I have just returned from a 3 weeks journey to the Netherlands; this wonderful country where you can smell the aroma of freedom and system. However, I saw it by my Egyptian eye that sought all potential opportunities to dream for a better future for the homeland. I saw a system that respects everyone and policemen whom you don’t feel their presence until the system or the rules are broken. They respect bicycles and bicyclist above all, and I found this one of the decent means of transportation that saves both money and health! Yet, bicycles enjoy special routes and laws in order to protect the bicyclist from cars and encourage the people to ride them.

A new Coptic Christian man was killed today to join the martyrs of the Coptic Church. This time he is a Coptic priest called Father Samaan Shehata, priest of St. Julius Al-Akfahsi Church in Baba Al-Fashn diocese. As the officials started to give their usual description to the murderer as mentally retarded, I searched the dictionary to find out more about that disease that gives professional murderers such motivation to commit their crimes. A mentally retarded person is partly outdated and often no longer considered polite) intellectually disabled, medically defined as having an IQ (intelligence quotient) below 70 in addition to deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors (which means having problems with basic functional skills that affect every day, general living.

The Rohingya Muslims have often been called the most persecuted minority in the world. They have no state and are unwanted by Myanmar government. Some people believe they are Arab merchants whose ship has demolished near that land and they were to be killed, but started shouting Rahma, which means mercy in Arab language. Whether the story is true or not, mercy should be used in our world more than this. People should have the right to live without giving consideration to their religion. The Rohingya story reminds me of the Coptic Christians in Egypt whom some fanatics refuse to allow them to pray and persecute them for their Christian belief. Here we hear about Muslims persecute and other Muslims being persecuted.

As Egypt is looking for better future hoping that the best is yet to come, some senior officials insist on keeping retardation as pure Egyptian slogan. Governor of Minya supported the prevention of Copts in Forn village from praying claiming that the majority of Muslims refuse it! This governor indeed doesn t realize he lives in the year 2017 where his statements were published minutes later before the whole world. Such statements can have very bad impact on the image of Egypt abroad and on tourism industry as well. This reminded me of The Little Prince, Frank Vercauteren, the Belgian football manager who agreed to train the famous Egyptian team Zamalek, but declined in the last minute after hearing horrible stories about prosecution of Copts in Egypt according to the president of Zamalek Mortada Mansour.

Last week I talked about the International media reporting the visit of the reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Egypt, and today I want to put a spot light on the promising numbers of the Egyptian economy published on Tuesday by the American financial company Bloomberg. The report said that Egypt’s tourism revenues rose to $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, up from $510 million in the same period a year ago. It added that full-year receipts rose 16 percent to $4.4 billion. Remittances grew 9 percent to $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter, and rose two percent to $17.4 billion for the year.

International media has reported the visit of the 38-year-old reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Egypt invited by her Algerian friend Younes Bendjima. She arrived in Cairo with a group of her friends and visited historic sites like the Pyramids of Giza. They rode camels, smoke hookah, and also enjoyed the north coast’s Hacienda Bay and the beaches. Kardashian’s vacation in Egypt comes to join her other lavish vacations around the world and proves once again that Egypt is both safe and fun to visit. Moreover, her visit comes at an important time for Egypt that depends on tourism as one of its main sources of income.

Cairo University is one of the oldest and greatest universities in Egypt and its president has always been a prominent Professor. The previous president Dr. Jabber Nassar has taken some bold decision against extremism including banning the head to toe covering of women known as Niqab, and striking religion from official documents inside the university. These decisions were clearly taken to support a civil state in Egypt and cure the disease of extremism before it spreads more and more in the Egyptian body. Few hours ago, the new president of the university was named Dr. Muhammad Othman Elkhosht, professor of philosophy of religion and contemporary philosophy at Faculty of Arts. This man has called for the renewal of religious discourse, and for developing the understanding of Islam as fit to be a modern religion. At the beginning, this gave me a good impression that the man is going to support civil state in Egypt and dialogue between religions.

On June 12th, the Copts celebrated the feast of the holy apostles. This feast commemorates the martyrdom of St. Paul and St. Peter. It is a liturgical feast in honor of their martyrdom in Rome at the end of the first century. Ever since the Christians have been suffering and murdered in the name of Jesus Christ and the Coptic Christians have been no exception. For 20 centuries, the Copts have suffering from intermittent waves of persecution by the Roman and Muslim rulers. Moreover, they were recently called (the primary target and favorite prey) by ISIS. This explains several terrorist attacks against the Copts most of which ISIS has claimed responsibility of. The group also called on its supporters to continue targeting the Copts.

Gas prices went up this week in Egypt along with the temperature, and led the suffering of the citizens to increase as well. The new raise in gas prices led all prices to increase and the Egyptians just accepted this and continued their lives. I was surprised to hear a poor Egyptian citizen praising the recent decisions considering them helpful to the poor. I dont understand how raising the prices of everything including electricity bills and imposing new taxes may help the poor. Moreover, I dont understand how can the poor think this positive way and ignore their suffering!

For years, prices in Egypt are going up and never stop increasing. This is indeed very hard if you think about it. But the real problem is that about 30 percent of Egypt’s population lives below the poverty line and the increasing prices make them suffer more and more. Yesterday, the government announced that there is no intention to raise the prices of gasoline, diesel and butane gas. Yet, today the Council of Ministers of Egypt approved petrol new price list imposed on gasoline, diesel and butane gas.

London has recently witnessed several terrorist attacks, most of which ISIS has claimed responsibility for, but this week there was another attack against the Muslim community in London as man rams car into crowd killing one and injuring 12 Muslims as they were leaving a mosque after performing special prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. The victims were innocent people as always, but this time, the terrorist attack targeted Mulim people coming out of a mosque. Indeed, the Muslim community was shocked to have its share of the terrorist attacks in London. The horrible incident reminds us of several attacks against Copts in Egypt; Nag Hamadi, Warraq and the Saints Church in Alexandria to name a few, but the reaction of the Muslim majority in Egypt was a little bit different from the one of the Muslim minority in London though the attacks are similar.

An Egyptian parliamentary committee was scheduled to meet this week to debate a law that would ban parents from using “western names. This has happened before in several countries including the Saudi Arabia that banned 50 names in 2014 including Alis, Lynda and Eline! Advocates of the new law said that using such Western names and abandoning Arabic ones will lead to an undesired and radical change in the Egyptian society and culture. Thus, they prefer names like Ali, Omar and Abu Talib which came originally from the Arab peninsula, rather than Mina and Ramsis that came from our Pharonic ancestors.

One day before the holy month of Ramadan started, I wrote that Coptic Christians love this month and share the celebration of this month with Muslims considering it more cultural tradition than a religious one. Yet, the terrorist attack in Minya hours after publishing the article decided to change that. Those terrorists decided to kill 29 innocent people including children who were going to visit St. Samuel monastery that Christians should remember they are the favorite prey of the terrorist groups that kill in the name of Islam. Moreover, it decided to ruin the celebrations of that holy month, just like it did couple of years ago when they killed Egyptian soldiers in Rafah while they were eating their breakfast.

Muslims will start fasting the holy month of Ramadan tomorrow. This is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Prophet Muhammad according to Islamic belief. However, in Egypt Muslims and Christians share the celebration of this month and consider it more cultural tradition than a religious one. Copts enjoy this month and share such festival including the charitable giving and many times fasting during the day, most of the Copts only drink water and abstain from food during the day.

Couple of days ago, Egypt was breathing love and tolerance during the visit of Pope Francis. Yet, this week the smell of hatred and contempt of religion came out with statement of former deputy of Al-Azhar who announced that Christians are infidels and Christianity is a corrupt doctrine. Salafist Call and several extremists in Egypt supported statements of Sheikh Salem Abdul Jalil assuring that it is impossible to explain Islam without talking about Christianity, which means they have to attack it in order to explain Islam. Christians from one hand have the right to believe in God the way they want as long as they don’t hurt other people. On the other hand, Muslim extremists believe they have the right to believe in God the way they want even if they hurt Christians, violate the constitution and divide the community. They say it is a matter of faith, not relationship.

In hard times, it is very hard to find peace or to be thankful. This is true when it comes to medical or financial hardships. However, the bible tells us to be thankful in all circumstances. This is a wonderful way to enjoy life, even in the time of tribulation. It is indeed a matter of faith to seek peace in such hard time. St. Paul invites us in Colossians 3:15-17: And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Copts are Christians, and Christians should follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. God indeed calls his people to live in unity with one another, so it is important to make every effort to live together in harmony with other fellow believers. This is the truth mentioned in the holy bible. “Let us, then, be guided by the teachings and the example of the Apostle Paul, who writes: “[Make] every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:3-6). These verses were quoted in the last paragraph of the joint statement issued by Pope Tawadros and Pope Francis in which they stated that they would not hold baptisms for members of one church wishing to join the other.

As Al-Azhar peace conference is held in Cairo this week, several times did the Islamic scholar Islam Buheiry appear in Egyptian media explaining how does Al-Azhar, the great Islamic institution that was founded more than 1000 years ago, supports the Islamic State terrorist organization and its activities instead of facing it by refusing to call it infidel and teach its ideology in its universities. This comes months after Egypt’s president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi called for “revamping religious speech in accordance with the tolerant Islamic religion. The Egyptian president called on the Awqaf Ministry and Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni authority in the country, to do more to combat extremist ideology and promote a moderate understanding of Islam.

American actor Morgan Freeman said in his interview at “Scoop with Raya” TV show that he visited Egypt several times, and he remembers the most that many cars didn’t have side mirrors. He may be right as many cars do not have side mirrors in Egypt as part of many other negative sides to poverty and retardation in Egypt which I don’t deny in my developing country. Here is another interesting thing: Couple of years ago, Freeman was part of an advertising campaign to promote tourism in Egypt and he has visited several monumental places and unique sightseeing that he could not remember about Egypt. He could only remember the broken side mirrors of Cars! However, I don’t blame him for this as we should promote our strength points and touristic places better than this, not only abroad, but also for the tourists who visit our country.

The Coptic Christians really appreciate martyrdom and many of them hope one day they will go to heaven as martyrs. This fact coincides with the terrorist attacks that have been targeting Coptic churches for years at feasts to turn the prayers into funerals and the celebrations into mourning. As a Copt, I should say that losing one’s life is considered heavenly gift for the martyr, and we have always been proud that the Coptic Church has offered a lot of martyrs since its very beginning. I believe such appreciation to martyrdom in the Coptic Church comes as sacrificing one blood was considered the greatest offering and sacrifice to make. However, I believe that there are even greater sacrifice and continues suffering that can be more painful than martyrdom.

As the expression “Copts of the Diaspora” has bad reputation in Egypt, some people called to replace it by “Egyptians of the Diaspora” to describe the Coptic community in the West. Indeed, they are true Egyptians even if they live far away unlike those who live in an Egyptian soil and know nothing about belonging to this land and are willing to destroy this country and divide it for the sake of fanatic ideas. In his meeting with representatives of the Egyptian community in America, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi called the Egyptian community in America to support their homeland in such difficult time, and I am sure they are going to.