Today’s protest was a partial success in my opinion and I have just quickly sat down and reflected on areas of improvement for the protests that are to come.

The protest today had no aim; I had no idea what we were fighting for or against. Many of the speeches had political undertones with several of the people speaking appearing to have hidden agendas. I know this for a fact! However we shouldn’t let every Joe & Coe speak, the speeches all need to be proofread before they are spoken. The individual that said “Islam is Innocent”, really stirred the crowd, what was he on about, why are we here in the 1^st place. However I couldn’t blame him I had no idea what the aim was as I’ve already said. The next protest should have a clear aim with any speech proofread by a committee. Further let me say how many speeches did we hear today? Because I lost count really!

People come to these events to voice their opinions many of which are valid and fair. They do not come to listen to countless speeches which distract away from the cause. I for one couldn’t bring myself to pay attention to a full speech. We are at a protest not a conference. There is a time and place for everything under the sun. I was utterly disappointed in the presenters who kept on hushing the people every time they chanted slogans. This isn’t freedom of speech this is the destruction of it. Agendas are wonderful and good but there really needs to be flexibility when people’s emotions are high and they want to vent their frustration at the world. The sooner future organisers realise that the people make the protest the better.

Martin place is a wonderful place to hold a protest, but it shouldn’t be the start and end of our protest. It should be our final destination. We really should have walked a course from somewhere to Martin Place. That would not only have attracted attention of many people but would have given the chance for people to vent and yell slogans and the atmosphere would have been much more enjoyable for everyone. I felt like I was on detention being lectured.

Thanks needs to go to the NSW police for their efforts today, however the incident with that protester needs mention. The police are definitely in the wrong and their quick action with little understanding of culture or the nature of what that man was saying, led to the debacle that followed. We should place amongst these police officers Arabic speaking representatives that understand what is happening so police don’t act solely based on presumptions. The incident was totally regrettable and I hope the man is let off with no charge because he did nothing wrong except voice his opinion about the issue.

As a Coptic community we really need to get our act together, the following is some key issues that seriously need to be addressed urgently.

• The number of Coptic movements we have in NSW is wonderful; however I am afraid to say several are absolutely entrenched in ulterior motives. This concept of being politically correct is out of hand. This concept of saying nothing so we can appease the Egyptian government is out of hand. This nonsense of not speaking the truth about Islam is a waste of time. I’m over hearing how Muslims and Christians are one hand and yada yada … if we were, this wouldn’t be our situation. Let’s stop fooling ourselves, because that’s all who we are fooling.
• We really need to get behind the issue of International protection for the Copts. I congratulate ACM for being the only organisation to out rightly state that this was their aim. Let us be honest, the Egyptian government is as corrupt as hell, there is absolutely no hope in them, they are not even worth a dime. They speak corruption, they know corruption and they are the inventors of it. We need foreign intervention; this really needs to be 1^st and foremost issue in our fight against the Egyptian Government.
• We need to listen to Parliamentarian Scott Morrison, shadow minister for immigration and request that federal Labor reintroduce the refugee intake for Coptic Christians. Stay tuned I will have more to say about this in subsequent posts.

I hope I have not offended anyone in my post. Organising such events is extremely difficult at the best of times.

However this was what was on my heart. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters in Egypt!

Can we have the next protest in Canberra?