danivon wrote:We saw Christians guarding Muslims while they prayed in Alexandria, and a local Catholic cardinal alongside an Imam. A few weeks ago there was violence aimed at Copts. What was not so well reported at the time was that muslims in the community acted to protect them.

A variety of news goes unreported.

It's nice that there are Egyptian Muslims who sympathize with the Copts and do what they can to ensure some degree of freedom of religion and deter outright and thorough extermination. I'm reminded of those Christians (and others) called by Jews the "Righteous among the Nations" because they took a risk to help Jews during the holocaust. Unfortunately, there just weren't enough of the Righteous back then. Do you suppose there are enough in Egypt?

x

Unfortunately, there just weren't enough of the Righteous back then. Do you suppose there are enough in Egypt?

Time will tell. However, given that the incidents concerning the persecution of Copts are being blamed on Hosbarek's provacateurs attempting to create a sense of instability he could blame on the Muslim Brotherhood ...it may be that Egypt will tend to tolerance.
Whats important here is whether or not the true support for extremism is as minor as some now paint the picture. Since violence wasn't really required to end Mubareks regime, Al Queada's view that violent Jihad is required has been discredited.
The Muslim Brotherhood have always been pictured as worthless by Al Queada - so it seems that for the MB to now become a violent political player might be a difficult position to hold and attract public support.
I think we can see enough historical examples to claim: Where major change has been achieved without violence, violence becomes unacceptable as part of culture.

I read in an article recently that violence is flaring up in Egypt again because the people think records documenting crimes of the Mubarak government are being destroyed. The article I read said the people stormed the offices and the military started firing on them.

It is, assuredly, difficult to predict whether or not radicalism and violence will accompany the politics espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood.

From the link posted by Minister X, the acts of violence against Christian minorities seem to be recurrent. Coptic Christians are the frequent victims of violence and live largely without the protection of the state.

Now, the violence can always be conveniently attributed to a handful of radicals. Optimism may prompt us to say that the church burnings will stop, in time. Fashionable though it may be, I cannot share this optimism.

It seems clear that there are groups within the country who view Christians as scapegoats and will continue to do so regardless of who forms government. Now, it ought to be said that the Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the violent attacks against the Coptic Christians, but what other option did they have? Knowing that the eyes of the Western media were focused on Egypt were they going to encourage hatred and confirm the suspicion that they are radical Islamists? Surely not.

Should the Muslim Brotherhood be in power, what steps can we expect them to take to prevent violence against Christians? What steps will they take in the event of violence against Christians?

The Muslim Brotherhood is determined to increasing the role of Islam in political life. Does this mean the end of the hope for a secular Egypt?

Honestly, they could have said anything they liked. They want to win the hearts of Egyptians and the rest of the world doesn't really matter to them (much). I am a bit skeptical as well but I think this statement against such burnings is a very good thing!
I do have a very big problem with any religion being TOO involved in a nations politics and the Muslim extremists are the latest such group. Christians were doing similarly a few hundred years ago, religion and politics are a horrible mix!

I honestly don't think the MB is the story or the issue here. Ricky was the first to mention them, alleging that some guy named "Hosbarek" has provocateurs blah blah blah. This is fantasy. Could these imagined forces of reaction get thousands of Copts to march in protest and hundreds to camp out at the TV station last night? And then arrange for six people to die? So that, what... so Mubarak can be recalled as sectarian violence erupts? Absurd.

This is not the work of the MB or the work of Mubarak or any sort of conspiracy-theory deviousness. The Copts are a significant minority in Egypt but in many ways are a population apart. They differ from other Egyptians at an ethno-religious level. Economically, prior to Nasser the Copts, at 10% of the population, held over half Egypt's wealth. They are better educated than Egypt's Muslims. Official marginalization of the Copts began with Nasser, not last week. In 2001 twenty Copts and one Muslim were killed in violence following a dispute between a single member of each group. It doesn't take organized conspiratorial work to get the blood flowing. The animosity exists and is capable of flaring up on its own. We tend to think that the party that's outnumbered 9:1 is automatically innocent, but human nature attests to a different POV. Copts can hate, and incite hatred, just as effectively as Muslims.

I draw attention to illiberal activity in Egypt because I fear a combination of two things: 1) that the next regime in Egypt will not be liberal, and 2) that "liberals" all over the rest of the world will ignore that fact simply because the regime is revolutionary, or less pro-American or pro-West, or more pro-Palestinian, or in some other facile and silly way attractive to leftist intellectual elites who seem to have forgotten their liberal roots. I do not draw attention to illiberal activities in Egypt so that Islamic radicals of some generic form can be automatically blamed and therefore the GWOT freshly justified.

I'm also just plain sensitive to minorities being maltreated. It used to be lefties who led that charge. How times change!

x

I honestly don't think the MB is the story or the issue here. Ricky was the first to mention them, alleging that some guy named "Hosbarek" has provocateurs blah blah b

I tell you this Hosbarek fellow is EVIL!!!!
Well, I was thinking of the events from a few months back of violence against Copts ... which were, within Egypt, often blamed on Mubarak Provacuteurs.....The recent stuff. No. Just religious intolernce raising its head again. Which probably puts the lie to the story that the old incidents were Mubarek provacateurs.... At the time they worked for the opposition though.
I'm heavily influenced on this by my Egyptian friend, a copt, who firmly believes that the MB are the major threat to his people back in Cairo. But frankly seems utterly at sea since the success of the uprising. When I ask him what his family is thinking now, he reports a mixture of hope, fear, mistrust and anxiety.
He is also a Maple Leafs fan ....
Life is difficult and unsettled for him right now

I know you guys think I get carried away, but when I hear about the Copts, all I can think is that they should have a homeland of their own. There were 75,000 Jews who lived in Egypt in 1948, and virtually all of them left out of coercion by the state or fear thereof. Most were able to settle in Israel.

I don't think that the entire world has to be divided by ethnicity -- its' great that most of the developed world is multi-ethnic and tolerant -- but if you live in the majority of places in the Middle East, Africa, or Asia it sucks to be a minority (except Syria where it sucks to be part of the majority).

RJ

Not if this thread is entirely focused on Egypt, but i think the bigger issue right now is Libya. I saw today that Gaddafi just retook two key towns in a military offensive. It got me to thinking, what if he wins ? What the hell do we do then ? The thinking so far seems to have just assumed that his days are numbered and the rebels will take over, but what if the rebellion ultimately ends up being crushed ? Having burned all our bridges with Gaddafi it would be difficult to rebuild them again, and you'd hope that we wouldn't want to anyway, but he can't just be ingored.

Within the context of middle east politics the timing and membership of any intervention will be vital.
The French have recognized the new government. Perhaps they'll want to intervene militarily? I suspect that they have the means to tip the balance in the favour of the rebels, and with enough of a show of force from them perhaps Ghaddafi's support will crumble.

Like Ricky, I applaud the French. Perhaps the Brits can join them. I wish Obama and Clinton showed a little more toughness right now. I think this is a clear case of right and wrong and it is silly for the US to worry about international consensus and the views of Russia, China, and some of the Arab world. We are being way too cautious. This is not Iraq 2003, although there may be some similarities from the perspective of China or Russia or Turkey.

Peope are being killed by their government in an indiscriminate way and we should step in, just like you step in if you see one person perpetrating violence on the other. If the French can do it on their own, that's fine too. We don't have to occupy, and hopefully there won't be a stream of sectartian violence afterwards, although I guess that is possible under any scenario.

I think Britain and the US are possibly best off not going too far. Our backing for the rebels (especially any active support militarily) might indeed by helpful to the rebels in terms of force, but it could also undermine the legitimacy of the rebellion in the eyes of the people at large. The international community is not the main concern here, frankly.

It's tough. We intervened on the side of the KLA in Kosovo, and sure, the Serbian government were nasty, but the KLA are no angels (quite steeped in crime). We followed the French lead in Rwanda and ended up for a while backing the wrong side.

And interventions outside recognition are not without risks. No fly Zones are not policed by signs, they involve the use of force, which includes bombing. We still haven't figured out how to do that and guarantee no mistakes.

Besides, you were talking about the Copts and an uncertain future in Egypt. Similarly, how do we know that the rebels will be any better or worse than Gadaffi? A lot of their leadership appears to be made up of figures who were recently closely aligned to the Colonel.

The French can recognize the rebels... No. Let's NOT call them "rebels". Did we call the Egyptians in Tahrir "rebels"? Lech Walesa? George Washington? (Oh, well actually, those guys with the wigs....)

Anyway, what the French do is of minor importance. If the uprisers (that's awful) end up losing and the French try to make nice again with Gadaffi would anyone be surprised - would it matter? But the leading country in the free world, or whatever the hell it is we are these days, has to be more careful and we already have a bad record when it comes to verbal support of freedom-fighters leading them to believe material support was promised, and then they find themselves at the wrong end of Soviet tanks or Saddam's helicopters or the Ayatollah's gangsters. "Recognizing" the regime-changers in Libya means nothing; action to prevent Gadaffi from importing arms from Europe would be materially helpful, perhaps critical. And we can ground his planes once they land in Europe without having our horrible fascist fingerprints all over the Libyan's nice clean revolution. They'd hardly know we were there.

danivon wrote:A lot of their leadership appears to be made up of figures who were recently closely aligned to the Colonel.

I hadn't heard this and it doesn't seem to make much sense. Obviously, these "leaders" wouldn't have begun the uprising or supported it early on. If they had, what we're seeing is a coup, not a revolution. If some military higher-ups (who weren't all that close to Gadaffi to begin with) climbed on the bandwagon two weeks ago that makes them survivors, not leaders. As for the diplomats stationed in New York and Brussels, just because the western media gives them some air time to blow their horns and puts a caption under their pic doesn't mean they're leading squat.

I might, however, be uninformed. Any specifics? I'd hate to think that all those nice freedom-loving Libyans were getting hoodwinked.

Very interesting. The French recognition of the Libyan Interim National Council as the legitimate government may be the start of a move towards the Wilson Doctrine of recognition. France’s recognition of the National Council doesn’t exactly fit the Wilson model, but the notion of withdrawing recognition from the Gaddafi government based on its recent actions draws somewhat upon the concept.

France will likely be encouraging other European nations to follow suit. Now, if the recognized government is one calling for foreign intervention and in the unlikely event that Western powers comply with their request, then would there be a violation of Libyan sovereignty?

Additionally, I guess the French recognition of the National Council indicates that they no longer have French citizens in the zones controlled by Gadaffi loyalists.

A few posts back I indicated my disgust that the US is not intervening to help the Libyan rebels. I know that Danivon suggested that we should not get involved, and no one else has shared my view that the US needs to step in here. Yet the more that time goes on, the more convinced I am of my posiiton. Even the Arab League has asked the US to intervene (technically they've asked the UN, but practically they mean the US). I don't care what the Turks, Chinese, or Russians think in this matter. The reality is that if the US fails to act, after we've said that Qadaffi must go, it will represent a huge failure of American policy.

It looks like Qadaffi will retake his country. I suspect that there will be a huge massacre of Libyans who supported the rebels and/or are from different tribes. I hope I'm wrong, but I think we will hear about a blood bath of over 10,000. If we can't act when it is in our political interest and in our economic interest and in our ethical interest, when can we act? I've always preferred Obama's softer touch relative to GWB. However, this touch is so soft that we will be reviled in the Arab world. Qadaffi will continue to kill while we edit drafts over at the UN that go nowhere. Didn't we do the right thing when we intervened in Kosovo, and isn't this a parallel situation?
RJ