This morning, in front of the United Nations, demonstrators will gather in support of the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and the action is coming none too soon, if you ask me. For the better part of 20 centuries, Alexandria, the grand port built by Alexander the Great, stood as a bastion of culture, a melting pot of Roman, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Egyptian, Muslim, and Christian Levantine tolerance. As recently as 1958, the English author Lawrence Durrell celebrated the city’s luminous diversity in his enchanting “Alexandria Quartet” books.

Last week, however, Alexandria’s churches and Christian neighborhoods burned with fires of sectarian strife as the dark shadows of ignorant, fundamentalist frenzy reached a pearl of the Mediterranean.

On Good Friday, when the violence began, three churches were attacked by knife-wielding mobs during services, leaving seven Christians and one Muslim dead, with scores wounded and hospitalized, according to Coptic Web sites. During a Christian funeral for a 72-year-old man the following day, the procession was attacked, its mourners pursued in the streets.

“Large numbers of young Muslims armed with sticks, stones, glass bottles, and swords, shouting Islamic slogans, followed the mourners,” an Egyptian Coptic weekly, Watani, which translates to My Nation, said in its online edition yesterday (noting that not all the facts are yet in). Hordes of crazed fundamentalists continued to attack Christian neighborhoods for three days, through Easter. When it was done, Muslim fundamentalist rioters had destroyed scores of cars and looted and torched 39 Christian-owned stores, Watani reported.

Particularly infuriating to Copts and journalists who covered the mayhem was the government’s insistence that one “mentally deranged” Muslim was responsible. His was the only arrest.

While the Alexandria clashes represented the most significant Christian-Muslim conflict in a decade, they are but a snapshot of the persecution, violence, and exclusion Copts increasingly face. “Copt” is an ancient designation for Egyptian Christians going back to the first century after Jesus Christ’s birth. Today they represent about 10% of the country’s population of 78 million, making Copts the single largest Christian minority of the Arab world.

In the last 50 years, their plight has steadily worsened. No governor among Egypt’s 26 is Christian. Military schools and police academies virtually have stopped admitting Copts, making the army, security services, and police forces entirely composed of Muslims. The same process has been under way at Egypt’s universities and institutes of higher education – for the most part, the only Christian professors predate President Mubarak’s tenure. A mind-bending humiliation remains from the days of the Ottoman Empire, 400 years ago, in the form of a law that bans the construction of or even a simple repair in a church without presidential permission. Known as “Al Kanoun Al Hamayouni,” the law proves the second-class status of Copts, who build houses of worship in secret, running the risk of arrest. Builders of mosques suffer no such restrictions.

Three decades of strife have become the hallmark of Christian life along the Nile Valley, starting in the deep south of Egypt, where Coptic Christians have been machine-gunned in their churches and cotton fields. Under Mr. Mubarak’s watch, between five and seven such incidents occur a year. Few perpetrators are ever apprehended, and when they are, they are seldom punished. Those jailed are generally granted early release.

Unlike Lebanon’s Maronite Christians, who took up arms, Egypt’s Christians are a nonviolent lot. To resist marginalization, they complain, pray, and emigrate – if they can.

Since the mid-1960s, a half-million of Egypt’s best and brightest have packed up and moved to America, Canada, or Australia. Most of these Coptic emigres have done extremely well in their new homes. In America, Coptic baby boomers are becoming defenders of their brethren in Egypt. Slowly, they are organizing and learning to use the tools of lobbying.

The demonstration in front of the United Nations today is likely to be but the coming out, so to speak, of a community that needs to be heard. Having seen the power exercised in America by millions of Christian Lebanese emigres whose lobbying played a role in America pressuring Syria to leave Lebanon, Copts are beginning to put their money where their prayers are. And they have interlocutors inside the administration, such as Dina Powell, the assistant of the undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, Karen Hughes. Ms. Powell is Egyptian Christian. She knows of the Copt plight and she can get word of it directly to President Bush’s ear. Stay tuned.