In the past few days, I experienced two different situations concerning relationship between America and Egypt. First, an Egyptian writer visited America asking the Coptic Diaspora in America and Europe to make some pressure on their governments to help the Egyptian economy. Later, another Egyptian writer wrote an article to complain about American insult to Egypt, describing it as impudent insult.
The presidential election is over and al-Sisi has become the new president. However, I believe he will face great challenges and there is not time to waste. All people have to work and work in order to salvage the bad situation. The “To do” list is huge and includes: economy, security, food, education, health, housing, transportation, and etc. On top of that we will find the religious discourse. Egyptian people are religious by nature and always turn to God asking for help in such difficult circumstances. Yet some people trade on religion and deceive the needy Egyptian people making use of their needs.
Since the revolution of January 25, 2011, the Egyptian people have been suffering from confusion between the reality and their high expectations. We are suffering from a state of blurriness that we can't see the difference between available and impossible expectations. Such gap should last for long time as long as we don't have an effective mechanism to turn our dreams into reality.
The Muslim Brotherhood has offered recently to reconcile with the Egyptian people. Once again it tries to fool decive the people after it failed many times to achieve such reconciliation. Do you know why? Simply because this group consists of a punch of killers who should be arrested and stand trial for their many crimes.
On January 14 and 15, 2014, the Egyptian people came out to cast their votes on Egypt 's new constitution, which is the first step of the road map. 19.9 million Egyptians voted yes (98.1 % ). This was an unprecedented results in an unprecedented elections. Many people saw senior citizens as well as people with special needs coming to vote “yes” for this pretty much consensual constitution.
Just like every year, the congregation of the Saints Church in Alexandria went to attend the church at the last day of 2010 in order to receive the new year while praying inside the house of God hoping for a good year. As they were praying minutes after midnight, a massive explosion was heard that shook the building and shattered pieces of glass on their heads. People started to scream, and the bloods were everywhere. Suddenly, the priest said calmly: “Don’t feel afraid”. I believe this was the shortest and greatest sermon delivered by him ever. This is the most important message they needed to hear at that moment.
The second Article of the Egyptian constitution cites that Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic is the official language, and the principles of Islamic Sharia law are the main source of legislation. This article has always been a controversial one since its very beginning. However, it was used to make some balance or deals with the Islamists, and at the same time declare that it won’t make a difference to non-Muslims.
Talking about the next president of Egypt, I said once that the Egyptian people can’t yet feel safe or practice democracy. Thus, they need a trusted leader and not just a president. They are new to democracy like a weak little boy who needs protection and love till he becomes a man.
Once again, we have such debate about the American aid to Egypt. Los Angeles Times published an article on October 10 saying that the aim behind cutting the US aid is to rebuke Egypt for the so called military coup. The American aid to Egypt started with the Camp David Accords in 1979, which aimed to support peace between Egypt and Israel. Egypt has been receiving American weaponry estimated at $2 billion annually since 1985 in grants and military aid packages.
This article is about two pillars of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. The first is to make a religion for the state. The second is to dissolve the boarders among Islamic states leading to the Islamic caliphate. They call Egypt an Islamic state that should be governed with the Islamic Sharia.
Egypt is currently experiencing a critical time during the transitional period, in which her enemies are willing to harm her by all means. Therefore, we can’t risk by having a weak governor who takes only soft decisions. Instead, the upcoming president should be resolute and pretty much tough. In fact, democracy is not so new to Egypt, as it was practiced and applied six decades ago, before the revolution of July 23 , 1952.
Sound religion has its positive effect on the individuals and the community as well. However, being deviated can cause many problems for both. Christianity define sound religion as: "To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world". In the middle ages, the Catholic Church deviated and worked in politics rather than religion causing many disasters.
Couple of years ago, I was attending a meeting in the U.S. Congress in Washington. I needed to use the bathroom, but I didn't know how to get there. Then, a nice gentleman guided me to the bathroom. I thought I know him, and I really was. He was the famous American Senator Lindsey Graham.
33 million Egyptians demonstrated on June 30, 2013, in order to topple the government of the Muslim Brotherhood. This was clearly an Egyptian revolution. According to the most basic rules of democracy, this large number of people in the largest demonstration in history against the regime was very enough to put an end to this g overnment. However, this is not the case in Egypt under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood who struggled for 80 years to be in power and would have never left it so easy.
We are lucky to witness such historical events in Egypt that next generations will remember forever. We are going to tell our children about these events as our grandfathers used to tell us stories about Orabi and the revolution of 1919.
We’ve heard many calls to unify the Copts abroad in order to serve their Coptic cause. However the Egyptians were not big fans of immigrating, many Copts have decided to change this in the twentieth century that about 2 million Coptic Christians have already immigrated out of Egypt and others are still waiting. The new phenomenon came with the increasing suffering of the Copts, especially after the revolution in 1952. This revolution tried to change the Egyptian identity by imposing more Arabic and Islamic aspects, in addition to many terroristic attacks that targeted the Copts leading them to be marginalized in all walks of life.
She found herself suddenly a very famous Coptic girl. Deminana Abdul Nour is a young lady who works as a teacher in Luxor, and represent the persecuted Coptic Christians in Egypt.
"People worship the weakness in Jesus Christ; however, they did not realize He was strong in every sense of power. Jesus was neither coward nor complainer, but so strong and even a rebel in many situations” said poet Gobran K. Gobran. Superficial understanding of sayings of Jesus Christ makes people think he encourages submission and servility, which is entirely untrue.
Regardless of the identity or religion of a terrorist, he is but a devil in human body. Jesus Christ said about the devil that “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him”. No matter where the terroristic attack happens, it’s but an evil work. Furthermore, I think that those who rejoice for such attack participate somehow with the terrorist. As both are full of hatred and evil. Moreover, I think that those who rejoice for such attack are even worse than that terrorist as they are so cowards.
Some people refuse to call the events of Jan. 25, 2011 as a revolution. I think they have the rights to do so, as revolutions usually aim to topple a bad regime and solve many problems. In Egypt, the “revolution” hasn't solved any problems and brought a worse regime. Giving its mixed standards, we can call it a “reversed revolution”.=
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Satisfaction is a faithful feeling; it's connected to faith.
Pope Tawadros weekly sermon 6 August 2014: Virtue of satisfaction
