The Plight of Christians in Egypt
Srdja Trifkovic’s talks to Rev. Todd Wilken on Issues, Etc. Transcript of live interview broadcast on December 12, 2012.
Joining us to talk about the ongoing plight of Christians in Egypt is Dr. Srdja Trifkovic. He is Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture . . . Are we seeing a reenactment of what happened with the Christians in Iraq, now in Egypt after the revolution?
ST: Yes, except that this time it’s happening much quicker than one would have expected. Mohamed Morsi has shown his true colors within weeks of taking complete power. The numbers involved, sadly, are much greater than in Iraq. The exodus of Christians from Iraq occurred in earnest between three and six years after the fall of Saddam, and affecting about 800,000 people. What we are looking at in Egypt is a community that, until not so long ago, had exceeded 10 percent of the population. Even with the steady exodus that had been going on in the final years of the Mubarak regime and in the first year and a half of the “Arab Spring,” I believe we are still looking at a community of 7-8 million. If they start leaving in significant numbers—and that is already happening—it may exceed the Iraqi tragedy by seven or eight times.
Q: How would you compare the state of the Christians in Egypt today, under the new regime, to that of the Mubarak regime?
ST: It has greatly deteriorated. Mubarak was a secularist, and even though there had been problems with the position of the Copts—very often the authorities were unwilling to intervene when the Islamists would target them—nevertheless at least in principle, in terms of constitutional protection, they enjoyed equal rights. What is happening now is that Morsi is allowing a constitutional package to be pushed through parliament on the basis of a draft created by a pro-Sharia team of experts and activists. He is doing that in the full knowledge that not only the protections of the Christian minority are going to be removed, but also that all kinds of other unpleasant aspects of Sharia are going to be introduced, including deletion of the clause guaranteeing equality between men and women. It is going to be very tough to get the State Department and the U.S. foreign policy establishment to admit that Mohamed Morsi is an Islamist, but the effect of his policy will be to turn Egypt into a society based on the Kuran and the word of the Prophet, and not on the universal principles and propositional guidelines of a democratic society.
Q: What you seem to be saying is that Morsi is flying under the State Department’s radar and they refuse to acknowledge him as an Islamist. Are there open Islamists in the government of Egypt who are doing the dirty work for him?
ST: It doesn’t really matter one way or another. What we are witnessing is the Muslim Brotherhood agenda being applied in practice, and what kind of subterfuge he plays—and for this coming Saturday he was planning a “national consultation” meeting to which he had invited the newly appointed Coptic pope, which he declined because it is really a charade—is immaterial. It would be ridiculous to assume that the State Department does not realize what is happening. The persons within Morsi’s circle may be formally appointed or not appointed, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Morsi is doing what he had promised to do to his inner core of supporters. The fundamental issue is that in the Muslim world “democratization” means one man-one vote, once, on a one-way street to Sharia, and the declining rights for everybody else.
The democratic concept is intricately linked to the Christian world view, of giving unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The separation between mosque and state is simply not possible in Islam. It is a total… not only world outlook, not only a religion masquerading as political ideology, but a blueprint for day-to-day life, and a total political and legal submission to the word of Allah as defined not only in the book of the Prophet’s revelations, or the Hadith—the collections of his doings and sayings—but also as understood by their contemporary, zealous, politically motivated leaders in the Muslim world. The United States has chosen to side with them. We’ve seen the results in Benghazi on September 11th of this year. I am afraid that we will see something similar in Syria if Bashar al Assad falls, where even though the total number of Christians is smaller, their percentage is even higher than in Egypt.
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Srdja,
If you had to select which institutions and policies of the last 25 years have done the most harm to what is left of these small remnants of Christian culture, would it be The United States and their closest allies in the middle east, the European Union or the Muslim Brotherhood ?
The U.S. and the E.U. share #1. The MB is just doing its thing. They'd be nowhere but for the treasonous elites controlling Brussels and Washington.
Thank you for your response, Dr. Trifkovic. I know several orthodox deacons and priests in the Midwest who speak highly of your judgements in these political, foreign affairs matters. I can not think of a more hellish country to live in the 20th century, unless in certain parts of murderous Africa, than Albania. The fact Mother Theresa still managed sanctity coming from that atheist hell-hole is testimony in itself of the gates of hell and even the Clinton's dearest projects, failing against the grace of God.
As it happens Mother Theresa was an ethnic Albanian from Macedonia. She was born in Skopje -- now the capital of FYROM, and at that time a predominantly Christian city. It is being gradually overrun by Albanian Muslims as we speak: "Having secured their dominance along the borders of Albania and Kosovo, the current main thrust of the Albanian ethno-religious encroachment has the country’s capital city as its primary objective. It is a little-known fact that today’s Skopje is effectively as divided as Nicosia or Jerusalem. Once a city quarter becomes majority-Albanian, it is quickly emptied of its Slavic, non-Muslim population. The time-tested technique is to construct a mosque in a mixed area, to broadcast prayer calls at full blast five times a day, and to create the visible and audible impression of dominance that intimidates non-Muslims (the locals call it “sonic cleansing”)." http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/fyrom-new-kosovo
Once a city quarter becomes majority-Albanian, it is quickly emptied of its Slavic, non-Muslim population. The time-tested technique is to construct a mosque in a mixed area, to broadcast prayer calls at full blast five times a day, and to create the visible and audible impression of dominance that intimidates non-Muslims (the locals call it “sonic cleansing”)
This is very similar to what the secularists, marxists and multi-culturalists have done to our country. Except of course instead of a mosque, they first established themselves in the "non-denominational, polyglot boarding houses of ecumenical, cross-cultural, feminists and metro-sexual studies we now call, The University. Once established in their little magazines and beach-heads they broadcast atheist and scientific calls for continued support and import of "an education" ( pell grants, constant references to their "experts", accentuating the ignorant, carpet biting, Christian as representative of this traditional delusion, while at the same time eliminating intelligent public defenders (Pat Buchanan, Tom Fleming, Clyde Wilson, Taki, Trifkovic etc.. from public discourse. Always substituting the more venial and manageable types such as David Frum, Chris Mathews Karl Rove, Little Bill Kristol then bambard the public with a 24 hour news cycle, create the visible and audible impression that anyone who doesn't agree with the marxists and secularists is out of touch, angry white types, warring against reality and women. etc etc..
Go over to the neocon rags and listen to them call for war, more war, endless war, until nothing is left to conserve.
Go over to AmCon (and "con" has never been so well in its place) and hear them chide Republicans for "Islamophobia."
Then there's Chronicles. Thank God there's still a journal in America with a mind.
Do we know where they are fleeing to, generally?
Many, if not most, of the Egyptian Copts are, slowly but surely, leaving, or considering leaving. An acquaintance, an Egyptian Copt living in northern Virginia, where there is a large Coptic Church, told me a while back that his family will not move, for where would they go? Normally, their preferred place of refuge would have been Syria, but that is no longer a viable option, thanks to the tireless efforts of our Madame Secretary. That leaves Lebanon, and only Lebanon, and the Muslim population there has shown signs of unrest, probably due to the influx of Syrian Christians. If Lebanon is lost, and that is problematic at this stage, there will not be a major Christian population left in the Middle East.
The Christians of the Middle East are being sacrificed on the altar of accommodation with Islam, and the EU and this Administration really don't give a damn.
Like Joel Wilhelm, I am interested in learning more about where those ME Christians are going. I also noticed that Mr. Trifkovic seemed to imply that the U.S. State Department enjoyed a good deal of influence over the events in the ME generally and of events in Egypt and Syria specifically. If that is so, I wonder what actions he would recommend to help mitigate or maybe even solve some of the difficulties he observes?
are the elites treasonous, or are they merely the same Arabist fascist 'patriots' that have lead the US for *years*, even collaborating with the 3rd Reich while sending us soldiers out to get blown to bits by said Reich?