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a NYC cabbie story

Philip Greenspun's Weblog:: "No New York experience is complete without at least one cabbie story. The fellow who drove me to LaGuardia Airport was a Coptic Christian from Egypt (the Copts are the descendants of the original Egyptians who built the pyramids, etc.; after the Arab invasion of 640 A.D. they've survived as a minority within their ancient homeland). Fully trained as a lawyer in Egypt, he came to the U.S. 12 years ago. 'The Muslims were making it harder and harder for Christians to survive. I was just starting out so I decided to start in the U.S. Of course the situation in Egypt is much worse now for Copts than it was back then.' He couldn't work here as a lawyer easily because Egyptian law is based on the Napoleonic code rather than cases. 'I got a degree in networking from NYU and worked at a French bank in mid-town until 2001 when they downsized their IT department.' Since then he has been driving a cab. How does he like living in New York compared to Egypt? 'I came here to escape the Muslims but now they are coming to America. They may appear to accept American values but 15 years from now you'll see that they haven't. They can't stop fighting Christians and they hate the West because it represents Christianity. Americans don't understand anything about Islam.'"

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