Many tend to ignore the fact that the Copts are a distinct nation different from other Egyptians, and find it more convenient to think of the Copts as a simple religious group, even looking at them with some degree of disdain and animosity, and showing no interest in them, as secularists, humanists and atheists often do.
But the Copts are not like a Catholic English, for example, within the the nation of English, just another religious group but all sharing in English nationhood, but rather are like the Scottish or the Welsh or the Irish within the United Kingdom – complete with distinct race, religion, language, history, music, literature, culture, etc.
So – and my address is particularly directed at Westerns, do not talk about the Copts as simple religious group different from other Egyptians in religion only – or, in the words of Lord Cromer, they are all Orientals, only one worships at a church while the other at a mosque. There could be nothing do far from the truth: the Copts are a distinct nation, complete with all the objective and subjective criteria of a nation.