ICC Note: Christians in the Middle East have historically lived under ruthless leaders, however, recent changes proves that dictators left religious minorities better off than Islamic incursions. This was the case in Iraq and Syria. Now we look to Egypt. While president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is widely supportive of the minority Christian population, he is also no angel to their community. Christians in Egypt support al-Sisi for the most part, but this may have to do with the fear of the power vacuum that would emerge if he were deposed.

07/08/2016 Egypt (TIC): In his 1975 ballad Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen tells his imaginary paramour that she can either waste her summer “praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets,” or seize the realistic if flawed option in front of her, i.e. him.

While no one probably would tout the Boss as an expert on the Middle East, a good cross-section of the region’s minorities, including its Christians, would nevertheless share his basic sentiment: it’s often better to take the option that’s actually on offer, rather than dreaming of a white knight unlikely ever to arrive.

In 2003, that was the message of Iraq’s Christian minority: Yes, Saddam Hussein is a brutal thug with dangerous delusions of grandeur, but what’s likely to follow will be even worse. A decade later, when the Western powers were on the brink of using armed force to dislodge Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the message from Christians was much the same.

All of which brings us to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former Field Marshal and Chief of the Armed Forces who’s been governing Egypt since June 2014.

Recently al-Sisi, a devout Sunni Muslim, recorded a video message for the Islamic feast of Laylat al-Qadr, celebrated as the night when the first verses of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, and marked this year on July 2.

Al-Sisi bluntly said that Islamic “religious discourse” must reject extremist positions.

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Here’s the thing: Egypt’s Christians are under no illusions that al-Sisi is an angel. They know he’s a creature of the same military/industrial/political complex that has ruled the country since Nasser, they know he has little patience for dissent, and they also know his embrace of Christian rights is at least as much politics as principle.

They also know, however, that however bad things may become, whatever would take his place is probably worse – and they’ve actually experienced it under the brief-lived Muslim Brotherhood government, which was the depressing denouement of the Arab Spring.

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