Victory
Egypt’s Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as “human shields”
Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.
My comment: Those of you who are unaware, it is tradition of hundreds of years standing for Muslims in Egypt to descend upon cathedrals and church in Egypt and commit murders and atrocities. The particular sect here is called Copts, and they are the oldest breakaway group from the universal church, older than the Eastern Orthodox, older than the Protestants. But the sect does not matter. They are our brother Christians, and they have been trampled and despised their entire painful and tortured existence for more than a thousand years.
For once, someone defied the powers of the world and stood up for them. And it was not their fellow Christians who showed solidarity and support, O ye Christian gentlemen of the fat and happy West, but Muslims.
The article continues:
Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular Muslim televangelist and preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.
“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly Street. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”
In the days following the brutal attack on Saints Church in Alexandria, which left 21 dead on New Year’ eve, solidarity between Muslims and Copts has seen an unprecedented peak. Millions of Egyptians changed their Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent – the symbol of an “Egypt for All”. Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, and depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together as one.
The attack has rocked a nation that is no stranger to acts of terror, against all of Muslims, Copts and Jews. In January of last year, on the eve of Coptic Christmas, a drive-by shooting in the southern town of Nag Hammadi killed eight Copts as they were leaving Church following mass. In 2004 and 2005, bombings in the Red Sea resorts of Taba and Sharm El-Sheikh claimed over 100 lives, and in the late 90’s, Islamic militants executed a series of bombings and massacres that left dozens dead.
My comment: I have been saying since 9/11 that the Terror War is not a physical war fought primarily with guns and battleships, but a psychological and spiritual war, fought with ideas, or, to be precise, a war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness of the princes of the air.
I have been waiting some clear sign that there were civilized Muslims in the world, and they were on the side of their God and ours against the devils who have highjacked their religion. To be frank, I thought the talk of them was wishful thinking: I many time said that they would make no more difference to the outcome of the war than the peaceful Germans under the Nazi regime, or the peaceful Russians under Stalin, namely, no difference at all.
I rejoice to be shown utterly and foolishly wrong. For this news, thought buried and obscure, is not a small thing, but a major victory of a spiritual nature. It shows the terrorists are losing their ability to cow the Umma into uniformity and submission. This was a public gesture of support by Muslims shielding Christians against their fellow Muslims. It is to be wondered at and praised.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
