Mubarak: The best of the worst

Hosni Mubarak is a horrible dictator. He runs a country where constitutional rights are suspended, censorship is legalized, religious freedom is hampered, and democracy is passé.

And for those reasons, it is unfortunate that the low life is stepping down.

Even the largest minority religion and most persecuted of Egyptians groups – the Coptics – agree. Under what would likely be an Islamic fundamentalist government, Egypt’s seven million Coptic Christians could be at risk of suffering a similar fate to six million Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals - this in addition to the Holocaust of sorts that the Copts have already faced.

Has it really come to this? Has it become so bad that bad is the new good?

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Regrettably, yes.

As the Washington Post reports, Copt leaders in the United States are terrified that a new Islamic fundamentalist Egyptian government would eliminate Christians.

"The current situation for the Copts stinks, but Mubarak is the best of the worst for us," says Rev. Paul Girguis of St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Virginia, which has about 3,000 members.

"If Muslim extremists take over, the focus will be extreme persecution against Copts. Some people even predict genocide."

While the world repeatedly cries foul over the situation between Israel and the Arabs (Palestinians), it fails to even whimper over Coptic crucifixion. What’s more, many don’t yet know who the Coptics are.

Although their struggles became somewhat apparent to the world after an al-Qaida affiliate recently bombed a Coptic church in Alexandria, killing 20 worshippers and wounding 100 others, that terror attack was only one of many by Muslim extremists in the past decade.

One of the oldest Christian communities in the world, the Coptic church is based in Egypt. In fact, the Muslim-strong country has the largest Christian community in the Middle East, so what happens to Christians there is extremely significant to the rest of the world.

Ironically, Copt literally means Egyptian, while Egyptians are violently mean to Copts.

The Copts have faced intense and often cruel injustice in Egypt, especially as Islamic groups, like Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, have gained influence. 

To think that the exit of Mubarak would welcome the entrance of democracy is to ignore the curse of reality.

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Brotherhood supporter banner 'Martyrs for Islam.'

This is an opportunity for an organization like the Muslim Brotherhood to take advantage of the chaos and instability to finally seize power - and more lives. It will become Gaza.

A Brotherhood leader has already told an Arab-language newspaper this week that Egypt should prepare for a war with Israel (the only democracy in the Middle East). One of its goals is to eradicate Israel and the Jews.

If it can kill and torture its own countrymen, imagine what it can do to those it hates most.

Mubarak should step down and let the people decide for themselves who should run the country, and Egypt should live happily ever after. There should also be no poverty or hunger in this world either. And I should be taller.

But none of those things will happen.

Egypt doesn’t have to strive for the same sort of “democracy” its brothers and sisters have in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, or any of the Arab nations. Sadly, it already has it.

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