Monir’s Egypt

A crowd demonstrates in Egypt  (Denver Post)

Impelled by the onset of grim socio-economic and political unrest among its people, Egypt has descended into a state of turmoil and disarray, causing, once more, my thoughts to turn to Monir. 

He is an Egyptian national, and a friend who was a colleague a long time ago, when we both worked for a computer company in New England.  (I am withholding his full name for security reasons.)

A Coptic Christian, Monir came to the U.S. on a work visa, leaving his family behind. His intent was to go back home; and, after doing well in the U.S., he returned.  I lost contact with Monir when he left America, and I hope that he is still alive and well.

The life of a Coptic Christian in Egypt has not been an easy one.  On New Year’s Day, radical Islamic terrorists bombed a church in Alexandria, killing 21 churchgoers and injuring 79 others. The assault wasn’t the first attack upon this minority group.

 On its English version website, even the Muslim Brotherhood – sincere or not – unequivocally  condemned that attack as “criminal,” describing it as a “barbaric and cowardly act of violence and a criminal act of terrorism, calling for the immediate identification, investigation and punishment of the perpetrators.”

Jim Michaels and Oren Dorell of USA TODAY reported that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a group that seeks an Islamic theocracy in Egypt and worldwide,” that it is known for “having mentored Osama bin Laden,” and that it is the faction from which “emerged Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that controls Gaza and seeks the destruction of Israel.”

American administrations seem to have had a disconcerting habit of financing authoritarian regimes in exchange for the promise of stable governance and political friendship with the U.S.

 Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, typifies such a relationship.  But when events reach a tipping point and take a turn for the worse, as they now have in Egypt, U.S. administrations have the uncanny ability to be on the wrong side of the issues and to flounder, as the fires burn. 

For his loyalty to the U.S. since 1981, Mubarak is about to be thrown into one of those fires.

My thoughts return not only to Monir, but to the thousands of other ‘Monirs’ in Egypt who are wondering what will happen to their 5000-year old civilization.