Jonathan Aitken: The Dark Side of the Arab Spring

Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator's High Spirits columnist, is most recently author of John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway Books). His biographies include Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday) and Nixon: A Life, now available in a new paperback edition (Regnery).

The Arab spring is fast becoming a winter of discontent for Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. In Washington the first stirrings of protest were hailed as a breakthrough for democracy. But the second phase of the uprising has brought fear, discrimination, and violent pressure against Christians in countries rebelling against incumbent regimes across the region.

This is particularly disappointing because the early signs of tolerance were hopeful. One of the most moving aspects of the crowds in Tahrir Square was that Christians and Muslims protested alongside each other in unity. Such was their solidarity that at prayer time on Friday the Christians formed a human shield to protect their kneeling fellow demonstrators from police baton charges. The cooperation was reciprocated but it was too good to last.

Egypt's 8 million Coptic Christians are now having a rough time. The vacuum left by Mubarak is being filled by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. Both are extreme in their Islamism. They campaigned for their followers to vote "yes" to the new and flawed constitutional proposals that will result in discrimination against religious minorities, women, secular organizations, and progressive youth groups. Small wonder that when the "yes" vote was confirmed to have won, the ultra-conservative Salafist leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Yacoub was quoted as saying, "That's it. The country is ours."..