Christmas: Marking an Event that Refuses to Abandon Hope

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.  It signals the time of year when Christians worldwide prepare to commemorate the birth of Jesus, a child who would grow into an adult whose beliefs and teachings transformed the Roman world and, eventually, the face of Western Civilization. 
 

He is the wellspring of a religion comprising just under 2.2 billion  adherents across the globe.

Although Christianity is in a state of decline in many parts of Europe and faces incipient hostility and ridicule in America, it is holding its own and continues to expand, particularly in nations south of the Equator and in Asia.

 

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.

Memories of Monir

I knew him as Monir and hired him to work with me a long time ago, when I was with a mini-computer company in Massachusetts. After I left that firm for a career move, I lost track of Monir for years. A legal immigrant to this country, Monir is Egyptian. He was a most pleasant person, intelligent, easy to work with, quick with a smile, and effusive with laughter. (For reasons of security, I am not revealing his full name.)

In his home country, he was part of an ancient Egyptian minority known as Coptic Christians, a branch of Christianity which predates the time of Islamic culture by centuries. In Egypt, Copts are a minority of about 10% within a Muslim population of about 78 million people.

Looking to reconnect again after years of separation, I called my old friend and arranged to meet with him and my previous boss, both of whom lived in Framingham, Massachusetts at the time. It was a great afternoon, one spent at Monir’s home reliving old memories as colleagues and genuine friends.

Much later, when I tried to reach Monir again, I found out that he had decided to return to Egypt.

I thought of Monir on Friday morning, as I read a report that Sunni Muslims shot and killed six Coptic Christians and a Muslim guard, as well as injuring other Copts over a crime allegedly committed by one of their own. The attack with automatic weapons happened as Coptic Christians were leaving Midnight Mass after celebrating Christmas, which for them is on January 7th.

A newspaper report quotes a Sunni Muslim official as claiming that the attack was not religiously motivated, but that “The concept of revenge is strong in southern Egypt . . .”

It certainly is.

Note: Information for this post originates from an article by Sheeren El Gazzar of The Wall Street Journal, as well as from another source.

Obama Won’t Release Photos

Last week, in what appeared to be a surprising reversal of his prior public position, President Barack Obama stated that he will now block the release of dozens of photos reportedly showing terror suspects being questioned under not-so-friendly interrogation methods.

These EIT’s – “enhanced interrogation techniques” – call to mind the furor which resulted after the release of pictures showing the treatment of detainees by American interrogators in Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison. We all know of the worldwide revulsion to which that led and of the hatred of America which it engendered, especially in the Muslim world.

The President’s purported reasons for changing his mind is that making public these previously unreleased, classified photos would “further inflame anti-American opinion” and would jeopardize U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military is strongly opposed to their release.

But the really compelling speculation is just why President Obama has chosen this moment to alienate a very large segment of his supporters by challenging the ACLU-inspired court decision which ordered the release of the interrogation photos.

Here’s my take:

President Obama is scheduled to be on an overseas trip in early June. Some of his stops will be in Buchenwald and Dresden; another will be in France to commemorate D-Day. But there is another very sensitive venue – Egypt.

This is why I believe he has now chosen to challenge the release of those photos: On June 4th, on Egyptian soil, President Barack Obama will follow through on a campaign promise to deliver a major speech to the Muslim world. In his delivery, he is expected to focus upon America’s relationship with Islam.

Think about it: If he had released those photos in May and then flown to Egypt to deliver that speech just a few weeks later in early June, the Abu-Ghraib-like reaction to those photos would have been at its peak. Not a very favorable environment in which to try to convince Muslims that we are nice guys trying to co-exist!

Each and every decision made in Washington is thoroughly scrubbed for its political impact. The President’s decision about not releasing those photos is barely dry from that scrubbing.

Note: You can read the ACLU’s reaction at http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/39587prs20090513.html