The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Heggy on Copts and security

I really don't want to promote Tarek Heggy's delusions of grandeur (see his bio, which describes him as "being amongst the members of the first echelon of the contemporary Arab liberal thinkers"), but I find his constant references to "security services mentality" in this piece on Copts interesting.

This security-service mentality is one of the factors that contributed to the collapse of objectivity and rationality in our thinking, and which [cause this kind of thinking] to be so far removed from objective and civilized modes of analysis which are one of the achievements of human civilization.

The basic issue is: 'Do the Copts in Egypt suffer from serious problems in their own country?' The only possible answer is: 'Yes'.
Perhaps he'll be sharing those views with his friend and next-door neighbor, Omar Suleiman.