Novelist and columnist Alaa al-Aswani looks back to the rejection of a Coptic quota in parliament when the Egyptian Constitution was signed in 1923, and laments how the Copts fortunes have developed in the subsequent 87 years with the rise of Salafism and Wahabism in Egypt. He reminds the reader that it was the Copts who rejected the quota, as they wanted all Egyptians to be equal citizens under the law. The killing of Copts at Christmas while leaving church is nothing more than the killing of Egyptian citizens on a religious holiday as they were finishing their prayers.