Another thing the revolution in Egypt has done for me personally is to restore my faith in the power of people, together, to effect great change for good. I am an idealist (surprise!) and today I am not embarrassed to say so, although my idealism had about shriveled after 56 years of life. I graduated high school in 1973 and I still remember feeling like I could change the world, like WE could change the world. We did change some of it. I doubt the Vietnam War would have ended when it did if so many of us hadn’t been out protesting it. It all looks sort of cute now, in the old photos, but it had it’s revolutionary moments.
The example of non-violent protesters winning out over violence must have terrorost groups shakin’ in their boots. Because as my grandmother used to say: the “proof’s in the pudding” and here before us is a perfectly wonderful pudding, a pudding that everybody wants. What has suicide attacks, rockets and so forth gotten anybody so far? Not an improvement that’s for sure. Invasions, chaos and repression that’s what.
In this morning’s Times, Roger Cohen writes:
We’ve tried invasions of Muslim lands. We’ve tried imposing new systems of government on them. We’ve tried wars on terror. We’ve tried spending billions of dollars. What we haven’t tried is tackling what’s been rotten in the Arab world by helping a homegrown, bottom-up movement for change turn a U.S.-backed police state into a stable democracy.
And why not start getting to know others as human beings? I think that would help. I know reading Egyptian blogs, seeing YouTube clips of people in their homes ( I had to freeze a clip of Wael Ghonim and friends in his Mom’s apartment because I was so impressed by her living room set!) and so forth has made me know that culture in a way I did not before. In fact, I was just about completely ignorant about people in the Middle East and their countries. Now I’m not and I’m learning more all the time. That can only be good.
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