A while back, I attended a conference on how the Coptic Diaspora could impact the welfare of Copts in Egypt. What was immediately apparent was how far away it was from being able to do that. For starters, there were fewer than two dozen people in the room, and several of them were invited speakers, so there didn’t appear to be overwhelming interest in the subject matter. What’s more, Copts in America are scattered, and there are no Coptic organizations big enough or sufficiently well known to provide any sort of cohesion. And lastly, too many of the groups that do exist are not as technology savvy as they need to be to be effective communicators in this day and age. So who makes up this Coptic Diaspora and what do they want? There are Copts all over the world, and estimates as to their number range from 2 to 4 million—although with so little agreement on how many Copts are living in Egypt, I find it hard to believe that anyone has been able to get a firm handle on how many there are in the Diaspora. The most reliable sources I’ve seen put the number of Copts in the United States somewhere between 800,000 and 1 million. And what is it they want? The answer seems to depend on which of the Coptic groups you look to. They all want equal rights for Copts in Egypt, but they differ on the best way to achieve that. One group, The Coptic Assembly of America, has a very general goal of “promoting equality, unity, human rights and democracy in Egypt for all citizens,†as well as “protecting the unique cultural identity of Egypt’s Coptic Christians.†They call upon members to urge their representatives to support certain legislative efforts; currently they are urging support of a bill in the House of Representatives “Calling on the Egyptian Government to Respect Human Rights and Freedoms of Religion and Expression in Egypt.†While a toothless House resolution is unlikely to make much of a difference for anyone, Coptic Assembly of America is working with other Coptic organizations and has petitions that people can sign on its website. It’s a start. But not everyone agrees with the approach. The U.S Copts Association has a similar call for equality, but theirs is much more strongly worded and they have a laundry list of demands that goes with it, ranging from the perfectly reasonable—an end to discrimination in job appointments, for example—to the overly narrow—as in the rebuilding of Kafr Demian village (destroyed in sectarian violence) at government expense—to the pie-in-the-sky—such as their demand that the Coptic language be taught in schools with Coptic students. Clearly, these two groups have starkly different approaches, and both are flawed. The Coptic Assembly of America gets kudos for making it easy for visitors to its website to take action on issues, its willingness to reach out to other organizations and its understanding of the power of lobbying, but eventually it will have to put some muscle behind its efforts and push for real action. The U.S. Copts Association, on the other hand, needs to pursue achievable goals if it wishes to be taken seriously. And these are just two of a range of Coptic organizations, each with its own shortcomings. None of them will manage to accomplish much of anything unless they can learn to work together effectively within the existing system. Perhaps the most instructive speaker at the Coptic Diaspora conference was a representative from the Armenian community. There are only a few hundred thousand more Armenians in America than there are Copts, but their visibility and ability to get things done eclipses that of the Copts. The Armenians have managed to get the 1915 massacre of Armenians in Turkey widely recognized as genocide, have undertaken a project to build an Armenian Genocide Museum in Washington, D.C. , and have established a political action committee that coordinates chapters across America and throughout the world. If Copts wish to begin to address the inequalities and discrimination the world’s human rights organizations have thoroughly documented, they must set aside their differences and forgo some of their grievances so that they can establish a united and achievable agenda. BM
