The New Year's blast kills 21 and sparks clashes between police and Copts. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accuses foreign elements of involvement in the terrorist attack, which drew condemnation across the Middle East. (click title to entry - thank you)
...Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused unnamed foreign elements of being behind the attack."This act of terrorism shook the country's conscience, shocked our feelings and hurt the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians," he said in an emergency address to the nation. "The blood of their martyrs in the land of Alexandria mixed to tell us all that all Egypt is the target and that blind terrorism does not differentiate between a Copt and a Muslim."
The attack in the ancient Mediterranean coastal city was the latest in a wave of violence against once-resilient Christian communities in the Muslim world, some of which date back to antiquity....
What this article is indicating, very awkwardly and poorly stated, is bigotry. Did the allowance of bigotry, religious bigotry, serve the same purpose as racism does in other nations where religionous freedom is invisible for the most part. With the exception of people like Rep. King that can't discern freedom of religion from criminal intent.
But, in the Middle East, religion is a commodity and there are 'undertones' that create tensions. At any rate, oppression is an enemy to a nation's leadership. Oppression is a 'pressure' to force change and sometimes violently.
I understand there is now rebuilding of the church that was bombed. If the protestors in Egypt were looking to be more 'discriminating,' full of more hatred, I doubt seriously the church would be rebuilt so much as destroyed.
Mubarak Regime ‘Provoked’ Attacks on Christians (click here)
By Cam McGrath
...Analysts say there is growing evidence that Egyptian security forces planned attacks on Christian churches and clergy, or allowed them to happen. The apparent purpose of the attacks was to reinforce the idea to sympathetic Western governments that without Mubarak, radical Islamist groups would gain a foothold in Egypt and wage a holy war on its Christian community....
...Egypt has the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the country’s 82 million inhabitants, claim they have faced persecution and discrimination in the workforce....
The new Egyptian citizen will have many challenges, including accepting diversity. The struggle for equality is only beginning and it will take many forms, but, it will proceed in history no different than it has in the USA since its Civil War. Let's not confuse discrimination within a country with movements for freedom. They are very different and not a measure of the strength of a new government.
