THE PARTITION OF EGYPT MAY BE THE SOLUTION تقسيم مصر قد يصبح هو الحل للمشكلة القبطية

Cut Apple, painting by the American artist Craig Stephens.

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The partition of Egypt is gradually becoming a possible solution to the Coptic Question – thanks to the continuing oppression of Copts by the Islamists, in and outside government, and the passivity or ineffective opposition by the moderate Egyptian Muslims.

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When secession becomes absolute necessity, as when the oppression reaches intolerable level, God will open us a gap in the Sea of Reeds.

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The moral, mental and intellectual foundations of a Coptic homeland are being laid – slowly but surely. The moderate Muslims of Egypt must not blame us for it: we did not want it in the first place, and it had never been our first option, but the Muslims of Egypt, by the failures of their moderates to control their Islamists who oppressed the Copts, have pushed more and more Copts to come to a reluctant conclusion that partition, after all, may be the only, and best, option in the circumstances.

Rather than blame the Copts, the Muslims of Egypt must blame themselves. We wanted to live together; and we had hoped that Egypt, after more than two hundred years of its modern history, would come to embrace modernity, and treat us as equal citizens. But we have been disappointed not once, not twice, but on numerous occasions: massacres, tortures, deportation, terrorism, arson, sacking of properties, looting of businesses, insults, restriction of religious freedom, execulution from positions of power, and discrimination at schools, universities, civil service and the place of work. We had warned you a thousand times not to test our patience any longer, not to take us for granted – but you insisted, by omission or commission, on continuing your oppression of the Copts, driven by religion, or slumbered by it.

And now, you have put power into the hands of the Islamists! What do you expect from them except what we had warned you about several times in the past – that they will pave the way to more divisions by their exclusivist ideology; that they will cause serious damage to Egypt’s national unity; that they will lead Egypt to partition by their policies as the Islamists of Sudan did to their country?

This surely is not a no return point. However, it is a beginning of something new, something revolutionary, something which is building up in the minds of the Copts: that a Coptic homeland may be the only solution that could ensure a secure, prosperous and free future for the 15 million Copts.

It is surely not an easy option, and huge practical difficulties are attached to it. But, I believe, necessity begets possibility. When secession becomes absolute necessity, as when the oppression reaches intolerable level, God will open us a gap in the Sea of Reeds.

But it is not too late – and the message is to moderate Muslims: if you want us as part of Egypt and you don’t want to see the territorial integrity of Egypt threatened, then act now! When the Copts put in their collective mind that partition ‘is’, rather than ‘may be’, the solution – at that point it will be too late.