The Hoover Institution (Stanford) published Professor Mark Movsesian’s recent interview of Samuel Tadros, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and a Professorial Lecturer at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced Inter-national Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and author of Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity (Hoover Institution Press, 2013). In the piece, For the Copts, Disaster and Diaspora, Movsesian, who is the Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract Law and the Director of the Center for Law and Religion, questions Tadros about the history and culture of Egypt’s Coptic Christians and the impact of the Arab Spring on this religious group. Here’s an excerpt:
Movsesian: You argue that the Arab Spring has been a disaster for Copts. Why? And why has the Coptic Church taken such a public position in support of the military’s ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Tadros: The Arab Spring emboldened Islamist movements on the national and local levels. The removal of the state’s constraints allowedIslamists to dominate national politics and, more important, to enforce their vision on society on a local level, with Copts paying the heaviest price. The collapse of the state’s repressive arm, the police, gave the mobfree rein. As a result, we have seen the continuation of previous patterns of discrimination as well as the emergence of newer ones.The Coptic Church’s choice to support the military coup was of course tobe expected. President Morsi was hardly inclusive in his rule. He clearly indi-cated that he cared less what befell Copts. Their concerns in the constitution were ignored, he never made any reassuring gesture towards them, and under his rule, the Coptic cathedral in Cairo, the very center of Christianity, was attacked for hours by thugs and the police. Copts recognized that under the Muslim Brotherhood they would become second-class citizens.
Mark Movsesian
St. John's University Law Faculty Blog 