Miray wanis
English 21003 SECTION M
Ms Conroy
Rhetorical Analysis
The article “The Copts: Egypt’s Overlooked and Persecuted Christian Minority” by Soukiana Rachidi discusses the way Copts are treated in Egypt and the way their religion impacts their lives. Soukiana Rachidi is able to covey her message through the usage of rhetorical elements such as Genre, medium, arrangement, setting, stance, language, audience, purpose, exigence, tone and many other rhetorical elements. The importance of these elements is that they are used to raise awareness to this issue and convince people in the United States to take action, or even be aware of what is happening around them. These elements help the article build a very strong claim and help her make her purpose very clear.
The genre of this article is historical chronological nonfiction, this article is written based on facts, not perspective therefore, we can call it a chronological nonfiction. We know this because the author writes this article by starting off and saying the date of the incident, then explains what went on, for example in the article she states “November 2, 2018, gunmen allegedly from the local affiliate group of the so-called Islamic State ambushed a bus carrying Coptic…” She is writing based on search and facts through the medium of Inside Arabia, which is a website publishing problems occurring in the Middle East, which is stated on the website of the article. Rachidi also uses arrangement as a way to keep the reader hooked. The arrangement that she used was that she wrote the events in chronological order as a cause and effect. For example, because Morsi left office and Christians had someone to fight for their rights, the Muslim brotherhood got very angry and this was the start of the real violence. The arrangement is by incidents, there are many murders mentioned in her article but she mentions them in the order which they happened in. This is shown in the article as she includes the dates that important events occurred in such as, “Mohammed Morsi became Egypt’s first democratically-elected president in June 2012, the Copts elected a new spiritual leader”, which then lead to much worse events that she focuses on in her article. This is a very important way to organize writing because if offers the reader the choice to form cause and effect. She posts the order of events and what happens based on the actions taken which is very brilliant.
Rachidi makes her point stronger by using stance and language as rhetorical elements. Rachidi’s stance is that the discrimination that goes on in Egypt and many middle eastern countries shouldn’t be going on and Christians should have freedom and that it is important to have equality. Coptic Christians are being hurt and killed everyday. Their churches are being burned down and they are getting murdered in the streets in Egypt just because the are Christians. The removal of Morsi, which was the president and a member of the islamic community angered many muslims and this caused them to start targeting christians even more. Soukiana Rachidi also uses a lot of negative connotations like murder, violence, and burning to be able to express how bad things really are. For example, she uses phrases like “carrying out various deadly attacks against Christians, their so-called “favorite prey.” Language is a very big factor because the language choices the author makes helps the audience understand the point of the article or research.
Furthermore, one important rhetoric that Rachidi uses is that she defines her audience and makes her writing and research public for the whole world to see. She publishes this article in the United States and she published it online for everyone to see, and for it to be available for the public. Raising awareness in the United States of how Christians are treated in the middle East, it
is to inform people of the Cruelty and discrimination that is still going on in the 20th century was her main goal. She explains that Egypt was first a Christian country before Islam took over, and many people don’t even know that there are over 8 million Christians in Egypt. She states that “When people think about religion in modern Egypt, they often think about Islam. However, Egypt has long been home to Coptic Christians.” Being able to inform her readers of such destruction and sad events creates pathos and has her audience engaging with her and understanding her purpose for writing this article.
In addition, the author’s purpose is to inform and to satirize a condition. Her purpose is to criticize what is going on in Egypt and to inform her audience of the true facts. She explains that Egypt needs help achieving equality, or if that can’t happen, at least for the world to become aware of all the injustices that Copts have to endure in Egypt, that they are punished for having an opinion and punished for trying to protest or even have little freedoms. She explains such issues and gets this point across by using authors purpose. Her purpose and her stating it helps her audience go beyond words and focus in depth about what is being presented in front of them; Furthermore, much like purpose the author uses exigence to inform their audience of the problem occurring that lead her to writing this paper. Rachidi uses exigence by delivering this speech because of the burnings of the churches that are still going on. 3 days before this article was written, Saint Mary church in Giza, Egypt was burned down, she knew she had to speak about it because it wasn’t ending. people to know that Christians actually exist in Egypt and that they actually have no rights. She is also able to suggest that she believes that under a stronger leader and under stronger laws, Copts will be more protected through the use of exigence. Rachidi shows passion for what she is writing about, she writes this article with voice and logic which also makes her audience understand her views.
Author’s tone expresses the writer’s attitude toward or feelings about the subject matter and audience. Rachidi’s tone is Acerbic and hostile at the same time. The author used an acerbic and hostile tone to portray the truths about the way Christians are treated, she did this by
describing that when the Egyptian government hurt these violent protesters they reacted by “looting, vandalizing, and burning Coptic churches in revenge.” Rachidi speaks in a straight manner and gets to the point that what is happening is wrong, that there is discrimination and people don’t even acknowledge it and most people don’t even know about it. She wants to express that there is a civil war that has been going on since 2011 that people don’t even know about or simply pay attention to.
Another rhetorical strategy that truly helped the message of this article get across is the setting of this article. This article was written in 2019 at a time where Egypt was full of discrimination and full of corrupt brotherhoods. Most people thought that the removal of President Mohamed Morsi was going to be the start of equality and the start for a new life for many Christian Egyptians. However, quite the opposite happened when Mohamed Morsi was removed from office and placed in jail for the crimes he committed this angered ISIS more and lead them to wanting revenge from Christians. In her research, Rachidi learns that “[copts] have been the subject of frequent discrimination and persecution, especially after the 2011 Arab Revolution…The Copts welcomed al-Sisi’s arrival hoping that he would improve their precarious situation. But their oppression has worsened.” She still continues to use logic and statistics while using these other rhetorics which gives her writing a lot of dominion and so much credibility. Having credibility is so important because it makes your audience trust you, and if they trust you, then they cannot argue with facts.
The constraints present in the article that prevent change from happening is that 98% of government officials in Egypt and in most middle eastern countries are Muslim and believe that they are doing enough when they really aren’t. Rachidi believes that there is only so much the government can do to try to stop these injustices, however, ISIS and Islamic brotherhoods will never give up on torturing and killing Copts. She also presents Coptic Christians elected president Al-Sisi was going to bring them peace and justice and this is why they welcomed the new president hoping ” he would improve their precarious situation”. This constraint is very powerful because it goes back to why her audience are people in the United States, because government offcials in Egypt aren’t really helping.
To conclude, using rhetorical elements strengthens your writing and makes it much more valuable, the author uses logos and ethos throughout her writing to provide credibility for her information, she uses logos to be able to present her audience with evidence and prove what she is saying. She brilliantly used and combined these rhetorical elements to be ale to make a strong point and elaborate on her stance. The use of such rhetorical elements informs readers of the circumstances that occurring. The author doesn’t let her point of view convince others, but she lets her evidence and research do that.
