Ten years after September 11th, human rights flounder in the United States but flourish in the Middle East.
Since September 11th, the United States and the Arab world have traveled a treacherous road together. Where they have arrived after ten years sets them apart. In the US, the embrace of human rights as a defining value and ideal worthy of considerable sacrifice is gradually fading, while the Arab world is in the midst of a rights revolution.
Throughout US history, promoting individual rights and civil liberties has been central to how Americans defined themselves. To be American was to champion liberty and rights. These were repeatedly billed as inherently American values. Even when they encountered contradictions such as US support for brutal dictators, Americans' faith that more often than not the United States used its power to promote its principles allowed many Americans to continue to take pride in their "America as leader of the free world" identity. In this formulation, human rights, ideals, and morality mattered, at the very least as a bar that should be met.
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I think the Copts of Egypt would like to see more tangible evidence of this new embrace for human rights.
ReplyDeleteThe author states there are numerous human rights proponents in the Obama administration. Name one, please.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would also like evidence that Obama is "forced" to set policies in security rather than moral terms. I think he and Eric Holder are quite happy with security terms.
I don't understand this comment. Focusing on the Copts situation in isolation of all other human rights issues still abundant in Egypt is malicious somehow..
ReplyDeleteThere's no reason to believe that in a new, democratic, free Egypt the Copts will be a cast apart, unless there's an assumption that the new rulers are going to be the fundamentalists and the salafis. In this case free and democratic would not apply would it?
ReplyDeletePretending the Copts situation is just simply a facet of the human rights issues in Egypt is also malicious somehow...or naive.
ReplyDeleteCopts played a part in the events that led to the over throw of Mubarak. They were active players then, so why should that stop now? Aren't they now in a better position to continue to fight for a improved lot for thermselves?
ReplyDeleteHey, I just noticed my ID was guest!
ReplyDeleteYes, they played a part with a segment of the population that is liberal and advocates a democratic Egypt. Unfortunately, there is a very consrvative element within Egypt. Especially in Upper Egypt. So far, it seems as though the true reformers are losing ground.
<span>Here's what a Coptic friend arguing with Zionists on Facebook posted today:
ReplyDelete<span>Everybody on here should know that Isreal treats christians worse than muslims do. heres what i know as egyptian-american who's family is coptic. the richest man in egypt is coptic, my grand father went to oxford, worked for barclays bank in egypt, and had a driver, a great home in alexandria right next to the beach, i went to egypt to c the home my grand mother grew up in tanta, a huge villa wi<span>th lots of land, it was old and broken and falling apart but practically looked like a castle. the tub was a huge bowl hollowed into the floor with angels painted on the celing. my cousins there have more money than me, they travel the world are doing great. what do u want me to say? poor me the muslims hurt us, my life is so bad. oops, now i sound like a zionist.</span></span></span>
Of course there are wealthy Copts, but most are poor and many are being terrorized by the religious nuts. How can you forget the attacks on the Monasteries and the Churches? Coptic villages attacked by mobs of Islamists? Please. The Saudis have spread their Wahabi poison quite effectively in Egypt.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. also had a small group of wealthy Black families even during the years of the worst racial discrimination! That did not mean we had racial equality!
As for your friend's facebook comment about Zionists, the Israelis always point out that the Christian community in Israel is the only one increasing in the Middle East...unlike the Christian communities in Muslim countries where there has been a large decrease. What they base their figures on, I have no idea.
But the situation of the Copts in Egypt has nothing to do with Zionists, and your friend's family's experience in Egypt is NOT the norm for the majority of Copts today.
“Will Christians have equal rights and full citizenship or not?” asked Sarkis Naoum, a Christian commentator in Beirut, Lebanon. A surge of sectarian violence in Cairo — 24 dead, more than 200 wounded and three churches in flames since President Hosni Mubarak’s downfall — has turned Christian-Muslim tensions into one of the gravest threats to the revolution’s stability. But it is also a pivotal test of Egypt’s tolerance, pluralism and the rule of law. The revolution has empowered the majority but also opened new questions about the protection of minority rights like freedom of religion or expression as Islamist groups step forward to lay out their agendas and test their political might.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/world/middleeast/31coptic.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=egypt&st=cse
What a lot of bullshit vza can wip together in no time.
ReplyDeleteNo... bullshit is when a personal atttack is used as a substitute for an argument. Or are you actually attempting to imply, in your own inimitable style, of course, that Copts are not being persecuted? That this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aina.org/news/2011089052824.htm
did not happen just a couple of weeks ago?