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Goerge Sa'ad bizarre denial of persecution of Copts in Egypt raises interest "and disgust" of foreign observers.

Raymond Ibrahim: the Coptic Conundrum "repeat" discussed on Dhimmi watch 

Based on my recent viewing of one George Sa'ad, a Copt, who, according to some remarks made on American Thinker, is apparently a bought and paid for dhimmi through and through. "The Coptic Conundrum," from American Thinker, August 16:

The other night flipping through Arabic satellite stations, I came across a Coptic man who was lividly discussing the "Coptic question." His name was George Sa'ad, and he was speaking on the famous Arabic show, Al-Bayt Baytak, which airs on Al-Masriya ("The Egyptian"). It quickly became apparent, however, that his objections were not directed at Egypt's radicals or even the government; no, he was upset with the "trouble-making" Copts of the diaspora, particularly those living in the West. Sa'ad, a member of the Itihad al-Misriyin in Canada, (the "Egyptian Union") was claiming that there is no real problem in Egypt, and that it is the Western Copts who are creating all this "propaganda."

 

When the (Muslim) host asked him point blank what he would like to see changed in Egypt, all Sa'ad could muster saying was, "Certainly, there are things that need to be fixed!" He kept repeating this without once explaining what those "things" could be. When further pushed to explain, he said he'd like to see Copts have more influence on the Egyptian media -- just a bit more.

No talk however of the recent attacks Copts in Egypt have been exposed to -- such as the Abu Fana monastery raid, where Muslims attacked and abducted monks, tortured them and tried forcing them to spit on the cross and embrace Islam; or the repeated phenomenon of Muslims abducting young Coptic girls, raping and forcing them into conversion; or the recent slayings of Coptic store clerks; or the day-in-day-out discrimination Copts encounter in all walks of life.

Sa'ad went on to explain an interesting dichotomy: that Copts living in Egypt or only recently moved to the West hardly ever complained of the situation; instead, most of the noise is being made by those Copts who've been away from Egypt for thirty years or more.

This, of course, is a natural phenomenon. All humans tend to get used to their circumstances and learn to accept them as "normal." Anything out of the ordinary from what they have come to expect becomes "abnormal." Consider for instance a black child born into plantation slavery. He grows working the fields all day, perhaps being whipped and in general being treated harshly. Since he has no other real experiences of the world to counterbalance, he comes to view his own existence as "normal" -- not great nor horrible -- perhaps even envying the "house-negro" for the "great life" he has.

Same with Copts in Egypt. As Sa'ad maintained, the opinion of any given Copt over the "Coptic issue" in Egypt is totally predicated on how far away from Egypt-in both time and space-they happen to be now. In other words, there is a continuum of opinions, the most critical often belonging to those Copts who have been away from Egypt the longest (and permanently residing in faraway countries such as the US) and the least critical from those Copts still living in Egypt in the midst of Muslims and minarets.

How does one explain such a conundrum? If Coptic persecution or discrimination is a fact -- and it is -- one would naturally expect the Copts living in Egypt and surrounded by Muslims to be the most vociferous about it. By and large, they are not; only when wholesale massacres or rampant rapes occur do they, for a time and out of great despair, make some noise (which often goes unheard by the international community). Similarly, one would expect those Copts who have been away from Egypt for decades -- or were born here and never even been there -- to be more apathetic to the situation.

The reason, of course, why Copts in Egypt do not make too much noise over their situation and instead remain subdued to their Islamist overlords is fear of even worse retaliation.

Still, what does one make of the fact that many Copts in Egypt do not think their "house-negro" situation is all that bad? Coptic stoicism is, of course, a thing of legend. Over the course of fourteen centuries of Islamic rule, a particular "survivalist" mentality that happily accepts second-class status in order to remain Christian, as well as "occasional" persecutions, has become integral to the Coptic mindset and worldview. What an American would consider outrageous oppression is to the Copt just another day in Egypt -- which is precisely why the "American-Copt" who has been away from Egypt for decades sees and resents the oppression, while his Egyptian counterpart may not.

In recent years, an all-encompassing term has come to best describe the Coptic mentality: dhimmitude, a term first made popular by the writings of Bat Yoer, a Jewess who, born and raised in "multi-cultural" Alexandria, Egypt, in the forties and fifties, later experienced firsthand what it means to be a non-Muslim living in Islamic territory. The word "dhimmitude" has come to describe a host of psychological factors present in the non-Muslim who resides in Muslim countries, such as Egypt.

The word is based on the Arabic "dhimmi," which has been in use since the dawn of Islam, and denotes the non-Muslim who continues living in the lands conquered by Islam. Whole treatises and books have been written by Muslim scholars on the status of the dhimmi throughout the centuries; suffice to say, the dhimmi is a "tolerated" minority, who is allowed to practice his religion freely, as long as he follows the laws of sharia (which do not afford him equal rights vis-à-vis his Muslim counterpart) and as long as he lives in humble submission to his Islamic overlords (according to the all-pivotal Koranic injunction 9:29).

Historically, the dhimmi often had to follow many other restrictions and guidelines-such as paying the "jizya," dress-codes to distinguish them from Muslims, including wearing an extremely heavy wooden cross, refraining from riding horses or bearing arms. Today, few are the Islamic governments who still openly enshrine "dhimmi" codes in their constitutions. Living under submission to Islam for 1400 years has nonetheless led today's dhimmi descendents to develop a permanent mentality that exhibits "dhimmitude" in the face f Islam: depending on context, this dhimmitude can manifest itself variously -- from "irrational" fear of Islam to self-debasing gratitude towards it.

I was reminded of this all watching Mr. Sa'ad: not only would he censure Copts for "making a lot of noise," but, in pure "dhimmi" fashion, he made it a point to wish the Muslims on the show, a "very happy Ramadan," asking, indeed, imploring, the host to visit him in the future so they can break the Muslim holiday's fast together.

However, while Sa'ad continues praising Islam and its "toleration" towards the Christians of Egypt, the rest of the free world, should understand this sort of "psychology," and, far from emulating it -- by kowtowing to Islam -- learn to see the Coptic situation for what it is.

Posted by Raymond at August 18, 2008 9:05 AM
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"Sa'ad went on to explain an interesting dichotomy: that Copts living in Egypt or only recently moved to the West hardly ever complained of the situation; instead, most of the noise is being made by those Copts who've been away from Egypt for thirty years or more."

The psychological repercussions of a stultifying dhimmitude. Like the Negro of the Old South in America, the Copts of Egypt have had centuries to understand the concept of "minding one's place".

Posted by: Cornelius at August 18, 2008 10:11 AM

Mr. Ibrahim,

First off, I want to say what a pleasure it is to see you posting here more. I hope it continues. I would also like to thank you for all the hard work you put in for your book, "The Al Qaeda Reader." I imagine there were many a caffeine and nicotine enhanced nights putting the book together.(The nicotine reference is an old school joke, no clue if you smoke, nor do I care one way or the other, individual choice and all that)

The Copts are definitely in between a rock and a hard place. But for a Copt living in the West to continue the dhimmitude behavior is unexcusable. How can one continue to turn a blind eye to the horrors that have been and are continued to be visited upon the Copts by muslims? And the reaction from the West itself, simply appalling. But that is the price we and the whole world are paying for the "flower power" crap and socialism. Up is down, down is up, and vice versa. Everything is grey, there is no black and white. Don't bother me with real problems, I'm busy escaping from perceived problems.

Posted by: Kevin at August 18, 2008 10:22 AM

Cornelius -

When you open the birdcage door, the bird will remain inside the cage..........

Posted by: tanstaafl at August 18, 2008 10:27 AM

Tanstaafl,

I get you. Let's hope us free-birds on the outside can entice the Copts out of their cage.

Posted by: Cornelius at August 18, 2008 12:20 PM

Another point to consider is that there is a sliding scale among the various Christian groups, a scale of fear (and absence of fear) that depends on such things as both absolute numbers, and numbers relative to Muslims who live in the same country, or who live in the same neighborhood, and on the ability of outside non-Muslim powers to bring pressure to bear.

This last was more important once. Its effects can be seen in the efforts to force the Ottoman government to treat non-Muslims better, even to treat them nearly as equal to Muslims -- and this was hard to do, for at the local level Muslims were unwilling to obey. And France, for a long while, was the protector of Maronites in Lebanon, and in 1871, the French National Assembly simply passed the loi Crevier that conferred on Jews in Algeria the legal status of Frenchmen, and thus no longer to be treated, according to the Shari'a, as dhimmis. While Lord Cromer and his administration were in Egypt -- see "Memoirs of an Egyptian Official" by Lord Edward Cecil -- the status of non-Muslims improved dramatically, and that improvement continued under the regime of Farouk until Nasser and his fellow colonels (Naguib, et al.) arrived on the scene to see Egyptian, Arab, Muslim (they all blended, they all ovderlapped) justice done.

On that sliding scale, the Maronites were the most self-confident, and some, not all, Greek Orthodox (Charles Malik, though born Greek Orthodox, seems to be the quintessential protector of Maronite interests) in Lebanon as well. Christians in Syria, though protected -- out of self-interest -- by the Alawite dictatorship, are keenly aware that the absence of real persecuation depends on the continution of Alawite rule. Assyrians and Chaldeans kept their heads down, and never uttered a word against the rule of Saddam Hussein who, they knew, was their protector -- or rather, they were the unintended beneficiaries of Sadddam Hussein's attempt to curtail mosque-based or Islam-based opposition to his rule. And the Copts, who can always cling to one or two members who have risen high -- there was Boutros Boutros Ghali, whose grandfather of the same name had served in an important post -- have tried to avoid Muslim fury every since their British protectors left, and they have been left, alone, with Islam, which becomes more like full-bodied Islam every day.

The least "Christian" of Christians in the Middle East are the "islamochristians" who include so many of those "Palestinian" Arabs -- not so much the Gazan Arabs as the "West Bank" Arabs -- who, from Naim Ateek and Hanan Ashrawi, to Michel Sabbag and gun-running icon-stealing Bishop Cappucci, have identified wholeheartedly with the Lesser Jihad against Israel, and continue to do so despite the persecution of Arab Christians in both Gaza, and in such centers as Bethlehem.

One wonders if, as with the Copts, the Assyrians and Chaldeans who may be permitted to settle here will, after a while, begin not only to express their resentment of those they call "the turbans" (meaning the Shi'a, whom they have come to regard as the only threat, choosing to overlook what Sunni Muslims have shown themselves to be, choosing to pretend that if only Saddam Hussein were still in power, all manner of things should be well), but to analyze Islam and the most uncertain, unsettled, and unpleasant position of Christians in Muslim-dominated lands. As for the "Palestinian" Arab islamochristians, they are the least likely to emerge, after years abroad, from the deep mental and emotional freeze of dhimmitude.

Thosee Christians who, because they speak and use Arabic, and may even possess Arab names, have been convinced that they too are Arabs often take pride in that ethnic identity, that Arabness, that 'Urbua, and allow that identity to make them loyal, despite being "Christians," to Islam, and to accept the Muslim worldview, for Islam and Arabness are mutually reinforcing.

Compare Pakistani Christians, or Indonesian Christians, who once they have sloughed off Islam, no longer have any ethnic identity that links them still to Islam, and show themselves to be far more critical of it, far less likely to adopt or persist in accepting the Muslim worldview, than do many Arab Christians whose "Arabness" brings Islam along with it, just as islamization so often brought arabization, over 1350 years, to so many non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples of the Middle East and North Africa.

Posted by: Hugh at August 18, 2008 2:23 PM

Excellent piece of analysis. Personally, I've had more contact with Lebanese Christians than Egyptian Copts, but I've observed similar things: Maronites that grew up after the civil war (and some older ones, too) are showing signs of the Stockholm Syndrome and are surprisingly loyal to Islam and the pan-Arab ideology, which were traditionally anathema to their group identity. It was shocking how the terrorist child murderer Samir Kuntar was recently feted in Beirut by Christian as well as Muslim dignitaries.

Posted by: Family Values at August 18, 2008 2:26 PM

The same self-preserving, or in the case of the liberal churches, self-deluded and suicidal tendencies are in full regalia here in the States, as well. I was once watching a local news program discussing the now forgotten, once controversial film, "The DaVinci Code", and the local Unitarian church, wanting to show what times might have been like in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth, put on a recreation that went like this: Joseph (wearing a genuine keffiyeh!) and Mary, (in a hijab!) were speaking to one another...(in Arabic!) whilst the shepherds and all looked on. I have no memory of what the good reverum was talking about, the 10 seconds or so of the reenactment so floored me I may have laughed through the rest of the interview.

Posted by: Jewel Atkins at August 18, 2008 7:35 PM

Hi Everyone,

As a 1st generation Copt living in Australia, i can say with absolute certainty that we in the Diaspora are keenly aware of the situation in Egypt and understand the reality of what is going on. In fact, my mother finds things out before I do re: Egypt, and she can't work a computer to save her life. As for Mr George Sa'ad, the word "traitor" is the only thing that came to mind when reading what he had said. Really a dhimmi if there ever was one. Cannot think of why he would say there is no real problem. I understand in Egypt they have to talk like that, otherwise they don’t make it home that night. But in the West????

To Hugh, its a funny thing about the title "Arab" being used by some Christians in the middle east. I know that in Australia the Copts and Maronites prefer to refer to themselves as either Africans (for the Copts) and Phonecians (for the Lebanese Maronites). For the Maronites, its especially acute as they really need to create a distinction from the Lebanese Muslims who have quite the reputation. I think there is even a very small trend beginning in Egypt (from what i watch on Arabic T.V.) where even Muslim Egyptians wish to refer to themselves as Africans. My understanding is they wish to do so to distance themselves from the Saudi's who the Egyptian Muslims feel are forcing "their" (i.e. Saudi Arabia's) type of Islam on to the Egyptians. Even in the Maghreb, they resent the "Arabisation" of their culture and being forced to link Islam to being an Arab, which they resent.

But i know for a fact that in Egypt the attitude amongst the Copts is 'Keep your head down, don’t talk about Islam'. Yes its an act of dhimmitude, well learnt over centuries, but it has kept them alive, and its the job of those in the Diaspora to help those in Egypt.

Sorry for my massive, uneducated rant. Finally, Hugh, Robert and to the rest of your team, I honestly just want to thankyou so much for the work you do. It honestly feels so great that there are people out there in the world that actually care the way you guys do. Keep it up, and if there is anything i can do to help (more ranting perhaps?), flick me an e-mail (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Now where did i leave that box of tissues?

Posted by: Albert the Copt at August 18, 2008 10:07 PM

Albert - welcome! (a word in your ear - giving your email address on an open board like this, is a bit dangerous - for one thing, spammers will most assuredly find it; for another, the walls have ears).

If you explore this website you will find out that you can email Mr Spencer directly.

I am an Australian and there are other Australians who regularly post here.

I would have loved to join the Copts' demonstration on 5 July in Sydney, but unfortunately I live just too far away.

As I see things (having read Bat Yeor and Andrew Bostom) the state of mind created by dhimmitude seems to me to be similar to what psychologists have observed in children or women who have been the victims of continual severe abuse from which they simply could not escape. To a certain extent one would even expect cases of suppressed or repressed memory, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and perhaps even something comparable to 'multiple personality disorder', to show up in individuals or even groups who have recently been 'rescued' from dhimmitude.