Sunday, August 28, 2011

ANTICOPTISM (معاداة الأقباط, المعاداة للأقباط), THE ANTISEMETISM OF EGYPT

Thanks to Alexander:
Egyptian Coptic Christians hold a funeral for those killed in the anticoptic attack by the Islamists on the Imbaba Church, in Cairo, on 8 March 2011
Anticoptism (anti-coptism or anti-Coptism) معاداة الأقباط, المعاداة للأقباط، معاداة القبطية, ضـد القبطية: is the antisemitism of Egypt,[i] but that is not enough to define it. Let us first start by defining a much better known concept – anti-Semitism, and from there try to define anticoptism.
Antisemetism expressed itself in diver ways, as is the case with anticoptism
Antisemitism (anti-semitism or anti-Semitism):  معاداة السامية, ضـد السامية, معاداة اليهود, المعاداة لليهود
I will simply copy the definitions given by major English language dictionaries and encyclopaedias:
  • Cambridge Dictionary: the strong dislike or cruel and unfair treatment of Jewish people.[ii]
  • Oxford Dictionary: hostility to or prejudice against Jews.[iii]
  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.[iv]
  • The Holocaust Encyclopedia: prejudice against or hatred of Jews.[v] تعني عبارة “معاداة السامية” أفكاراً مسبقة معادية وكرهاً لليهود[vi]
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group.[vii]
  • Wikipedia: Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is prejudice against  or hostility towards Jews often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, and/or religion. In its extreme form, it “attributes to the Jews an exceptional position among all other civilizations, defames them as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nation[s]” in which they reside. A person who holds such views is called an “antisemite”. Antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from individual expressions of hatred and discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs, or even state police, or military attacks on entire Jewish communities.[viii]
Arabic dictionaries and encyclopaedias largely tend to ignore the term altogether, and where it is mentioned, it just gives the equivalent term in Arabic:
  • A New English Dictionary for Speakers of Arabic:[ix] does not mention the word.
  • Al-Munjid fil lugha wal a-alam (37th ed.):[x] does not mention the word.
  • Al-Mawrid Al-Waset (4th ed.):[xi] simply gives the equivalent words to anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic, which are المعاداة لليهود و معادٍ لليهود   , respectively.
  • Wikipedia: معاداة السامية أو معاداة اليهود (in English: Anti-Semitism‏) هو مصطلح يعطى لمعاداة اليهودية كمجموعة عرقية ودينية وإثنية.[1] والمعنى الحرفي أو المعجمـي للعبارة هو “ضـد السامية”، وتُترجَم أحياناً إلى “اللاسامية”.[xii]
From the above, one can see that antisemitism is traditionally defined in terms of the emotions and behaviour of the aggressors: it consists of intense dislike and hatred of the Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group; and these harboured emotions lead to hostile acts against the Jews in the form of prejudice, discrimination or cruel and unfair treatment. Here lies the core meaning of all hate and hostility directed against a religious, ethnic or racial group by another group – and this central meaning shall constitute our definition of anticoptism. One will immediately note from the definitions of both antisemetism, and anticoptism which we will come to in a moment, the basic fault and evilness that motivate those who practise them: haters of Jews and Copts do not believe that the latters are brothers and sisters in humanity or that are deserving of equal t dignity and rights to them.
As I already said, anticoptism is the anti-Semitism for Egypt. Of course there are differences: anti-Semitism is universal while anticoptism is localised mainly to Egypt; anti-Semitism is practised by people from all over the world and with various religious backgrounds, while anticoptism seems to be a phenomenon restricted to the Muslims of Egypt.

But the differences stop there ...
Go read the whole thing.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hmmmm.......Question :
How come there is no Coptofobia , Hindufobia ,Jewofobia or Budhafobia?

Damien said...

Pastorius,

Its so sad how these poor people are mistreated.

Always On Watch said...

Muslims and the mania with persecuting "the other."

I feel sorry for the Copts. Many are unable to flee.

Damien said...

rumcrook™,

Many in the west, in particular in the United States may not take the idea of Christian persecution seriously, but I think that many of them, may not be considering the fact that in many regions of the World Christians are still a minority, and in some cases a despised minority. On the other hand there are some Christians here in America who act like they are being persecuted because there's no officially sanctioned Christian prayer in our schools anymore, and evolution is taught in science classes instead of biblical creationism. The government not giving your faith special treatment, is not persecution, never mind that it would violate the constitution. They probably have no idea how so many of their fellow Christians in Islamic countries would actually envy them.