It was quickly overshadowed by news of a royal engagement but at the weekend the news channels reported the death of over 300 people in Egypt. I don’t look at the news religiously and I’m fairly taken a back that there is no global condemnation, no hashtag trending and no temporary flag over profile pictures. The press coverage seemed short lived despite nearly triple the number of fatalities of Paris and yet our part of the world seemed to not bat much of an eye lid.
This is what I don’t understand. Surely if the world is outraged by terrorist attacks it’s not dependant on the victims just the acts of terror.
To the outside world maybe it’s the confusion of muslims attacking other muslims but to the outside world it’s no different than attacks between Catholics and Protestants.
The attack was in Sufi, on Sufi muslims, a mystic movement within Islam. While living in Egypt I came across them a few times and on a holiday in Morocco. One particular stream of Sufi muslims perform ‘whirling’. It is mesmerising. They believe that by listening to music and spinning they can focus on God and get into a trace like state to get closer to God. They are view as heretics by Islamic militants.
And while Egypt is a muslim country there are probably about 10% or 15% of the population who are Christians. In practice they are more closely linked to Greek Orthodox Christians but it remains that the country is steeped in Christian history, mount Sinai the most famous but Egypt is one of the most frequently mentioned places in the bible from Genesis to the Gospels.
I guess what I’m trying to do is give people some context that they can relate to. Something that makes sense to them in a narrative that they don’t understand in the hope that there will be more outrage that an attack on a place of worship killed over 300 people.