The revolutionary effort that characterized the civil war in Egypt was hailed as a great moment by the entire world.
But even before the revolution started there were fears that any insurrection would have been instrumentalized by forces whose objective was not democracy but a long denied desire for power by fundamentalist Islamists.
The problem of the Coptic church had always been a muffled sound in the background of the great capital, but one needed only to look at the living conditions and the emargination in which the Christian Copts were forced to live even before the revolution, to divine what the future had in store for them if even stronger Islamist convictions were adopted.
Although the majority of the Cairenes are pro-democracy and are struggling to reclaim their victory and let democracy prevail, the recent installment of the Muslim Brotherhood to power has let loose the frenzy of those minorities who had wished for an Islamic state all along. They are becoming more visible every day, be it by street side lynchings in some unforgivable attempt at installing Sharia, or by the suppression of any rebellion against the government's increasingly undemocratic edicts.
And this week such sentiments poured out like fire over gasoline.
So far 9 people have been killed in the clashes between Copts and Muslims. And this unrest does not bode well for the Christian community. Already there are some calls for a Coptic diaspora to neighboring countries.
Some say the clashes were sparked by a little girl's drawing of crosses on a wall of the Islamic Institute north of Cairo.
The initial clash that ensued killed four Copts and one Muslim.
The following Sunday, another clash erupted at a funeral for the Coptic victims and two more people were killed.
Source: Xinhua 4.12.13
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