I know enough about Egypt to report that Christians there live by large in prosperity. They own telecommunications companies, real estate, jewelry stores. Among them are top movies and arts producers.
Christian Copts have been political operatives and government officials since Muhammad Ali established the modern Egypt in the early 19th century and they continued to play a pivotal role, yet somehow subdued, after the 1952 military revolution that ended the rule of the Albanian Muhammad Ali family and established a military dictatorship that last until July of this year, when Egypt for the first time in its history elected a civilian head of state and it happened to be from the historically banned group known as the Muslim Brotherhood.
A name that comes to mind of an elite Coptic family is that of Boutros Ghali and his family. The former secretary general of the United Nations comes from a very famous Christian political family; his grandfather was prime minister of Egypt in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The main problems facing Egypt’s Copts-Muslims relations in my opinion are public relations, perception, and education, until recently, Egypt never celebrated the Copts Christmas day, which takes place every year- Christian orthodox- on January 6 as a national holiday, the Copts, had to take permission from schools to celebrate, had to take permission from the president to build churches and until now it is still not easy to get these permissions.
Egypt in the identity cards still places the name of religion besides the personal information. The education books and the overall mentality focus on that the Christians are somehow different; there is a mixture of jealousy, from their success, to fear. Ignorance plays a great role in showing the Copts as not trustworthy or even as some fanatics in Egypt believe that eating with them would violate some sort of religious rule.
While attending the law school at Cairo University, I had a Christian friend that for four years I did not and did not care to know his religion until one day he mentioned that he is a Christian Copt and I also had a Christian teacher who gave me French language lessons, I did not learn it not because he was not a good teacher but because I was not a serious student. That teacher once invited me to his house over lunch with his wife and two daughters in one of Cairo developments for limited income people. He opened up to me and said that the Copts are ready to fight if Muslims choose this path. I was surprised and did not say anything, he continued to say, and I quote “we will not set still and wait for them to attack”. I once advised Coptic friends that they will never have a full voice in Egyptian politics unless they form a political party similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood.
If the Muslims can do such thing, why not the Copts, and this way, politics in Egypt will be more vibrant and more accountable to each other, like the system of Checks and Balances here in the US- Egypt style to ensure equal rights and equal opportunities and act as a lobby for the Copts from within. The Egyptian people in general are people of peace, and the majority among them, Muslims and Copts, believe in living in harmony.
The official Egypt though must continue to focus on the importance of tolerance. Having gone through this introduction, I must say that we need to continue to look at the larger picture here and show that intolerance is not unique to this or that part of the world, intolerance and hatred are found in almost every society on earth, of course, there are variations here and there.
In Egypt and the Middle East there is discrimination based on religion or religious intolerance, in other countries there is discrimination based on national origins, ethnicity, or the color of the skin.
Governments cannot erase discrimination by decree, it is a process that has to be part of the evolution of societies to focus instead of what is your religion, or looks to what you can do and how productive you are. What is going on in Egypt could lead to a better Egypt if it is dealt with as a fact and not as something the official Egypt is trying to deny and hide and pretends that it does not exist.
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