Twelve people died in Egypt yesterday. A rumor about a Christian-to-Muslim convert being held against her will sparked clashes and a church burning. Brian Ulrich puts the violence in context:
The violence is not coming from a belief that Islam requires hostility to Christianity. It is instead based on rumor and in some cases superstitions about alleged Christian threats to the Muslim community. Contrary to the way these matters are often discussed on the right, what just happened in Imbaba is far more similar to hate crimes against mosques in the United States and Europe than the Ottoman sieges of Vienna. The threat to the Copts is that they are a minority seen as an internal Other posing some imaginary threat to the majority. This is also why we continue to see grassroots opposition to sectarian violence. The battle taking place in Egypt takes the form of Muslim versus Christian, but is part of a larger struggle against ignorance, intolerance, and hatred.
The Dish 