Copts in Egypt comprise the single largest body of Christians in the Middle East. Since the 1970s there have been waves of Coptic immigrants due to discrimination, persecution, and violence. In the Diaspora, their search for identity—its actualization and preservation—has resulted in forms of scripturalization expressed in oral tradition, martyrology,…
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Religious Identity and Borderless Territoriality in the Coptic e-Diaspora
Donald A. WestbrookAffiliated withDepartment of Church History, Fuller Theological SeminaryThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
, Saad Michael SaadAffiliated withClaremont Coptic Encyclopedia, Claremont Colleges Digital Library
In recent decades, Coptic Egyptian immigrants have steadily adopted new homelands throughout the world, most significantly in Europe, North America, and Australia. Their efforts perpetuate their religious and cultural identity and connect diaspora communities and experiences to the mother church as well as to the realities of marginalization and persecution of their co-religionists in Egypt. However, relatively little research has been carried out on the virtual or digital presences of diaspora Copts, all the more significant in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring. Focusing on religious identity, this article fills a lacuna by analyzing three case studies of electronic identity mediation and preservation in the Coptic diaspora: (1) the online ecclesiastical-pastoral and educational presence of Bishop Suriel of Melbourne, (2) the spiritual-social-cultural mission of the Los Angeles-based Coptic television station LogosTV, and (3) the global collaborative academic project of the digital Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia. These are part of an emerging electronic Coptic diaspora (e-diaspora)—a form of borderless territoriality—that functions to compensate for the loss of territorial and socio-religious-cultural-political control in Egypt and provide Copts with virtual territorial gains and borderless space for community and consciousness raising.
‘I CAME TO England in 1979’, Dr Ibrahim Habib told me, ‘after all the Christian students in my year at medical school were marked down.’
We got to know each other after I visited the Coptic church in West London, where Ibrahim worships regularly, even though he lives and works in the Midlands. Originally from Minya, near Asyut in Upper Egypt, where about a third of the population is Christian, he is a stolid, soft-spoken figure with an eager smile. But his professional success and blithe manner were belied by the melancholy tale he told me:
Christians were either passed or failed; not a single one was placed in the ‘Good’, ‘Very Good’, or ‘Excellent’ categories. This meant that none of us Christians would achieve a high-flying career. The modern phase of anti-Christian violence in Egypt really began in 1972, with the establishment of the Gama Islamiya, a militant group. They started attacking Christian students on the university campus at Asyut, barging into our rooms and tearing down pictures of the Virgin Mary and other religious materials. A fight ensued. I and other Christians were expelled from university accommodation, but the Muslims who caused trouble were allowed to remain.
The upsurge in militancy can be blamed to a great extent on President Sadat. After the assassination attempt on Nasser in 1954, many fundamentalists were rounded up and sent to prison. Sadat, faced with heavy challenges from the Left, indulged the Islamists and let many in from Saudi Arabia. He also called Egypt a Muslim country, even though 15 to 20 per cent of the population were then Christian. That figure has now fallen to 12 per cent, because of all the emigration.
د.ماريز تادرس: الإخوان يخططون لديكتاتورية دينية.. بالقانون
كتب : روبير الفار
تمتلك الدكتورة ماريز تادرس أستاذ العلوم السياسية بجامعة سوكسالبريطانية رؤية عميقة حول جماعة الإخوان المسلمين، كشفت عنها مؤخرا فىكتاب (الإخوان المسلمون فى مصر المعاصرة - إعادة صياغة أم تقليصالديمقراطية).. والكتاب يقع فى 200 صفحة ويدور فى تسعة فصول. محورها مفهومالديمقراطية على النمط الإسلامى، ولأهمية التوقيت الذى صدر فيه الكتابالتقينا الدكتورة ماريز وكان لنا معها هذا الحوار:
While Tarek Heggy's first book was published in Morocco in April,1978, his 18th book in Arabic was published in cairo a few days ago. The title of the new book is "DANAT", a word that has two different meaning in classical Arabic : "Pearls" or "Shells" (cannon's Shells). This new book is now available at the bookshop of the publisher (Dar al Horryiah, 4 Mohamed Bek Assem street, Shobra, opposite al-Mahabba bookshop, Telephone : 02-2578-1047, Fax : 02-2576-2728, e-mail : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Site : http://www.alhorriyiea.com ).Please find attached a list of Tarek Heggy's other books in Arabic that are also available at "Dar al Horryiah" bookshop :
Marxist Ideas In Balance. 1978 Communism And Religion. 1980 My Experience With Marxism. 1983 What is to be done? 1986 The Four Idols. 1988 The Trinity of Destruction. 1990 Egypt between two Earthquakes. 1991 The Fateful Transformation. 1993 Reflections on Egypt 's Realities. 1995 Critique of the Arab Mind. 1998 Culture First and Foremost. 2000 The Values of Progress. 2001 On the Egyptian Mind. 2003 Margins on The Egyptian Mind. 2004 Modern Management in the Arab Societies. 2006 The Imprisonment of the Arab Mind. 2009 Our Culture Between Illusion and Reality. 2009
Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America - (Autographed) (Hardcover)
By P. Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry
You've heard about the courageous young investigators who covertly videotaped officials of ACORN advocating illegal activities.
Now, get ready for an undercover exposé even more daring and audacious – a six-month penetration of the Council on American-Islamic Relations that resulted in the collection of thousands of pages of revealing documents as well as inside secrets.
Nicholas Shakespeare looks at how Islamist terrorism has emerged in the last century, with its roots in modernity rather than tradition
By Nicholas Shakespeare
The history of religion is a history of schisms. You can make a case that every great religion is a heresy of some previous one: exactly as Christianity is a heresy of Judaism, which itself is a reworking of Ancient Babylonian myths, so Islam may be viewed as a sub-heresy of Christianity. In the sibling rivalry that exists between Jews, Christians and Muslims, we are all descendants of Abraham one way or another, like three children competing for a father’s attention. What we need to learn is how to get on with each other without resorting to violence – a massively tall order, as these books reveal.
Raymond Ibrahim: The History Channel's Distortions of the Crusades
I recently taped and am watching a documentary, "The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross," on the History Channel. While it is more or less historically accurate—names, dates, figures—it suffers from two weaknesses, weaknesses that often take center stage whenever Islam is discussed in the West: 1) biases and apologetics on behalf of Islam, coupled with outright distortions concerning Christians and Christianity; and 2) anachronisms, by projecting the motives and worldview of modern man onto the motives and worldview of pre-modern man, both Muslims and Christians.
الأقباط متحدون في حوار مع الناشط القبطي منير بشاي بمناسبة صدور كتابه الجديد "هموم قبطية"
العمل القبطي حالياً يمتلك الكثير من الإمكانيات لا أحمل في حياتي قصة اضطهاد تعرفت على د.كاراس من خلال كتاباته أجرى الحوار: شفيق بطرس **لمن لا يعرفكم رجاء تسليط بعض الأضواء عن من هو منير بشاي؟
هذا سؤال من الصعب أن يجيب عليه منير بشاي، فأنا لست متأكداً أنني أعرف كل شيء عن نفسي، وأسأل نفسي باستمرار من أنا؟ وفي كل يوم أكتشف عن نفسي أشياء جديدة، ولكن بصفة عامة أظن أنني إنسان عادي، هادئ الطباع، محافظ، ومتدين، ولا أميل إلى الراديكالية أو العنف مع أنها صفة غالباً تجدها في الدعاة والناشطين السياسيين. وفي نفس الوقت لا أقبل التفريط في الحقوق، وأميل للعيش طبقاً للقول المأثور لا تكن ناشفاً فتُكسَر أو ليّناً فتعُصَر. ولي عداء شخصي مع الظلم فلا أقبله سواء في حياتي أو حياة الآخرين، وأحاربه بشراسة. وربما هذا ما دفعني إلى الانخراط في هذا العمل الحقوقي.
ظهر حديثا في الأسواق كتاب الأقليات الدينية فى مصر تحت الحصار يتناول الكتاب بالشرح والتحليل أحوال الأقليات القبطية والبهائية والشيعية في مصر ومطالبهم المشروعة والمضايقات التي يتعرضون لها مع التركيز على الأقلية القبطية والمتنصرون مثل محمد حجازي أول متنصر فى مصر يرفع قضية ضد الحكومة للاعتراف بتحوله للمسيحية كما يتناول مدلول لفظ الأقلية وهل ينطبق على الأقباط فى مصر ام لا ولماذا لا تعترف الحكومة بالأقباط كأقلية بالإضافة الى تورط منظمة المؤتمر الاسلامى فى دعم التطرف فى مصر ومقوله الرئيس الراحل أنور السادات سأجعل الأقباط ماسحي أحذية أو سيجبروا على ترك البلاد علاوة على الدور السعودي الوهابي فى نشر الثقافة المتشددة وتورطه في اسلمة المجتمع المصري
