Journalist and International correspondent for the New York Times has recently wrote an article in Church Times about Egypt’s Copts and their relationship with the Egyptian President Sisi. The article was full of disputed ideas that were promptly addressed by Samuel Tadros, Senior Fellow in Hoover Institute. I found Samuel’s Twitter thread enlightening and smart. Unfortunately, David declined to discuss the points raised publicly on Twitter.
1. The article rightly notes that President Sisi has failed to protect Copts, but frames it as a failure to “repay the church leaders” and a “bargain”. This makes Copt’s support for Sisi a function of an exchange and not the only alternative they had.
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
3. One only needs to notice the tsunami of Coptic immigrants from Egypt during this period. Copts were voting with their feet. And the Church did not support Sisi in return for something, they, like many others in Egypt, believed the MB posed a threat to Egypt's national identity
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
5. It also claims “Arab Christians” have often preferred the protection of authoritarians. Well, first of all, Copts are not Arabs. But more importantly, this again portrays issue as one of choice and conflates Levant with Egypt. When did Copts support rulers?
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
7. The reason goes back to Mubarak’s time as Vice President when an insulting remark was attributed to Pope saying he refused to meet with a second-rate bureaucrat with no authority and wanted to meet Sadat. Mubarak also viewed Shenouda as sectarian.
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
9. In fact, outside of greeting him in public occasions, Mubarak refused to meet the Pope one on one until 2001 after the Naba' newspaper incident. So the notion that there was some sort of special favors or patronage is inaccurate.
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
11. As Dhimmis, Muslim rulers have all allowed non-Muslims to govern their personal status affairs internally. This was no special thing from Mubarak. This is 1400 years of the history of the Middle East.
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
13. Then there is a weird story about a Coptic Bishop leading prayers in Tahrir! There is no such incident. Orthodox Copts hold liturgies and they certainly did not hold one in Tahrir. Author probably confuses a Protestant pastor or some blessing with a Coptic Bishop.
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
15. Last is the shameful dismissal of the persecution of Copts under the Muslim Brotherhood with words like “Copts complained,” “paranoid rumors,” “none of these stories could ever be confirmed.”
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
17. The article holds Sisi responsible for his failures. I am all for that, have done it in numerous articles and Congressional Testimony. Sisi's record on religious freedom is bad and he should be held accountable, but not by whitewashing the Brotherhood's record.
— Samuel Tadros (@Samueltadros) September 19, 2018
Interesting that DK did not answer any of your tweets!
— Nervana Mahmoud (@Nervana_1) September 20, 2018
I do have a day job. I think I tweeted that the book addresses many of these points. I am not going to debate in Twitter but I will write to Samuel privately.
— David D. Kirkpatrick (@ddknyt) September 20, 2018
You wrote about Copts in public, not in private, which is part of your job. Your piece was shared on twitter. Readers are not obliged to read your book, and even if they do, they will have no forum to challenge your view. Any way good luck!
— Nervana Mahmoud (@Nervana_1) September 20, 2018
The surprising thing about many Western views of #Copts is the refusal to see their well-proven centention that Islamism is an existential threat by virtue of its supremacist ideology.
— salamamoussa (@salamamoussa) September 20, 2018
Nervana 