As the Voice of the Copts’ Ashraf Ramellah and others have pointed out, “Christians of Egypt, also known as Copts, have been living under discrimination, oppression and persecution for almost 1430 years.”

A young nation such as the United States of America can barely grasp the concept of such a lengthy and protracted oppression of any group.  America itself is only 234 years old.  The international Declaration of Universal Human Rights was created just over 60 years ago.  So I can only imagine the great frustration, the great discouragement, and the great resentment and anger that any group that has been persecuted for over a millennium would have today.  Furthermore, I can also only imagine the great skepticism that any group persecuted that long would have in hearing suggestions from American human rights activists today.

But sometimes “out of the mouths of babes” comes great strength and wisdom. So I have a message today, on behalf of our organization here, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) – not just to stand in solidarity with the oppressed Copts in Egypt – but also a message to the Copts’ oppressors.

To both the Copts and to their oppressors, I invite you to consider seeking a path to a new Egypt, to an Undiscovered Country, where freedom of religion, where freedom of conscience, where our universal human rights of equality and liberty, are not just special privileges, but are guaranteed rights for all human beings.

I invite you to pursue a path where human rights and peace are not considered as opposite choices, but are recognized as equal priorities.  And I invite you to pursue a path where we leave hate in our past, and choose love for our future.

America may be a young nation, by Egypt’s standards.  But for a young nation, we know a lot about hate.  We also know about a lot about defying hate, and standing up for our fellow human beings’ universal human rights.  America has and will continue to make a lot of mistakes; I don’t suggest for one second that we have a perfect record on human rights ourselves.

But what I do believe is that there have been instances in America’s history that both the Copts and the Copts’ oppressors can use to learn from in going forward in finding peace and human dignity in Egypt in the future.

In America, we have struggled with a terrible disease of hate known as white racial supremacism that sought to deny non-white Americans voting rights, employment, with nationwide discrimination and even attacks on non-white houses of worship.  Our nation was divided and fought a Civil War over this disease. Our nation had to come to grips with a 4 million member terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, over this disease. One hundred years after our national Civil War, we had to fight yet another war of ideas in American places of work, public institutions, and schools for black American civil rights.   The black and other non-white victims of such oppression held rallies and protested, they sought leaders, and demanded their rights, not unlike what the Copts in Egypt are doing today.

But the ANSWER to this problem did not come only from the protests of the minority who were oppressed.  Rather it also came from the majority who finally came to realize that such oppression was THEIR problem and was THEIR responsibility to change. In my own lifetime, with my own eyes, I have seen America come from a nation where black Americans were widely hated and disrespected by many, with businesses that would only serve “white clientele,” to a nation where a black American is President of the United States.

My message to Egyptians, and especially to Egyptian Muslims, is to recognize that is the POWER of love.  It could change America.  It can change Egypt and the world.

Egypt is not America.  I know that.  But we are all human beings.  The human beings of any religion, any race, are still the same human beings as we are.  The lesson that young America has for Egypt is that even the oppressors of others can realize our shared humanity, and find the humility and shame to admit when they have been wrong.  The lesson that young America has for Egypt is that there is always hope for any of us to change and choose love, not hate.

The lesson young America has for Egypt is that any of us can set a path for the Undiscovered Country where our human rights and dignity are inherent in our national identity, including in Egypt.

So my message to Egyptian Muslims today is don’t look to just the Coptic victims of oppression for the solution to peace and human rights in Egypt.  Don’t expect only the Copts and their diaspora around the world to deal with this problem.

Egyptian Muslims – this is YOUR problem and YOUR responsibility.  Egyptian Muslims – the change in Egypt and your government to end the millennium of oppression against Copts – begins with YOU. Hate hurts us all.  Rejecting hate is our shared responsibility as human beings, not only in Egypt, but also in all of our shared Earth.

Some will say that it is impossible for Egyptian Muslims to assume such responsibilities, and state that Egyptian Muslims cannot recognize our universal human rights, but only those “rights” dictated by the OIC-created Cairo Declaration that only recognizes rights under “Sharia.”  A decision to accept our unqualified universal human rights is also a choice that Egyptian Muslims must make, if they seek to be part of the brotherhood and sisterhood accepting such shared human rights.  There is no mandate to oppress Egypt Copts that all Muslims must follow.   There is no mandate of “Sharia” in the Qur’an other than choosing the “right path.”

Egyptian Muslims can choose to believe that some so-called religious scholars can justify denying universal human rights under their interpretations of “Sharia,” or they can choose to “let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. (Qur’an 5:8).”

Such choices to defend human justice are never without consequences.  There were some in America who once believed that white racial supremacism was legally justified.  When increasing numbers of white American rejected such hate and injustices, they were called “race traitors” and were hated themselves.  This continues even among some today.  But real courage requires that we are consistently responsible for equality and liberty – not just for people like us, but also and perhaps especially for people who are NOT like us.

So I also know that there are those Egyptian Muslims who have called for human rights that have been demonized and hated.  Some are threatened as well.  But the choices we make define who and what we are as human beings.  The choices we make can shape the history of our nations and the future for our children.  The choices we make can bring us closer to finding the Undiscovered Country of human rights, dignity, and justice for all of our fellow human beings.

So today, we urge Egyptian Muslims, on behalf of the oppressed Egyptian Copts, but also on behalf of freeing Egypt from its bondage to hatred and oppression, to choose wisely for their future, their children’s future, and their nation’s future.  Choose to end the oppression of Copts in Egypt, and the bondage of all Egyptians from codes that defy our shared universal human rights for all.

Choose Love, Not Hate.  Love Wins.

(Photo: National Geographic, by Richard Nowitz)