For those of you who don’t know, an alleged suicide bomber (witnesses argue it was a car bomb) drove in front of a church housing over 1000 people during a midnight mass on the 1st of January in Egypt. 21 people were killed, 97 injured and body parts scattered all over the street. I have never received as many, tweets, texts, emails and messages through my various social networking sites regarding the persecution of the indigenous Egyptians than I have about the New Years Eve suicide bombings at the Coptic church in Alexandria. This to me alone indicates two things; both the pain our community is feeling on a global level and that the Coptic community from within the homeland of Egypt finally feel they have enough global support to make serious noise about the persecution they’re experiencing.
As a Coptic living in Australia, trying to keep up with the news and progress of events in Egypt has not been easy. Don’t get me wrong, a quick Google search brings up hundreds of results – however unbiased sources are few and far between. Even the extensive coverage by the mass media (CNN, BBC, Sky, etc) appears to have contradicting and skewed stories. Regardless, the Egyptian Government are again portraying these attacks as attacks on “Egypt” from Al Qaeda rather than specific attacks on Coptic Christians. i.e. that these attacks targeted both Muslims and Christians – which is obviously rubbish.
I’ve also read that witnesses claimed government security forces around the church more than halved in number an hour before the bombings – whether this is true or hearsay, the undisputed facts are that there was a bombing on NYE, Christians were targeted and the government is either doing a fantastic job at covering up the seriousness of the religious tension in Egypt or the mass media are happily buying what they are selling.
Regardless of where you look, the religious tension has clearly escalated since the Christmas eve shootings outside the church in Cairo when I was in Egypt last year. My biggest regret is that because I have been on tour promoting the forthcoming EP I have not been able to take part in the prayers and protests organized throughout Sydney this week. US President Obama has come out and said “this attack was clearly targeting Christian worshippers” and “They must be brought to justice” yet we have not heard a peep from Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of our country, where many of our citizens have had families directly affected as well as the broader Coptic Community now being subject to increased threats on Coptic churches within Australia.
With God’s help I hope we can stay strong and courageous as a community globally. I truly hope that the natural feeling of fear resulting from these attacks doesn’t impact upon our proud traditions both here in Australia, in Egypt, and across the rest of the world. It is my belief that if these Islam extremists successfully change who we are as Coptics (more than they already have) that would be a bigger victory for their cause then any number of deaths caused by these attacks
