This piece of news should not be of any surprise for those who follow the wonders of the (so called) Arab spring and its meaning to non Muslims around the Arab world. It seems that the last working Synagogue of Alexandria was shut down by the authorities for “security reasons”, this authorities should indeed have concerns about personal security of Egyptians at this time, especially towards minorities (like the Christian Copts – who, by the way, used to be a vast majority of this ancient city), but even if Egypt’s true and honest concern is about the security of the Jewish minority at its last standing place of worship it should not be expressed by shutting it down.

Without getting into the basics of a democratic way of life, it should be clear that any self respecting democracy understands that it needs to respects the right and freedoms of minorities living in it, to protect it for the sake of democracy and to preserve the differences between people so that democracy is real. Egypt is far from any of this, with repeated attempts to destroy and annihilate any non Muslim religion within its boarders since the Muslim brotherhood came along it is now wiping out the last traces of a huge Jewish community in this country.

Jews have been a very big part of Egypt, its almost certain that if you dig deep enough into the roots of any respectable Alxandiraian family you will discover that before they turned to Islam they were Christian copts and before that – Jews.

The law that prohibits the reparation and new construction of any religious building (expect a Masque of course) Arab countries protect their rights to diminish non Muslims practicing religion in their country, this is an outrage – but it has been here for a long, long time. The new thing is the totalitarian approach to things, the “security” issues that “force” the authorities to close the Synagogue, if Egypt was really a democracy (which it is not) it would have gone into serious measures to make sure that any minority could celebrate its holidays in peace and safety, but these are obviously not the concerns of the Muslims in Egypt – not towards Jews and not Christians.

Those in power should read more of the world’s history, of the history of the city of Alexandria before it became Muslim and discover how things turn in time, they might develop a deeper understanding of what makes a successful civilization. We should be alarmed at the creation of a totalitarian and vengeful Egypt, one who is trying its best to have only one type of citizen, and if quickly turning into something that is much worst than it used to be before that Arab spring.