It’s 2010: armed men exchange gunfire, rocks and Molotov cocktails are tossed, and deafening silence inhabits our household when my teary-eyed mother says, “this is just the beginning.” My mother’s five-word sentence was short, concise, but bore great meaning to what we would later perceive as the norm. Every news channel headlined, “Massacre of Coptic Christians on Christmas Eve.” This was my first recollection of fear – later, this fear would become a city that my friends, family, and I, as Copts, inhabited. From this point forward, I became absent, a witness disquieted by the violence that became commonplace in Egypt, a home to roughly 10 to 15 million Coptic Christians. I was 14-years old at the time and had a mere observing presence: eavesdropping on my parents’ bedroom as I heard their heated debates between the years 2010 until 2013, “should we flee this country? Or should we wait until we are no longer welcomed?” My mother had imagined a better future for our family outside the borders of this country, because what felt like home suddenly felt foreign, but my father was not ready to leave Egypt quite … Continue reading Fear is a City that Copts Inhabit