Cornelis Hulsman, Sept 19. Through google alert we received a notification of a movie on Persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. If one scrolls down the list one finds much more on persecuted Christians. The titles of the past three years are:

• -         The Copts
• -         Iraq's Christians persecuted by ISIS
• -          Egyptian president reaches out to persecuted Coptic Christian minority ahead of Constitution vote (January 2014)
• -          ISIS Beheads 21 COPTIC CHRISTIANS from EGYPT 2.16.15 Persecution Prophecy
• -          Coptic Christians suffering persecution in southern Egypt as Islamists take over whole town
• -          EGYPT Coptic Church Set Ablaze (By Muslim Brotherhood Supporters?): Christian Persecution

One should be careful with persecution stories. It is so easily misused by Islamophobes to foster their own agenda.

It is obvious that those who write about persecution often do this without defining what persecution is. It is strange with these movies that the most recent movie is about persecution and an earlier one is about the Egyptian president reaching out to the persecuted Coptic Christians. This is the same president Egypt has today. It thus seems that there is a difference in actors – a president who does not persecute but others who do.  The way this is presented is not convincing.

Yes, there is much suffering but reasons are different from what they seem to be:

1)      We are dealing with failing states where central governments have very little control over large parts of their country (Syria, Iraq)

2)      Or we are dealing with states where the government bureaucracy and the rule of law are weakly implemented (Egypt). Of course this causes victims and not only among Christians.

3)      There is also a stand-off between Islamists and Christians who have been supporting autocratic anti-Islamist regimes such as al-Assad (Syria) and Saddam Hussein (Iraq). This was rarely in support for their policies and mostly out of fear for Islamists. But by doing do they have also made themselves a target for Islamist attacks. Christians should not be blamed for their fear of Islamists but they should be more cautious in their pro-autocratic rule and anti-Islamist narrative.