tanta, Egypt
Today, more Arab Christians live outside the Middle East than in the
region. Some 20 million live abroad, compared with 15 million Arab
Christians who remain in the Mideast, according to a report last year by
a trio of Christian charities and the University of East London.
In 1971, Egyptian Coptic Christians had two churches in the U.S. Today
there are 252 Coptic churches, according to Samuel Tadros, a senior
fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.
Mr. Tadros estimates that some one million Copts have fled Egypt since the 1950s, many to the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia.
Mr. Trump has indicated he would welcome more Christian refugees from
the Middle East. His initial efforts to overhaul immigration policies
have been blocked by the courts amid criticism his executive orders
would discriminate on the basis of religion.
The Arab Christian diaspora in the U.S. has already emerged as powerful
in politics and business. Dina Powell, Mr. Trump’s influential deputy
national security adviser, is of Egyptian Coptic origin.
With the near-depletion of the Christian population in the Middle East
and the recent flight of the Kurdish minority Yazidis from Islamic
State, followed just a few decades after the flight of its Jews, many
fear for the region’s future—not only because of the rise of radicalism
but the loss of talent needed for sputtering economies.
Killed in the Palm Sunday attack at the church in Tanta was Mina Abdo,
an engineer who left Egypt over a decade ago with his family, in part to
allow his wife Yvonne to pursue her profession of gynecology.
Christian Egyptians have had a hard time getting work in her field since
the 1970s when a fraudulent police report emerged accusing the sect of
plotting to outnumber Muslims by performing abortions on unsuspecting
Muslim women, or secretly slipping them birth control. The document has
been likened to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabrication used
to discriminate against Europe’s Jews a century ago.
The family returned to Tanta after celebrating Holy Week for years in
their adopted home of Kuwait City. In Egypt, they could sit under a
steeple, which their church in Kuwait lacks because official churches
are banned there. Mr. Abdo and his son, Kerollos, 11, took the front
pews in Mar Girgis, which had a good view of the altar, where many of
the family had been baptized and married.
When the suicide bomber detonated his vest that morning, the explosion
mangled the same front pews, killing Mr. Abdo instantly. His body
shielded his son, Kerollos, who survived but suffered shrapnel wounds to
his face and right leg.
Two days after the attack, at a nearby hospital, Mrs. Abdo and her
14-year-old daughter, Miriam, tended to Kerollos. Mother and daughter
wore the sweaters Mr. Abdo packed for their trip back home. Miriam wore
her father’s crucifix, his wedding ring and hospital identity tag
hanging off the thick gold chain—possessions the hospital put in a
plastic zip-lock bag when Mr. Abdo was pronounced dead on arrival. His
remains would stay in Egypt.
When asked whether she’d return, Mrs. Abdo hesitated. “I love Egypt. I
love my memories here. But I’m scared now,” she said. “We will come back
for visits, we must. My husband is buried here.”
Read article in full
I, myself, have spoken with Christians from the Middle East, I can definitely say that this article is - 95% true. The other 5% is nothing but insults toward these people. I'm sure the author of this article is very well educated and knows the difference between Copts, Assyrians, and Maronites on the one hand, and Arab Christians on the other. Calling all these people "Arab" Christians when they're certainly not, not only shows ignorance, but also smacks of racism.
ReplyDeleteShe is appropriating them into the "Arab nation" because pan-Arab nationalists don't want to recognize other nationalities in the Middle East besides the Arabs.
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget, that the original and real Egyptians in Egypt are the Copts. They are the straight descendants of Helenistic Pharaoh, and the first to convert to christianity. That is why they are called in Egypt: Gypti or simply Epty, which means Egyptian, which became Copte.
ReplyDeleteIt is only when the Moslem's Troups invaded Egypt during the seventh centenaire, that Egypt's religion became Islam, and the Copts became "unbelievers".
This truth is difficult to swallow for some Islamic Egyptians today. Some 500,000 Copts who could afford it, left Egypt and dispersed all over the world, becoming "refugees by their own will". Just like it happened during the mid 20th to Egyptian Jews who wasn't formally expelled...
Levana