“Against this backdrop, it’s difficult not to see this attack as having a deeply political purpose: to encourage the exodus of Christian Egyptians from their homeland. Through attacks like these, the perpetrators appear to be indicating that they don’t simply want to make life difficult for Christians—they want Egypt to be Christian-free.”
Friday is usually the most peaceful day in the Egyptian week, a day most often reserved for time with family. This Friday in particular—the last day before the start of Ramadan—should have been a time of calm reflection and prayer in Egypt. Instead, gunmen killed at least 24 Coptic Christians as they made their way via bus to a monastery in Minya, south of Cairo.
Copts are the largest Christian group in the Middle East, and they represent about 10 percent of the population in Egypt. This is not the first attack that has taken aim at Christians in the country, but it is one of the most shocking, with a high death toll and children among the targets. Sadly, given ISIS’s express declarations that Christians are “infidels” who should be targeted in Egypt, this attack is also unlikely to be the last.
Against this backdrop, it’s difficult not to see this attack as having a deeply political purpose: to encourage the exodus of Christian Egyptians from their homeland. Through attacks like these, the perpetrators appear to be indicating that they don’t simply want to make life difficult for Christians—they want Egypt to be Christian-free. In a radical extremist vision for Egypt, it seems, there is no room for this ancient and rooted Egyptian community.
It would be comforting to think that this is purely about ISIS. And it’s true that ISIS is the main militant threat against Christians, and against wide swathes of other Egyptians more generally. ISIS doesn’t simply target Christians; ISIS targets Egyptians in Egypt, as it targets Iraqis in Iraq, and others in other countries.
But ISIS also feeds off a preexisting sectarianism that provides a certain type of background music for ISIS activities. Huge swathes of the Islamist camp in Egypt cannot claim to be putting forward a vision of genuine respect in the country, even though they may condemn Friday’s attack. In much of the pro-Islamist media, the Arabic-language discourse around Christians is clear, and clearly more negative than the discourse that appears in English-language media used for PR purposes with the West.
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